All Forum Posts by: Andrew N.

@Amit M. - LOL. I wish I could be as lazy as you with my bevy of SF rentals =). I love my iPad mini too. I actually used to use my iPads to RDP into my home PC while on the road. Btw I notice you went to Cal too. Go Bears!

@Will Barnard - Hey Will. Did you end up setting up your Solo 401k with Sunwest Trust? I am looking for a good Self Directed Solo 401k provider and was curious what your experience with them was. If you haven't yet gone forward with them could you point me in the direction of the other BP members who recommend them or the forum threads where it was discussed? Thanks!

@J. Martin - I'm in! Let me know if theres anything I can do to help.

@Johnson H. - Yah the 2 minute principle in GTD definitely adds a lot of value.

I know that there are people who use Trello for GTD and I myself have tried it in the past for this use case. For some reason I found it less than ideal for a GTD system but of course ymmv.

That sucks that you can't install things on your work computer. Is it possible to RDP from that computer to your home computer? I can walk you through it if you are curious, though you need a non-home edition of windows on your home computer for it to work. Thats what I used to do when I was beholden to annoying corporate IT requirements. That way I could always access any software or website I wanted through my remotely controlled home computer.

As for Evernote I also have tried to make it work for me repeatedly over the years. I was only able to truly get something out of it when I watched The Secret Weapon videos and started using their GTD setup. They rely on nested tags and saved searches to handle the different context and time frame lists. Have you tried using it just within the Web App? I know its not as full featured as the actual program but for your work computer it may be good enough (especially if you customize your tag structure and saved searches at home through the installed app).

As for LastPass I would also recommend you try putting LastPass on a portable browser on a thumb drive. That way you can just plug the usb into whatever computer you are using, open up your portable browser, login to your LastPass and you are good to go.

https://helpdesk.lastpass.com/lastpass-on-the-go-2/lastpass-portable/

Its great you love paper. You may want to look into the Bullet Journal method for analog note taking. It looked cool but I never played around with it because I'm bad at paper. You may get some interesting ideas from it though.

@J. Martin - I'm down to sit down with you at some point and figure out how you can streamline your organizational / Project Management system. We'll grab a beer sometime and figure it out. I think you'll really like my tools for tracking deliverables and tasks with your different employees and VA's. If you have general questions maybe we can start up another thread to discuss.

I'll need to get your advice on finding and vetting a good VA as well. Its a task I've been putting off for too long at this point.

As for the software I can tell you some of the ways I use them after you check them out on your own. The best way to figure out what they do is to just sign up for free and play around for a bit.

@Andrew Syrios - You are definitely right about getting more done with short imminent deadlines.

I've found that the Pomodoro technique is good for time boxing and having a bunch of mini deadlines and breaks for each set of tasks.

Also David Allen's Getting Things Done is great for doing runway level stuff. If you use Evernote there is a system for doing GTD using Evernote called The Secret Weapon that is pretty versatile.

I've also been trying to implement Agile Results on top of that to make sure that I am always working towards my high level goals (something that was harder for me to stay focused on with pure GTD).

@J. Martin - Great thread J. I'm happy to break my BP posting drought to jump into the discussion =). I just downloaded Work the System and I'm stoked to dive in. Thanks for the recommendation.

As far as tips go I'll just share a few online resources I love and use heavily that add to my sanity.

Trello - I personally use it for iterating on my systems and procedure checklists. But it can really be used for much more than this and is a good collaboration platform (allows voting/@ mentions/assignments etc).

Workflowy - Its a great tool to organize information. I use it for my personal Wiki so I always know how to find information/notes on any topic I've learned about. Basically think of a big outline where you can expand and collapse each bullet point and you can zoom into any bullet point.

LastPass - All my passwords for my ridiculous amounts of online accounts are encrypted and stored so I am not constantly filling out login details every time I do something.

@J. Martin - I'm coming out Tomorrow. Thanks again for setting up a great event!

@J. Martin - Hey J. Unfortunately I can't make it this month. Wednesdays have become busy for me for the next few months. I hope to make it next month if its not on a Wednesday or Monday. Thanks again for organizing. The event last month was great!