15) Organize GTD with Backpack
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After reading a post from Russell Quinn at Spoiled Milk I was inspired to rethink the way I use GTD in combination with Backpack. I have borrowed some from Russell’s system, kept some of my own system and incorporated some other ideas as well. This has all become possible with the great news that you can reorder your sidebar in Backpack.
If you read Russell Quinn’s explanation you will quickly see that I have borrowed the Dropbox/Inbox home page tip. Which I think was the most powerful for me. Before my homepage was a hodgepodge of next action lists, ideas, my @task lists, and even some projects made there way onto the homepage. Next I borrowed the ^ Tasks, ^ Projects, ^ Waiting For, ^ Tickler, ^ To Buy, ^ Someday/Maybe although I was already using a few of these in a similar manner.
The next series of pages are prefixed with *. These pages are strictly reference pages which I might need certain days of the week, times of the month and during meetings.
The next series of pages are prefixed with @. All these pages are projects with more than five actions. Those I keep at the top of the page in the ^ Projects Page. Some of these projects are recurring like my Squidoo lenses, my weekly ezine and some annual events I organize.
Another prefix I use is $ and this marks all the pages for my blogs. These are blogs I run and ones I contribute to with others. It’s easy for me to take ideas in my inbox/dropbox daily and move them into the appropriate @ blog page.
Last is a list with no prefix. These are pages I share with small business and non profit customers. We collaborate on work for their wordpress blogs or social media campaigns. I also use these pages to share video tutorials and screencasts for training and digital coaching purposes.
Backpack is so great and there are so many uses. I recommend it to everyone. Whether you are a small business, a solo professional or a freelancer, sign up for a free account or trial.
