Communicating With Yourself - More on the iPod and iPhone as a Universal GTD Capture Device

Sounds like Steve, over at Micro Persuasion is having excellent fun with his iPhone and Flikr for GTD. Bunk suggests getting a pen and paper. Bunk, where’s the geek in you? That’s far too efficient and environmentally friendly! All of this did trigger some interesting and useful thoughts though, I promise.

iPods and GTD

I’ve been using my iPod as a universal capture device (see here), but I miss being able to capture things visually as well as in audio. The iPhone hits the UK shortly, so may be I’ll be able to join Steve’s experiment in due course. Whatever workflow you create for getting things done, it does need to be efficient, but also functional for your style and needs. The challenges for me are that I work across multiple locations and countries, and other people need access to my system. I am attracted by the idea of web-based systems, but connectivity in the UK isn’t ubiquitous enough to depend on them yet.

Talking to yourself

Personal productivity is about our ability to communicate with ourselves. This might sound odd, but think it through for a moment. Task lists, reminders and diaries are all ways that we send messages to ourselves. In order to do that well, it is important to understand your communication style, just as with it is in communicating with others. There three main styles:

• Auditory:linear - tend to love lists and to work sequentially. Like to hear things.
• Visual:spacial - think in pictures and in a non-linear way. Like to see things.
• Kinesthetic:tactile - a rarer style. Like to feel, or experience, things.

What type are you?

You will probably do best with a capture device that fits your style. Visual people will love Steve’s camera method. Auditory people may prefer the voice memo method, or a written list. Kinesthetic folks, I’ll still thinking on what the ideal system for you might be. I suspect a pen and pad would work well. Let me know!

Discover which communication style works best for you and use that to communicate with yourself and see how it boosts your productivity. If you are enthusiastic about your organizational system, you are more likely to use it and much more likely to get results from it.