GTD and workflow

When reading through the GTD process, I liked the ideas presented and thought they were well thought out, but applying them to my own self was a little different. To be honest, I don't think my life is that 'full' yet. I am not married, have no full-time professional job (yet), and no kids. There are coaching obligations that I have, and now some learning ones, but I have always been able keep track of what I do using this dandy little moleskin planner. The right hand page is the week in calendar format and the left is just ruled paper. I tried to incorporate the planner into the 5 steps:

1) Collect. This is the catch-all so that I don't have to remember, which is the ruled paper side of the week. Anything I need to do, look up, plan, etc. gets jotted on that ruled paper as I think of it, this is The List. I suppose my email Inbox also serves as a collection point, but my paper list carries reminders to "email Karen" so it's really secondary. This step was easy since I already do this.

2)Process/Organize. Several times a day I go back to the List (not the calendar, the List) and one of those times is always first thing in the morning. Items that are on the list can have several things done to them. A) they get moved to a particular day to get accomplished (with a note if needed) - and crossed off the list B) They get done then- This is where the 2 minute rule came in handy- and crossed off the list C) They get a > symbol on the list with the next step listed. Then, looking at the calendar, I can see what is needed on that day and if it happens to be particularly full I will perform "triage" by placing A's and B's next to each item.

3) Review. I always look at the list and calendar at the end of the day, and on Fridays to see what got accomplished (or not) so that it can be moved to an appropriate slot, which may be back onto the List with it's next step.

It was somewhat frustrating going through this the first time because it forced me to slow down and really think about what I was doing, but in the end it was worth it because sometimes I would just be lazy and let things sit on the List, and the List would grow, rather than processing the list to certain days which would force me to work on the item. I like that this system does not force labels on you and allows you to find which works best as long as you are accomplishing the action (i.e. organizing). I think that if I were teaching full time I would definitely apply a system like this in my classroom where anything that I need to deal with goes into a Collector and I work the steps from their, pushing things into grading, administrative, etc. I really think that they beauty of the system, besides taking things off your mind, is that it allows you to, essentially, see in a glance where the different areas of your life and/or work stand, so that you can prioritize your actions.