Definition of Good Software

When selecting software tools, I want to assure the following:

• The software will continue to be available and actively developed.

• The software will be stable and free from memory leaks and other performance flaws.

• The software will be of high quality and avoid common design problems like poor OS integration and feature bloat.

Choosing Good Software

To increase the likelihood that the software I select satisfies the above conditions, I look for software in the following order:

• Stage 1. Built-in to OS X

• Stage 2. Open Source Software

• Stage 3. Free Software or Free Versions of Paid Software

• Stage 4. Shareware and Commercial Software

I suggest only moving up a stage when you have already outgrown the current stage. For example, I still use Terminal.app, despite the fact that iTerm has tabs (and I love tabs), because I don’t use enough terminal windows at once to really need tabs. I also used iChat over Adium X up until I actually needed MSN support, even though I knew in advance that one day I might need that feature.

The idea is that the lower you stay on these stages, the more your computing environment will be stable, of high quality and in continued development.

Finally, these rules are made to be broken. They are just guidelines.

All of these tools satisfy my requirements of being simple, flexible, and easy to use.

Discovery

NetNewsWire - I’ve already written 2053 words about RSS, so I’ll refrain from adding more now.

Safari - I prefer Safari’s simple, straight-forward approach to web browsing over Firefox’s more feature-rich, extension-enhanced browing experience. In my opinion, most Firefox extensions allow you to do things in a web browser that are really better served by separate applications anyway (such as writing, storing notes, and RSS feed reading).

Sogudi - Quick Search plugin for Safari.

fwit - Incremental Search plugin for Safari.

Storage

The Finder - Yes, I use the regular old Finder (with a couple of basic customizations) to manage most of my stored information.

FolderOrg AppleScript - An AppleScript folder action that, when attached to a folder, automatically moves anything placed into that folder into a subfolder named with the current date.

Refinement

VoodooPad - Danny O’Brien’s research of “prolific alpha geeks” found that large numbers of his interviewees stored their information as plain text. VoodooPad’s wiki functionality combines most of the advantages of plain text with the incredibly powerful ability to dynamically add any number of hierarchical sub-levels to any piece of text. VoodooPad is at the heart of my time management system.

Roaring Penguin’s Remind - I use Remind in conjunction with VoodooPad’s built-in “run” functionality to give follow-up dates to to-dos.

iCal - I use iCal to manage to-dos that must happen on a specific date, or at a specific time, such as scheduled meetings. iCal is missing a key software calendar feature, namely a way to automatically add reminders to all events, but I stick with it anyway hoping one day Apple will give it some attention.

I-Search - I navigate my to-do list using incremental search. This wonderful system-wide plug-in gives incremental search to most Cocoa applications.

Presentation

I am not going to list any presentation tools because these applications depend entirely on which medium you are presenting information in.

General

Apple Mail - An email client has three roles under my system: a searchable database of information, a way to manage a list of people to email back, and an application for reading, writing and sending email. These three roles commingle discovery, storage, refinement, and presentation, therefore, email will be an exception to many of the information management rules that I recommend. Later I’ll write about why I think breaking these rules is a good idea for email.

TextPander - Automatically expand user-customized abbreviations to longer pieces of text in any application. This is very flexible functionality that works as both a typing-aid and an information storage/retrieval mechanism.

Quicksilver - Quicksilver needs no introduction, so I’ll just point out that even Tog, who has written extensively about disproving that the keyboard has advantages over the mouse (although personally I think his research is inconclusive), acknowledges a speed increase when using this kind of keyboard-only tool:

“I haven’t performed or reviewed a stopwatch test, but LaunchBar [same concept as Quicksilver] should be able to outperform a visual interface for complex, repetitive switching sequences by an expert user.”

Summary

This is just a quick introduction to the tools that my information management system uses. Future topics in this series will cover both the details of how this system works, and general tips, tricks and observations about using these tools to manage information.

I chose the term “time management” for the title of this series because that’s the term that has been popularized recently by David Allen, 43 Folders and the like. But my system covers more than just managing to-dos, so I am going to introduce a new term, “Information Management,” to describe it. The goal of information management is simple:

To make sure that the information that you need is right in front of you when you need it.

This means having your next to-do in front of you when you are ready for it and pulling out that “Perfect Mouse-Trap” article, from four months ago, the second your cheese goes missing.

The Four Areas of Information Management

The first step in improving your information management is to understanding the different ways that you can manage information.

1. Discovery

   Discovery is seeking out and finding information, such as through RSS, Google, or Wikipedia.

2. Storage

   Storage is putting the information that you don’t need now, but will need in the future, somewhere where you can find it again. Most bookmarks, Ebooks, and your own not actionable notes are examples of storage.

3. Refinement

   Refinement is the process of actually doing stuff. This is the area that traditional time management focuses on. It includes to-do lists, and your own actionable notes.

4. Presentation

   Presentation is putting information into a form to share it with other people. Blog posts, Word Documents, Email, PDFs, and PowerPoint presentations all fall under presentation.

The VPZtms includes tips for managing each of these areas, but much of the trick is just keeping these areas separate from each other. Nothing bogs down a refinement system like a bunch of storage.

More coming soon.

There are three (closely-related) reasons that incorporating a new tool into your time management system often fails:

1. It is too complicated

2. It is too inflexible

3. It is too hard

Too Complicated

A tool is too complicated when it does too many extra things that you don’t need.

For example, the much heralded Kinkless GTD is too complicated for me because it is based around contexts, and I don’t use contexts.

When you are talking about software, too complicated can also mean that it uses too much system resources for the benefits it affords.

Too Inflexible

Too inflexible means that the tool has limitations that prevent it from being useful in enough situations.

For example, iCal’s built-in to-do system doesn’t give me a way to associate additional information with to-dos (such as links and my own notes), so it is too inflexible.

Too Hard

It is too hard to use a tool when you don’t use it in an appropriate situation because of the effort it requires.

When advising clients on their office arrangements, David Allen says that one of the first things he does is position their filing cabinet where they can reach it without getting up from their desk. Because a filing cabinet on the other side of the room is too hard.

Balance

These probably sounds like common sense, and they are. The idea is being able to quickly identify when and why something isn’t working. These are the distillation of the many specific reasons that tools or approaches haven’t become permanent parts of my system over the years.

The VPZtms is about striking the perfect balance. Receiving the maximum benefits of structure, without going too far in any of the above directions.

The Scope of my System

The characteristics of your work setup define which features your time management system needs and which tools are available to you.

My time management system is defined by the following characteristics:

1. I work from home, off of one computer.

   This means:

   • I don’t need contexts

   • I use all desktop software and no web software. Because the advantages of desktop software (they work better and are available offline) eclipse the advantages of web software (they are available from any computer connected to the internet).

2. My system is paperless

   This means:

   • All my tools will be software.

3. I run OS X

   This means:

   • All of my tools work exclusively on OS X (although similar software exists on most OSes).

It’s been Field-Tested

Five years ago the company I worked for asked me to start using a Franklin-Covey Planner. Like many others, I found that using a time management system helped me get more stuff done.

It has been five years since that first Franklin Planner and I have experimented with many different tools and systems since then. But for the last couple of years, my system has mostly remained static. I still try out new tools all the time, but nothing sticks.

Last week, Apple announced that Leopard will include a system-wide to-do system. I am a sucker for operating system-level functionality, so I expect I’ll be tinkering with my time management system heavily after this gets released. This means that now is a good time to describe my current system that has already been field-tested for years.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be blogging about the time management system that has stuck with me through thick and thin and that, despite by best efforts, no new tool has been able to usurp.