After reading David Allen's second book, "Making It All Work," I have come to realize there were several things that I did not understand about the "Getting Things Done" method.  I am learning, but I really need to study this method before I begin designing this software.

My initial reason for starting this project was to better organize my lists.  Unfortunately I had misunderstood how these lists were made and maintained.  I am now going back and relearning the process before I continue with this project.  I am not about to add additional "Productivity Porn" to the net.  For that reason I need some time to make sure that I am properly using the GTD methodology. 

Over the next few weeks there is going to be a lot of information placed on this website, but not a lot of programming. This is being done for two reasons. The first is that I am getting familiar with Trolltech's Qt, cross platform GUI interface. The second, and more important reason involves deciding what the completed 0.5 and 1.0 versions of the program should look like and do. This means that for the next few weeks, I will be writing a user's manual for groupGTD.

I know that most software projects write the user's manual after the completed the version, but I'm trying to create a road map for the developers of this software. This map is going to be very important because the software is suppose run on the widest possible number of platforms. This includes UNIX, Windows, and Macintosh machines as well as PDAs and cell phones. If some sort of map or guide is not provided, this project could easily break down into a separate, independent project for each platform. The user's guide will prevent the loss of the common interface and interoperability.

The second reason for writing the manual is get people reviewing the groupGTD program before any of the code is written. While planning out this software, I can only provide my experience for task and project management. I need people, like you, to look over the user's manual and provide your own experience to the software. I need you to make suggestions in the developer's forum so the project is not only useful as a personal task manager, but will help groups coordinate and complete complicated projects. To do that, you can either create a login for yourself, or leave comments as an anonymous user. Either method will be helpful.

Now is the time to make suggestions. No code has been written, and nothing must be adapted. If you have an idea, now is the time to mention it. In a year from now, all suggestions will have to receive approval from the developers, and then adapted to the existing code. Now there is just me, and I am listening.

Over the years, I have tried several different project management techniques, and I found that most of them were not useful. Almost all of them tied the task to a schedule, and that never made since to me. Then I ran across David Allen's Getting Things Done, and I found a process that made sense to me. In his method, the next task is tied to the previously completed task. The only items that get tied to a schedule are start times, deadlines, and appointments. His system has been very useful to me, but it does require a tracking system.