Much like the organizational phase, it is key that you spread things out as you capture them. One of the best ways to prepare for this is to download as many to-do list and productivity software packages you can. As mentioned above, you can sample them one at a time or in tandem. Another approach that is acceptable is to try all of them at once. The advantage to doing this is that you'll be learning about all of them on the fly and learning in what I call a "cross-eventualistic" manner. This means you are learning everything in an eventual way, resulting in never really mastering anything at all. To some peopel, this may be considered impractical, or worse, stupid. This is when you tell them that you believe in diversification more than perfection, because perfection is stupid. If that doesn't stop them, call them stupid. That may work.
I suggest you download at least 5 software packages, ranging in simple to excruciatingly complex. You are then showing others that you can be both simple and zen-like in approach to technological tools, but also are up to challenges by working through the tough programs. Failing that, you may again call them stupid.
Have several notebooks at hand. Some productivity programs instruct you to create something called "contexts" , examples of which are "@Home" or "@Work" to place tasks and to-dos in. Effing The Dog takes a different slant on this idea. You don't use contexts, rather, you use "textbooks" with EffTD. Each textbooks is an actual notebook (eventually filled with text, hence the name). You will need one textbook for each area of your life, both work and home. There is a lot of freedom here, as you can use various sizes and makes of textbooks when you are Effing The Dog, but the key is to make sure you have one textbook for each area. You may also want to invest in a sizeable bookshelf (or more) for these textbooks. This is the only thing I will ever endorse the usage of a bookshelf for, as any other books you have in your home should be of the audio sort. That's the EffTD way.
Using systems like Jott , ReQall or Sandy will assist in spreading things out even further. And if MobileMe continues on its current path, it may be more helpful with this process than I could not possibly have predicted.
So there you have it. An abbreviated version of the EffTD capture strategy. Tomorrow, I'll be going over the benefits of countless email addresses. Make note of this – in as many places as possible.
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