Solo Developer Success

Even though I was doing well using the GTD Add In for Outlook, I was still feeling overwhelmed by all the tasks I had created. I just couldn’t seem to keep them filtered in a way that let me see only what was truly important, right now.  While researching ways to handle this, I stumbled upon Priacta’s website and their Total, Relaxed Organization (TRO) training.  The more I read, the more I liked what I saw, and took the plunge by purchasing their online training course.  Over the next month, I implemented their system and completed their 21 day follow up exercises.  TRO has one significant advantage — it can be put t use from day one by teaching not only principles, but specific step by step actions to take to quickly organize your workspace, put things off immediately and start being productive.

Put Things Off Immediately?

Yes, you read that right, you get to put things off immediately.  In order to get started, you have identify every collection point in your work area. All those piles of papers, folders in desktop stands, notes in binders, everything. It all gets immediately triaged into things that need to be done over the next two weeks and everything else. That’s where the system shines, you immediately get productive by properly handling only those things that need to be done within two weeks. Once you get a handle on all that, understand how the steps work, then you get to tackle the rest of your inbox collection.

The TROG Bar

TRO can be described as GTD on steriods combined with a step by step plan for implementing their system. That’s one big advantage over GTD as described in David Allen’s book. Priacta also has their own utility, the TROG Bar, that interfaces with Outlook and makes managing an Outlook Task list a breeze. The TROG Bar has the ability to keep things nice and neat, letting you focus on only what’s most important to get done today, keeping the other 100+ tasks from being a distraction. That’s a big plus for me since most systems I’ve tried tended to leave me with a feeling of overwhelm when looking at my huge list of projects and actions.

TRO and TROG Bar redefine what the standard Outlook Task fields mean in a way that makes a lot of sense and managing tasks easier. The Outlook Task Start Date field is handled as a “hide until” date, allowing you to keep tasks at bay that don’t need to be completed anytime soon. The Due Date is considered a “Loose Goal” date, when you’d like to get something done, but it’s not set in stone. Priorities are also redefined with high priority being treated as Must Do Today and low priority as Someday/Maybe.  The Do Today tasks along with tasks that have reminders are the only ones that show up in the Today view in TrogBar, the Someday/Maybe tasks stay hidden until your weekly and monthly reviews. TRO also takes advantage of Outlook’s ability to assign multiple categories to a task in order to display only those tasks that fit your strategic calendar.

Over the next several posts, I will cover more specifics and my experiences with using TRO as my trusted system and how it has improved my productivity as a developer.  If you’re interested in more information now, check out Praicta’s website.