TUAW Resolutions: Organize your life and get things done

Psst. The secret of the Getting Things Done philosophy? Keeping a calendar and doing regular reviews of your to-do lists. Yes, it's a bit counter-intuitive. Who would think that the underlying basis of controlling your life is to focus on planning rather than on actually doing the things that need to get done? But it's a fundamental truth that without a game plan for a specific destination, many of us will get lost along the way wasting time and energy that would be better used productively. If we don't know where we're going, we end up someplace else. Getting-things-done relies on choosing tasks after assessing all tasks that need getting done. Sure you could start juggling 43 folders and all that, but you don't have to. So long as you start making room in your life for planning, your life will get more organized. Your Mac can help you do that. Here are some ways to use your Apple equipment to take control.

Use a calendar. iCal is the two-ton gorilla in the world of Apple planners. It offers a single destination for all your appointments. You can even subscribe to a Google calendar via iCal or use two-way Google/iCal synchronization via Spanning Sync. Your (non-shuffle) iPod will sync to your iCal calendar and you can set alarms on iPods for calendar events. Use your calendar to make sure your time-dependent to-do items are kept on track. Best of all, if you're using OS X you already have it.

Create to-do lists. We're all waiting for Leopard's built-in "to do" lists extensions to Mail so you can organize your action items as you work through your inbox. Until then, there are many alternatives not the least of which are Actiontastic, Stickies and, yes, TextEdit. A simple text to-do list can bypass all sorts of technological confusion and encourage you to update, review and annotate your action items on a timely basis.

Use ticklers. Another feature of the getting-things-done philosophy is using a trusted system to remind you of items that have been lying dormant. You can send yourself scheduled e-mail via futureme.org, take advantage of any number of AppleScript tickler scripts, many of which work with iCal. The Omni group is working on a GTD app called Omnifocus, which apparently will offer tickler support. They're planning a meetup at MacWorld to solicit design ideas.

Hide distractions. Uncluttering your workspace and trading multi-tasking for single-tasking can help some people focus on the at-hand task and better get things done. Applications like Spirited Away and MenuShade let you neaten your desktop and hide items that might otherwise distract you. And avoiding distractions is certainly an important part of getting the job done.