GTD: The Collection Process

For those of you that have adopted the GTD collection process and have a physical in tray where you can store tangible items (magazines, articles etc) you have probably created something similar for your email. Maybe some form of basic file structure where you can move new mail to for follow up, assignment/delegation, reference or someday/maybe.

This all works very well but I need something that I can use when I'm mobile and have a thought. It's not always convenient to write something down on paper so I got to thinking about a way to use the one thing I always have with me, my mobile phone.

There are some good products out there. If you're in the US you can subscribe to Braincast but I don't think it's viable for me in Thailand due to cost.

So what are the other options? I had a look around and I found a service that provides an SMS to Email bridge. The service is hosted by IntelliSoftware and allows me to send an SMS to their number. So this was step one for my collection plan. I can now send an SMS with my thought/note/action.

Step two was to use the features of blogger, specifically the email interface. I can create an email account that allows me to create blog posts. Now I send an SMS which gets turned into an email. I set up the email account to be by blogger interface and now I have a 24x7 collection system that I can feed from anywhere (mobile roaming) and access from anywhere (blogger at an internet cafe).

Using labels in blogger I can create a basic processing system. I can view this output via label specific label RSS feeds, the same way that I have provided Time Management only or People Management only from this blog. This gives me flexible and scalable processing power for my GTD actions on the move.