Scott Mebberson

I’m heavily in to task management and organisation (although I’m not very good at it), and I’m very fond of GTD. Most of my planning and organisation is based on the GTD method.
I use Things on Mac to manage my tasks, iCal to manage due dates and deadlines, and take notes on a plan old pad during meetings. Fingers crossed they get Things for iPhone (which looks great so far) syncing with the desktop version very soon.

Anyway, a couple of guys at work started talking about Action Method. At first I was very confused, and didn’t really understand Action Method, it seemed to me like just another implementation of GTD. The guys bought the Action Book and few other bits and pieces from Behance. They arrived, and I started to understand Action Method a bit more.

As I see it (and I’ll underline that, this is just my interpretation), it is a really good off-line (analog, non-digital, pen and paper) task management method. While GTD isn’t specifically online or digital, there are many good applications and web applications that will help you manage tasks, GTD style.

Because I’m a big believer and fan of most things being digital (I rarely get photos printed these days, but prefer to share my photos with friends and family via Flickr) I didn’t think the Behance products and the Action Method were going to be of any benefit for me. However there was still one aspect of my workflow that is always off-line, my note taking.

My new Action Book

So, I got an Action Book!

My note taking was ad hoc, messy and really confused me when I came back to it even a day later. The Action Book is a fantastic means to quickly and easily take notes when in a meeting with a client, yet provide a simple framework for keeping my notes organised and structured.

I now have a place for organising what I want to achieve in the meeting, a place to jot down random bits and pieces, a section to note specific tasks that I need to complete, and larger, longer term notes that I can come back to and address later but aren’t immediately important (the back burner).

My Action Book has only just arrived, so I’ll write another post in a month or so about my Action Method learning’s.