What I do is to process the email the minute I read it in the BB. If I can apply the two minute rule and it can be processed in that context, process it right there.
If the email requires filing for reference, I do it right there on the BB
has archive settings of one day, thus Outlook automatically moves these emails to my personal folders, in the corresponding folder using the archive feature.
If the next action is delegating ie. forwarding the email to someone for action, I forward the email from the BB and BCC myself so that later on my desktop I can assign it the @Waiting For action and integrate the email into my Waiting For list for follow up.
If it’s an action that requires more than 2 minutes or in another context, I forward the email to myself and change the subject line to the action that needs to be performed and other relevant information like deadline or context. For example, if the email from John requires me to review some documents before responding to John, I would change the email subject to “Review files for project for John @Office”. The other added benefit to using this method, rather than creating a task in the BB is that with this approach you have a copy of the original email thus when reviewing your files you have John’s email. After processing the email in BB I delete the original email from John, or file it (more on that below).
If the email is from me with me BCC, it adds a “WF flag”; if it is from me only to me the it adds a “Action Flag”.
Since your emails to yourself, in my mind, create clutter in the BB mailbox, I have created rules in the BB Desktop Manager that prevent the redirection of emails from me to me. Thus these “GTD” emails do not show up in my BB inbox.

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Gary Slinger » Implementing Getting Things Done, while using a Blackberry - Part Four

Tags: blackberry, gtd on 2006-08-17 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Review and Purge unnecessary Categories. In either the Address Book application, or the Tasks application, hit the menu button and take Filter. Take a look at the categories you have there – sometimes extra ones slip in.
Remember that Categories are shared across the applications
- Back your Blackberry up.
So, the weekly review in and of itself, shouldn’t need any real explanation here. I have mine scheduled for 2pm, for an hour, every Friday.
When I get to around 60%, and assuming that I’m not on the road, I use the desktop client again, cable-synchronized, and again into “Backup and Restore”. Hit “Advanced”, and a list of databases within the Blackberry come up on the right-hand side. I select “Messages” and “Attachment Data” at a very minimum, although I often select “MMS Messages”, “Purged Messages” and “SMS Messages” if they’ve been stacking up (you can see the number of entries to the right of the database name). When you’ve selected one or more databases, hit the “Clear” button and follow the “are you sure?” prompts.
There are other management options you can use, such as within the “Messages” application, setting “Keep Messages” within the options to something like 30 days.
Organizing

I’m including this section here, as I said I’d map the Blackberry to the full model in the book, but basically, in GTD terms – you’ve already handled the Organizing part of the process if and when you did your Collection with the Blackberry; that is, you decided whether to place an item directly into it’s correct place within the system, or make a note elsewhere, or send yourself an email reminder, as appropriate.
Assuming you’re synchronizing the calendar back to the office system, it should be the last thing you look at before heading to bed (“What time is my first appointment tomorrow? Do I have to do anything before I leave for work?” and depending on your circumstances, the first thing you look at in the morning
Tasks. Calendar. They’re all there. As you’re going about your business, you can readily call up any of your Next Action lists, or your email (and let’s face it, there’s a reason it’s called the Crackberry by some!), and do whatever’s appropriate for the situation you’re in. Ten minutes in the coffee shop before your next appointment? Blackberry out, home screen, “T” for Tasks, hit the menu button and choose “Filter”, and pick something appropriate – “@Calls”, perhaps?
Reviewing and Doing have a habit of blending together when you’re “out and about” and using a tool like the Blackberry
It’s worth remembering the “Four-Criteria Model for Choosing Actions in the Moment”, from the book; you’ve got:
1. Context
2. Time available
3. Energy available
4. Priority

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Gary Slinger » Implementing Getting Things Done, while using a Blackberry - Part Three

Tags: blackberry, gtd on 2006-08-17 -All Annotations (0) -About

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through the course of the evening find that you’ve:

- programmed a dinner date directly into the Blackberry;

- emailed yourself a reminder note about checking out a movie review;

- emailed yourself an address change for an acquaintance, to update later;

- answered half-a-dozen “urgent” emails that came in.That first entry doesn’t need anything further doing. It’s where it needs to be. The second and third ones are the subject of the Morning Review that we’re talking about now. The last item, the emails you answered, are also going to be dealt with in the Morning Review, but you need to process them slightly differently, as by answering them on the Blackberry, you have already processed them once, in some form.
- Defer
- Delegate
- Snooze (not really in the GTD spirit, but useful occasionally)
- Delete (a duplication of the standard toolbar, but a useful reminder that sometimes this IS the right next action for an email!)
- Someday/Maybe the piece
- Create an Action Task in relation to the email (filing the email at the same time)
- File the message away.
The Morning Review, incidentally, is in my calendar as “hard landscape”, same time, every day. It’s also scheduled for 90 minutes, to allow me to deal with any contingencies, deal with issues in different time zones ahead of where I am, and, on a perfect day, give me some clear thinking time, before I start scheduled events.

If you’re not automatically synchronizing your Blackberry over the air for some reason, the Morning Review is one of those times when you should cable-sync.
I setup a rule in Outlook so that emails from myself to me are routed to an @Action folder instead of to the Inbox.

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Gary Slinger » Implementing Getting Things Done, while using a Blackberry - Part Two

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Task input on the Blackberry is relatively easy – from the home screen, hit “Tasks”, and then do one of two things:
- Hit the menu button and take new, or
- Type directly on the “Find” line a unique task description, and then hit enter. This shortcut won’t work if you don’t enter a unique name. You’ll be taken into the task detail screen, with the top line already populated.
Scroll down to the category line. Hit the space-bar, and you’ll be taken into the category selection list.
Task created; reminder and due dates created as you see fit for your own implementation of the system, and a category applied.
If you’ve got “Dial From The Home Screen” disabled (from the phone screen, go into Options, General Options, and it’s towards the bottom) then you have hotkey access from the home screen to most applications. “T” for Tasks, “L” for Calendar, “M” for Messages for instance.

There’s also “C” for Create. You can create email, SMS, MMS, PIN Messages, whatever. The system will default to email if you use shortcuts
This step alone is a major reason I put a “Morning Review” into my GTD & Blackberry methodology when I started it – I’ve been known to enter thirty or forty notes to myself in this manner in the course of an evening, and then taken about ten minutes the next day, on a proper computer, to process them into the system. It would have taken me a lot longer than that to directly enter them on the Blackberry.