If you don’t know what dropbox is, and you’re someone who has a desktop machine and a laptop and a flashdrive, you are in for a treat.  Dropbox gives you a 2 gig floating storage area out “in the cloud.”  (This goes up to 8 gig in 250 meg increments based on referrals, so please use my link to go check it out and thanks in advance https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTQxOTkzNjU5 )

Now let’s get back to the subject at hand.  Thinking Rock (http://www.trgtd.com.au/) is a very solid GTD implementation.  I’m not going to get much into what Thinking Rock and GTD are; this article assumes that you are familiar with both and have been having issues with trying to use Thinking Rock on a USB key and would like a better way.

Ok, “better” may be too strong a word for what I’ve put together, let’s just call it “a USB free way”.

My biggest issue with using a USB key with thinking rock was that my settings were being saved to the java application directory on each machine that I was using.  Little things like what screen does TR open up in, what order the action screens are in, what columns are in the action screens.  This solution has fixed that for me.

Step one: Copy your TR directory to your Dropbox directory and change its name to insure that you don’t find yourself using a different directory without knowing about it.

In my case I use the following directory name:

C:\My Dropbox\TR-3.1.2_mba

Add 3 files to your bin directory (C:\My Dropbox\TR-3.1.2_mba\bin)

cmd_here.bat

cmd

trbat.bat

tr.exe -J-Duser.home=”C:\My Dropbox\TR-3.1.2_mba\data” -J-Dtr.datafile=”C:\My Dropbox\TR-3.1.2_mba\data\MalcolmAnderson.trx”

readme.txt

double click

cmd_here.bat

to open a cmd window in this directory

in the command window enter “trb” and tab to bring up trbat.bat

press the enter key to start thinking rock

When updating version number update the “default_userdir” setting in the etc\tr.conf file

default_userdir=”C:\My Dropbox\TR-3.1.2_mba_data/.thinkingrock/tr-3.1.2″

Step Two: Follow the instruction in the read me and edit the C:\My Dropbox\TR-3.1.2_mba\etc\tr.conf file

#default_userdir=”${HOME}/.thinkingrock/tr-3.1.2″

default_userdir=”C:\My Dropbox\TR-3.1.2_mba_data/.thinkingrock/tr-3.1.2″

By putting a hash mark (#) in front of the original line comments it out, retaining it for future reference.

[Notice the convoluted combination of forward slash (“/”) and backward slash (“\”)]

That’s all I do.  On running it the first time, the _yourinitials_data directory will be created.

For a final check, open up TR on one machine, and change the opening screen to process, or the roadmap or some other screen you don’t normally use on start up.  Then exit out of the program.

Now open up TR on your other machine.  It should have opened up on your new start page.

There you go, it’s done.

As a last note, if any hard core java configuration geeks want to give me another solution, I’ll be happy to try it out.  I’m open to installing a second java installation that is local to my dropbox, it was beyond my skills and I’m just happy that this works.

System One – The Master Project List – Every project (defined as something you want to get done that requires more than 2 tasks, taking longer than 2 minutes) that you want to accomplish in your life.  All down on paper (or in a system somewhere)

System Two – The Filing System – Active projects, Reference files, Archives

System Three – Your Tickler System

System Four – Your Calendar

System Five – The Waiting On System

System Six – The Next Action List

System Seven – Your In-Basket

System Eight – Your Weekly Review

Your homework for the week:

1) Tell me what you would accomplish if you achieved “Stress-Free Productivity”

2) If you are already a GTD fan, tell me how your story of getting your systems to work together.

Ну и чё с ними делать… Меня достали на моём блоге я устала вычищать…

I have no idea what is being said here, I don’t even know what language it’s in.  Is it spam or is it someone telling me how awesome and amazing my blog is.  I don’t know, and I don’t know what other people are doing with this.

Until further notice, if I get a post that is completely non-English, I will be marking it as spam.  If someone can offer me a good reason to have a different policy, I’m all ears.

I’m planning on putting a bit of research into this 6 page report.  Chances are the subject is going to be something along the lines of

How to design an information marketing campaign in 7 steps.

6 steps to take before building your website

7 ways to profit from your web site while you are still constructing it

3 things you HAVE to know about managing your sites content

Which one of these do you want to see, or do you have something that you would like to see better?

What he said was something to the effect of, “You need to join the let’s-find-out club.  Will that idea work?  I don’t know, let’s find out”

At the same time, if you are using someone’s already successful system and that system has worked for others, but not for you, just maybe, you’re not really following their system.

And don’t say, “but we’re different here.” No you’re not, you’re just unwilling (or in some corporate settings, not allowed) to make the changes dictated by the successful system.

I once heard a trainer explain

If I told you to dial (555) 123 – 4567, give my friend on the other end your name & address, and he’ll send you a check for $100, don’t come back to me and say,

“I tried your system, and it didn’t work, I didn’t dial the number in the order you gave me, but I dialed all the numbers”

“I tried your system, and it didn’t work, I didn’t use the number 4 because I don’t like to press the number 4, so I just replaced it with two 2′s.”

“I tried your system, and it didn’t work, I put in the first 6 digits and didn’t get any result, so I didn’t bother to finish implementing your system you fraud.”

Laugh, but I have watched people, at great expense, implement their version of other peoples systems and then complain that not only did the original system not work, but that the people explaining the system were unyielding zealots who didn’t understand how things worked in the real world.