Using Bonsai With Getting Things Done: Outline Overview

Outline Overview

My GTD system contains three outlines within Bonsai:

• Overall: this outline lives on both my desktop and my PDA. It is my main working outline.
• Completed: this outline lives only on my PC, and contains the items that I have completed and moved from the Overall outline. I keep this around so that I know when I completed things. It has come in handy more than once.
• CompletedTrx: this is the outline I use as a temporary holding place for items I have completed on the Palm. I use this when I do my review on the PDA, rather than the desktop. When I am at my PC, I transfer all items from this outline into the Completed outline.

Creating the Outline

To create the outlines, I use the Palm system. This allows me to quickly populate the categories with my task list categories. If you choose to enter the categories in Bonsai by hand, you must make sure the names match your to-do/task categories exactly, or the items will not link to the proper category. Here are the steps for creating the new outline:

1. Start Bonsai on your PDA.
2. From the Outline menu, choose New.
3. Enter the name of your overall outline.
4. Make sure “To Do” is selected in the categories drop down.
5. Optional: enter a category for the outline.
6. Click on OK