Second meeting with Merlin Mann today. Discussed a variety of topics, these are just meeting notes:

Merlin uses Mail.app on OSX for doing his email. But uses Entourage for managing and organizing all of his PIM items. He also uses text files in conjunction with Quicksilver and a special Finder that I can't remember the name of, to manage ideas and concepts.

• A lot of his text file items are duplicated in Entourage as they contain tasks or things that turn into emails or events.
• Each text file is a categorization so to speak and items are stored inside the file.

4 email accounts. (3 gmail) This is a common use case I think that we haven't really talked much about.

Most used folders: In, Archive and Flagged

Would like multiple kinds of Flags: Needs reply, Need to read, Social replies v. Work replies

Tasks are organized by context: When or at what point can do these tasks? (ie. @computer, right away because they're urgent)

Projects are organized by topic. They are ongoing. They are the what of his organizational system. What is this item about? He said they're like clients. Or maybe I'm describing Categories? So then what are Projects?

His Now section: Not complete, Not maybe later, Not more than a day out, Not low priority

Sharing: Calendars and Documents

• Need read/write sharing
• Important use case:

Organizings things at a GOAL level. Prioritizing your items by Goal. Maybe GOAL needs to be another orthogonal axis. (ie. Spend more time with family. Motivate team members. Save the world. Be nice to that person I hate. Win over the copy room guy.) Helps you to see the forest for the trees so to speak.

Answers the questions: Things I should do now as opposed to Things I could do now (which is what GTD is good for).

We also talked about the difference between: Tags, Sets and Groups on Flickr.

• Tags are just attributes on an item. Tags can generate groupings based on that tag.
• Collections are managed groupings of items. Basically tag groups you're explicitly adding and removing items from and reviewing regularly.
• Clusters are narrated groupings of items with explicit order, where you're trying to tell a story.