[al_f]

Originally Posted by hypotyposis

Thanks very much for your reply- and all my respect for doing the vet thing (I like the "We Treat More Species" T-shirts).

Believe it or not I've never seen those - will have a search online for them now though!

Originally Posted by hypotyposis

I like the idea of having Tickler items for deadlines, plus hard schedules on calendar. How do you schedule your studying, though? Do you enter reading/studying in your GTD system/in OF, or do you just do it in any "spare" time you find?

Now I'm working I tend to enter it in OF as it gets done in discretionary time (unless it's a scheduled CPD event, in which case it gets calendared). That said, if I was studying for a specific exam I'd likely hard landscape at least some time so that I'd definitely get it done (too easy for me to put it off if I leave it all discretionary!). I think your suggstion sounds reasonable - you can always modify your approach after a couple of weeks or so if you find it isn't working.

Originally Posted by hypotyposis

As far as the clinical cases go, I've always done exactly the same thing you're doing (index cards). I could see how going electronic could potentially help with infection control (assuming you clean your hands before entering stuff on the iPhone); but paper is just incredibly fast and versatile.

True. We have pretty strict hand hygiene guidelines, so even the cards aren't too much of a problem as long as I don't leave them lying around.

p.s. I really wish I'd read GTD (and that OF had been around) when I was doing my PhD. God I'd have got a lot more done. :)