GyroTrigger – A GyroQ “Open Loop” Mind Search Engine

Elizabeth recently posted on the Yahoo GTD_Mindmanager group on her use of MindManager to review the Incompletion Triggers list from David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. The trigger list provides prompts to jog your memory of open loops that are “on your mind” that you need into translate to projects and next actions. She inquired how she might incorporate this approach into her use of the Gyronix ResultsManager add-in.

For me, this “triggered” the idea of using a GyroQ script to run through the triggers and send the resulting action items to the “Daily Capture” map, which can serve as an “In-tray” to ResultsManager.

The new “GyroTrigger” tag in the activityowner.com GyroQ Tag Library shows how this can be done using the GyroActivator “repeat” command. The “repeat” command allows you to enter as many tasks as come to mind from the trigger. When you are done, you just hit “Cancel” to advance to the next trigger (Ignore the “Skip” button). Unfortunately you have to “cancel” all the way through to the end to get out, so be patient. In order to install this code, just paste the “packed text” into your GyroQ dialog box. Note that you need the “Developer Edition” of GyroQ for this to work.

GyroTrigger Prompt


Click here for a GyroTrigger Demo video
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Note that this code interacts with MindManager in real-time rather than queue the commands for later. This macro currently only prompts you with the top level professional triggers, but you get the idea. I think this will certainly make its way into my top 20 ways to use GyroQ.

5 Comments »

  1. Sharon said,

    November 23, 2006 @ 4:09 pm

    Hi – I have tried this script but when it gets to the last question it falls over with the message:
    GyroActivator.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

  2. ActivityOwner said,

    November 24, 2006 @ 8:37 am

    Does it successfully get your new items into your capture map up until that point? I’m not sure why it would behave this way as there is nothing special being done at the end of the script — it just finishes.

  3. Frank Meeuwsen said,

    November 25, 2006 @ 4:22 pm

    Same is happening here. It just crashes when in use. It sure puts the items in the Daily Capture map but after that I need my taskmanager to close down GyroQ. Maybe because it opens MM and puts the items immediately in the map instead of saving them and dropping them in at once?
    But thanks anyway for the great extensions, very helpful!

  4. ActivityOwner said,

    November 25, 2006 @ 5:55 pm

    Thanks for feedback. If you interact with the map while it is running, the script can get confused, but otherwise I’m not sure what would be causing the problem.

    I’d like to run the script using the queue for later approach, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to make the “repeat” command work in that mode for multiple triggers.

  5. Six Components of a GTD Review » ActivityOwner.Com said,

    April 30, 2008 @ 10:48 pm

    […] you are capturing the "Full Picture" of your work. You can't automate that, although GyroQ can be used to run a full "MindSweep". The other aspect capture in this component is ensuring a regular review of […]

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