Getting Things Done (GTD) - Cult or Awesome?

i work two jobs, i have a witeboard at each job w/ various projects written on them, give them a weekly revision to keep it up to date. seems to work well!

my personal life is nowhere near as organised.

There's an article on GTD creator David Allen in the latest Wired that brings out the 'new age' background to the origins of GTD.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-10/ff_allen

Yeah that shit kinda disturbs me.

The article makes apologies for it though!

Although the article tries to make GTD link to his new age background, it's not very convincing, and rather stretching the analogy:

Allen recommends that we take regular comprehensive inventory of our intentions, which he calls open loops. Any open loop requiring more than one action is a project, and projects, naturally, go on a list. The project list is not a reminder of values or deeply held beliefs. Rather, it is an exhaustive external repository meant to capture every single thing that you may want to do. The project list must contain everything, otherwise unlisted items will return to our minds at unwelcome moments and cause suffering. A New Age cliché holds that every intention generates a chain of spiritual effects we ignore at our peril. This is karma. In GTD, karma makes the last stage of its journey from a Hindu theory of cosmic justice to a rational tool in the American self-help kit. Karma is now just an open loop.

I think its far more mundane than that though. GTD is just the equivalent of some of the 'lean manufacturing' processes that have been in industry for years.

It's caught the zeitgeist because it gives people an opportunity and purpose to mess around with mac programs (and moleskines) in a way they love to do anyway.

lol

http://www.myticklerfile.com/public/examples

Is it any good?

I was looking at life balance but it's expensive and complicated.

Guys I have fallen off the wagon. David Allen has to sacrifice me on altar or something, right?

And the Great American Novel you're writing?

Kate was kinda a bitch on this thread.

Not that I have room to talk, I came off pretty cultish. "GTD saved me from drugs and self-destruction!!!"

I don't think she was really. (x-post)

She was outspoken or even dismissive, but bitchy? I think someone took unnecessary offence (on behalf of their husband!).

I suppose, more than bitchy, I mean that she was a little sharp in her dismissal. I got a whiff of classism out of it that rubbed me the wrong way.

Kate was kinda a bitch on this thread.

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 17 November 2007 23:54 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

[OBVIOUS ZING DELETED]

As I type this I have a bottle of Gatorade chilling in a bath of sub-32-degree salt water. What a great idea.

hands up who likes being banned?

Are you threating me?

http://www.tomasleal.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/cornholio.jpg

i've been using omnioutliner's omnifocus. it's good for keeping track of big multi-task things but not that great at keeping track of nonlinear projects. it'll only cost $30 but that's because i'm already an omnioutliner user.

admission: i'm really into gimmicky productivity software like omnioutliner and devonthink and iwork and ilife, so i might actually buy this lifebalance thing

i've also been doing the "moleskine GTD" thing w/ the reporter notebook + the double flags ... nice!! it's basically a fancy way of having a "things to do" list in your bag but whatever, fancy is as fancy does

Getting Things the Fuck Done with Henry Rollins

My notebook has been invaluable while we've been moving. There's no way I would have been able to keep track of all the phone numbers and work order numbers etc etc without this thing.

writing things down in a notebook is hardly a new weird thing to do, though.

Indeed! I think that was discussed upthread a bit, buncha people going "lol you guys = aspies for making a whole system around your to-do list."

The heart of the whole thing for me is the "processing." It forces me to either get the Thing done or schedule it for a specific time in the future on my GCal or my cell phone calender. Then I can move forward in the notebook without worrying "did I schedule/do that thing?" I can be confident that it's done. Less worry, more organization in my life.

So I'm trying to figure out if a "personal wiki" for Someday/Maybe stuff has any benefits over a simple file in Google Docs. Are you still around, Jeff? Anything you think makes a wiki a must-have?

GTD is saving my ass right now. Saying "no" to shit would be better though.

For about a year and a half I've been using this awsum GTD tool to rule my life and make everyone genuflect at my organisational brilliance (and even impress my future boss enough that she asked me to teach her how to use it!).

However, since getting a new position in September (partially because of my wikkid org skillz) I'm in so many meetings and following so many different projects that my GTD system is srsly fucked. By the time I get back to the PC to add everything I've forgotten what it was. As a result, my organisation is rooted, I regularly forget to do some really important things, and I'm frequently stressed about forgetting stuff.

So, I'm going to have a crack at this Moleskine thing. I have a fresh Moleskine here but it's a standard book style, not the reporter-flip-up type. Does that matter?

There's also this 'hack,' which seems to be a bit less anal about where to draw margins etc. I don't know which one to go with yet.

Does anyone have helpful advice before I start wrecking my Moleskine?

(I didn't want to derail rrrobyn's diary thread as it's not technically diary-keeping)

just wreck it!!

wtf with the colored markers and organizing

I dunno, I've not read the instructions properly yet

you should use a black ballpoint with it. for best results and long life.

i just read the first wikipedia link but isn't that just saying "get a diary and write down a to-do list"?

Autumn:

My only advice is to always have a pen on you and always be ready to write something down. I use little page markers that get me directly to a blank page/directly to my last-processed item, respectively. When something hits the brain, out comes the notebook. Flip to the pink tab, write it down.

Like I said on the other thread, Jott is a lifesaver for when I can't write stuff down.

I should clarify that I have a Google Docs file for Someday/Maybe stuff & a whiteboard for projects. The moleskine is strictly for capturing & notes on the way to processing.

ken:

see the long, unclear discussion upthread, but in short: yes. plus another thing or two. really only helpful if you have difficulty remembering Stuff/have a high volume of Stuff etc.

Cool, thanks hoos. I'll go with yours because that other one I found is disastrously anal and would break my brain within 12 minutes.

We don't have Jott in Australia, as far as I'm aware.

Yeah I use a really really simplified version of the half dozen GTD Moleskine things floating around the internet.

http://www.davidco.com/blogs/kelly/archives/2008/01/david_allen_giv.html

^^^^^ The Man Himself gives a talk at Google on the basics of GTD.

Though if you want the short version try

http://www.the-happy-manager.com/david-allen-time-management.html

and scroll down

45 mins vs. 7

HI DERE UNREFLECTIVE SUCK-UP TO NOB-SUCKUNTRY. I HOPE YOU WANNA DIE SOOON. PEACE OUT I'M NOT GENERALLY FLECKING

the triumphant return of noodle vague

if I ever arrive at a point in life where I genuinely feel that my brain is incapable of dealing with the volume of shit that I have to keep track of to function like a normal person, then I'm going to ditch out of every commitment I have and go live in the goddamn woods. or beach bum it. regardless.

^^^^^^^^^^ this

- BIG AND aka the whatdriver

For me, the feeling that you need a system or need to do a better job keeping track of things stems more from thinking you could do a lot more than you do usually do if you could just keep up with the little random "oh, i should xyz" ideas that come and go all the time. It's not at all about functioning like a normal person, it's a sense that there's some next level, training montage shit out there.

yeah that concept can also eat my balls. human brains are not for being pushed beyond their stock performance in every aspect just because a few latter-day snake oil salesmen talked some Type-A bozos into believing that the answer to their chronic insecurity was to augment said insecurities with pen-and-paper DIY databases on top of their other imaginary friends mr. e-mail and mr. cellular

if I all of a sudden started "doing more than I usually do" it would just make relaxing that much harder and not actually get me extra vacation or a bigger paycheck - and I'm saying this as a person who has felt many times that I'd feel better if I could just be another overachiever, tried, and learned otherwise

you boys have fun

my favorite posters to 43things.com are the ones who just wish they could wake up on time in the morning

<3 <3 <3 tombot