Getting Things Done (GTD) - Cult or Awesome?

will the horrors never sees

Oh you poor bugger.

Not much help now but when you replace/find it, should you take photos/scans of each open page once a week?

Well thankfully I was 3 pages from the end of the book and had already processed everything new AND had a spare in the bag because I fully expected to run out of pages today.

So the concern is mainly for the ID info rather than for the loss of the contents of the book.

Shame I won't get to shelve it with the others though.

Yep.

Shelving old to-do lists is a bit OCD, isn't it? 'What was the thing that I successfully completed on the 17th of July 2004? <rustle rustle> Ah yes, wash the cat. I did that.'

(aimed at the wacky Moleskine hack guides, obv)

Yeah I mainly shelve for aesthetic reasons. They look too good to toss out!

Looks dead arty too, rows of used Moleskines.

'What's this?'

'It's, uh, research for my memoirs'

So it turns out I was smart enough to leave my SS card in an old wallet (I'd been hoping against hope), and in selfsame wallet is an old DL! With the debit cxl'd, and with two forms of ID + SS card on hand, this may not be so bad after all.

Time Bandits
Yachts and jewels are all well and good, but nowadays the ultimate luxury is extra time. Here’s how to get some.

One of the joys of being super rich is thinking up new ways to flaunt your wealth. For the Medicis and the robber barons, palaces and art were the trophies of choice; for Larry Ellison and Roman Abramovich, massive yachts do the trick. But in today’s hyperactive, overscheduled world, more and more squillionaires have their eyes on a different kind of prize: free time. Days, hours and minutes are the new currency, the units by which the very successful measure their worth. So how does one perfect the art of time hogging? Here, a few tips from the masters:

Delegate. Name any task—somewhere, a billionaire is outsourcing it. One well-known mogul favors shabby chic cashmere sweaters but doesn’t have the patience to let them get slightly worn at the elbows, so he employs a man to wear them around for him first.

Delegate the delegating. Anyone with household help knows that, unfortunately, staff are people too. Employees have emotions and think everyone else wants to hear about them. No, no, no. Take a cue from the Victorian grandees, who kept their minions below stairs and under the thumb of a highly paid head butler. Hire an in-house shrink to listen to your staffers’ complaints and an aide to sort out their schedules.

Don’t read — digest. Never waste time even opening a book. Be like the high-flying producer who summons writers and thinkers to his office to give him highlights of their work.

Jump the gun. One British filmmaker keeps a closetful of gift baskets to dispatch the moment he hears about a friend’s new baby or award. These baskets contain cashmere throws and other generic treasures, along with presigned cards. The filmmaker knows that others might spend more time looking for meaningful gifts—but that time is wasted, since everyone remembers the first present to arrive.

Prebook. Not sure where you want to go on holiday next year? Save time and avoid weeks of stress later on by booking all the nice islands and villas now, just in case. After all, you can afford to lose the deposit, and you’ll be glad to see everyone else lose sleep.

Don’t divorce. When will people learn? A divorce is the surest way to waste time, emotion and money. Instead of trading in your spouse for a new model, just stay married and have affairs. Jimmy Goldsmith had it right when, during his third marriage, to Annabel Birley, he said that marrying a mistress just creates a vacancy.

Skip the party. Fundraisers are tantamount to torture and should be avoided at all costs. Giving money directly to charities makes one feel much better and saves on taxes. So send a donation to that good cause now, and skip the benefit. At a recent fundraiser, a powerful hedge fund manager was seen twiddling his thumbs while Elton John treated the crowd to a significant percentage of his repertoire. “Just during ‘Candle in the Wind’ I could have closed a deal in Shanghai,” the financier said with a huff. “Next year I’ll pay Elton to do one song and get out of here.”

Simplify. Truly successful people understand that time really is money; they’ve streamlined their lives accordingly and won’t waste a moment on fripperies. When Warren Buffett, the richest man on the planet, went to China with his close friend Bill Gates, he took along a hamburger chef. What? Burgers in Beijing? Well, imagine the amount of time he saved by not arguing with Gates over which restaurants to try. In the Forties, Miriam Rothschild, a brilliant self-taught scientist, believed that the real reason women lagged behind men was not because they were downtrodden but because they spent too much time buying clothes and choosing hairstyles. She wore only Wellington boots, had one style of dress and pulled her hair back in a chignon. And she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her services to science.

By Gordon Bennett

rich fuckers edging in on the web II.o hipster moleskine game

yeah i read that this morning and i hope to god that at least the sweater elbow thing is a joke

Oooooohhhhhhhh, it was the clothes and hairstyles all along!

Problem solved!

Hire a shrink for the staff is an complicated/amusing but considerate thing.

The 5 Kinds of Productivity Dbags

Be like the high-flying producer who summons writers and thinkers to his office to give him highlights of their work.

^^^^ Brian Grazer, who hires a cultural attache to read for him and arrange meetings with 'interesting' people

o god I read about that in the New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/03/10/080310ta_talk_widdicombe

good link HOOS

http://thegrowinglife.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/diy-banan-protector-glennqync.jpg

Hahahahaha

Anyway, Mr. Life Hacks wishes he were McGyver and probably wanted to be a real hacker back in the late 80s, early 90s, but ended up settling for a less exciting desk job and ends up consoling himself by hacking non-technology items.

It should also be noted that Mr. Life Hack uses the term “hack” pretty broadly and in conjunction with just about anything. One can properly refer to date hacks, marriage hacks, diet hacks, child hacks, food hacks, kitchen hacks, parents hacks, brain hacks, etc. If these whackos figure out a new way to use catsup then the solution just might be called a “catsup hack.”

;_; guilolty as charged

if i could've finished this book, i might've really had an opinion.

i think a few things the book said early on about how time management made me think "gee, i need to stop doing so much stuff"... which quickly became, "reading this time management book is one of these things i didn't need to start doing." consequently, i got some other things done. hey, maybe it worked?

I don't know why, but I find that 'by Gordon Bennet' part of the article hilarious.

http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/5435/moleskine.png

^^^^ gag, right

Since I started using a notebook I think I've become MORE annoyed by 43folders/GTD bullshit. Why do adults (ok maybe only in the statutory sense) need a blog and a book and a bunch of articles to tell them to write things down on paper to remember them? This is like Gawande's writing a book -nay, a manifesto!- about checklists. Are you fucking kidding me? The methods engineers used to get humans on the moon are, in fact, worthwhile, and might be employed in non-aeronautical contexts? Holy shit.

GTD is absolutely a cult. It's like turning "eating oatmeal for breakfast" into a diet book. Fuck you, Fuck a "Franklin Planner," fuck the entire Covey family, fuck a bunch of stupid apps for "helping" you treat your personal life like it's a software development project, and fuck anybody who needs to be told what kind of pen is best for their goddamned shopping list.

...

there was some column a while back making some comment about how "multi-tasking erodes executive function" within a context that implied multi-tasking itself is the problem in society e.g. "internets BAAAD! boo hiss the web, curse a book on a phone!" We know for a fact (proven by science) that multitasking makes it impossible to evaluate anything properly. But people all know this already from childhood, the first time they're ever told by a teacher or a parent to settle down and concentrate on something. The issue isn't multitasking, the issue is that our society doesn't give a shit about "executive function." Taking in lots of information, discarding most of it, drawing a conclusion, and acting on it - lol OODA, there goes aerospace again - how did we get to the point where this is anathema to "normal" people? Why is that some kind of "hard charger" shit? Since when in god's name are "decision" and "action" fucking macho tough guy words?

In short, people be sheep, that is annoying to me a lot, and yes I got married again.

Just want to drop in and say that 43 Folders, the blog, hasn't been about "GTD" or productivity since 2008: http://www.43folders.com/2008/09/10/time-attention-creative-work

It's actually one of the most consistently high-quality blogs I read! Merlin's a great writer.

But yeah, GTD and all the rest of this stuff is a total dud. I gave it all up, and I'm doing fine! Better, even.

Also, Merlin made a great video that takes on a lot of the issues surrounding the online self-help industry, and how it's kind of bullshit: http://www.43folders.com/2009/10/22/who-you-are

(Even before fall 2008, though, 43 Folders was still a really good blog. The best "productivity" blog I read, back when I read "productivity" blogs.)

if you happened to work in an organization where the best way to get along was, look like you are doing work but really not do much of anything, GTD might be effective, since it would look like you were quite occupied and had lots of Important Priority Tasks in your workspace that you'd set out all by yourself. but in reality GTD was your passive-aggressive smokescreen that made it possible to be a slacker. and in some super bureaucratic organizations (HIGHER EDUCATION) imho the best you can do at your job to keep the place running smoothly is.. nothing. the reason you need to be there is to mostly do nothing and be a roadblock for people who want to actually GTD and change shit and thus, fuck it up worse than it was before.

maybe "executive function" has always been anathema to lots of people b/c naturally lots of people aren't good at things? there will always be incompetent people. of course, there is the problem that the more tv/internets/technological distractions are around, the more we reprogram our brains to expect constant distraction.

i don't understand what this is. teaching people how to write things down?

they make notebooks with dates already in them and lines for writing on. it's not a "hack." lol.

i have trouble accepting that "naturally lots of people aren't good at things" sometimes, sorry :(

if you tell nerds something is a hack they will do it

i guess in general i just think.. if the goal of xyz system like GTD is to make everyone good at doing the tasks at hand, it's not the case that everyone can be good at them, even with a time/task management system. for example, out of people who program for a living, a certain % are always going to be average to below average at it. or in my case, trying to do academic writing, i am not a stupid person but i could schedule, plan, and organize til the cows come home, and it still won't be possible for me to do this work well. but i could waste lots of time and energy and bring plenty of guilt on myself by thinking GTD was the answer, instead of looking for a different vocation that suits me better.

oh, not good at that kind of thing sure. neither am i. it's that sometimes i just don't realize how people can't manage daily tasks without using a pre-formulated "system." then i get irl frustrated at them because my brain has always worked that way, i'm bad

daria I think the point you make about competency & GTD dovetails with what I'm trying to get at regarding "erosion of executive function" or "OODA interruption" or whatever the cognitive science literature at hand happens to call it - the root cause of gross (here meaning over-all, consistently demonstrated) incompetence isn't poor time management, task recall, or clear communication, it's that so many adults are incapable of performing the least little bit of lateral thinking or, frankly, root cause investigation on their own.

In order to solve a difficult problem, a person typically has to be able to remove themselves from the immediate context and "play house." I have a strong suspicion that most children are more capable of metaphorical conception of new challenges than their parents (up to some age that a lengthy literature review might identify - anybody got a working university library card and a lot of spare time to help me out?). To me, the presence of so many plz-to-tattoo-the-staples-easy-button-on-my-forehead problems in work environments all over the world is a bright shining signal that the self-help literature is all a sham, a failure, and our methods of preparing young adults for entry into work are a big batch of horrible, axiomatic procedures leading to negligence.

Also possibly related (and I don't really think the humanities tag is the only one that applies): http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the-Huma/44846/

I can't write code worth a shit and I've never tried to get better at it - the reason being I've always outsourced my best ideas for automated analysis/task triage/data presentation to people I know who are exceptional at the implementation side - those same people will lean on me to find the tent pole and get a fix for the resources they're missing or the bureaucratic potholes.

Maybe I'm more aggravated by this kind of thing because my chosen (given?) area of expertise is in leaving the box and finding answers outside of the typical contexts of my colleagues' offices.

And now I've just gone looking for some "makers vs managers" bullshit and have been reminded again that most professional engineers still never, ever, ever remember that there are end users - phonewallahs and customers - who have to use their stupid tools day in and day out. I've been the guy who thinks everything is a dialectic between me and my bosses. That guy is always wrong, and again, we have a problem of context.

I'm really just writing out loud, you can all ignore me.

what's the GTD consensus on smoking weed?

this is interesting.
i have def sent that benton essay (the original, and the followup) to people who are kind of musing, oh maybe i'll go back to school for a phd. i think my liberal arts education from undergrad was pretty helpful in developing critical thinking skills & learning to think outside the box. the trouble was i didn't realize for a long time that these skills themselves were useful in a professional workplace, having believed the subject to which you applied them was the most important thing. in other words, wth do i do about finding a job, if nobody cares how much i know about poststructuralist literary theory?

far as investigating the root cause of a problem (my experience, in troubleshooting tech stuff), my favorite part is when people quickly assume you can't solve it & get all pissy if the FIRST THING you look at isn't the problem. or then they lose patience if it isn't the second thing. because they don't comprehend that the process of the getting to the root of the problem requires eliminating obvious possible causes, one by one.

that's frustrating if engineers don't think about end users. is there a culture (again i saw it in web development, depending on the workplace) where they assume the users are stupid, if they don't do things how the engineers have decided they should? i tend to believe, some users will always be stupid, but they still have to use the thing (or the site), let's design so they don't have to think about it. and most users are not stupid, they have more important things to do than deal with an unnecessarily high learning curve because of bad design.

http://www.break.com/usercontent/2008/4/Office-Space-I-have-people-skills-488721.html

tbh I have found that my own mental faculties are ossifying one and a half years out of school - part of it is I can do my current job on autopilot pretty much and do nothing to improve myself besides posting to ilx and watching movies. I need to find the mental equivalent of jumping jacks or something to keep my brain from losing its plasticity.

I remember trying to figure out what GTD was back when it was a 'thing' and back then it seemed like some sort of hilarious parody - like why on earth would anyone take the time to remember what these color coded index cards are when you can just make a 'to-do list' with a single piece of paper and pen

gtd has good elements and dumb elements and really the problem with it is not that it exists but the amount of white collar professionals who are straight up SUCKERS and think that throwing a bunch of money at the problem of their own intellectual limitations will get them promoted to vp or whatever.

yes that

i didn't realize for a long time that these skills themselves were useful in a professional workplace, having believed the subject to which you applied them was the most important thing

and this
I think this is a v. typical blind spot for employers and employees. When I'm handed a stack of resumes to mark up I tend to take a high view of candidates who have an interdisciplinary background - and then have to explain myself to both the hiring manager AND (if they make it through opm, dhs chco, security, etc.) the employee, because most workers seem to have never been exposed to the idea that you can relate experience from a job in one field to a job in another.

With experienced folks it's even worse. Like Gawande's checklist essay that became the book, there's resistance everywhere to try and introduce tools or concepts from one field to another, emphasizing the little obvious differences instead of seeing possible benefits. To some degree this is probably more annoying to me because I get extraordinarily frustrated at people's simple inertia.

Maybe I'm underestimating the impact that 2.5 years of anthropology had on me, since the term "holistic approach" isn't totally verboten in that field (yet).

i'd been hoping that was the way to go in cover letters for job applications right out of college - i had some administrative work study and summer jobs but little non-menial full-time work experience, figured explaining skills i thought were relevant would help - but either i did it badly, or it's not something employers take well! i guess it must vary wildly depending on employers.

So I'm like, super back on this wagon.

getting steens driven.

― s1ocki, Thursday, August 30, 2007 8:53 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

god yes

http://www.projectcheck.org/checklist-for-checklists.html

lols

I've got things down pretty simply now:

- a text file where i write stuff down as it occurs to me, then transfer to appropriate project lists during reviews. i also record tasks completed during the course of the day (by the end of the day i wind up with a list that's 'the date and the stuff i did')

- a folder called 'projects' full of text files, which themselves have notes and the next relevant todos for the individual projects

- an outlook calendar that's like the map for my day--i spend my day knocking out tasks within each project within the time boundaries i set on my calendar. the last thing i do before i leave the office is sync my cal to my phone so i can review it on the train and prep in the AM.

for non-work-related i use

- a set of index cards bound with a binder clip to write stuff down when i'm away from the computer
+ lists on the back of the index cards with tasks divided by the places i need to be to do them, namely '@home' '@work' '@[girlfriend's]' and '@train'

Using GTD's 'contexts' in my work life has proven pretty useless--if I was strict about it my whole day would be crossing items off a comically long list called '@computer'--so the project thing is an adaptation, but using contexts in my personal life has proven to be hugely useful for me--now instead of puttering and tooling around on my phone on the train, I wind up writing emails I need to send once I get out of the tunnel, etc.

I think the reason this has proven to have so much staying power for me--it certainly isn't for everyone--is that it helps me manage my worst habits and tendencies (forgetfulness, distractability, overcommitment as my spirit animal) in a way that keeps me moving forward in all the projects I'm involved in and care about.

http://5by5.tv/mpu/132

i have been 'blogging' abt 'productivity' and i can't decide if i should still like myself or not

former

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