About Getting Things Done
March 11th, 2008 | Published in soundbites, tech | 10 Comments
Maybe many of us geeky types live in our own worlds where we take for granted, as ‘normal,’ the things we know and love (or things we hear about a lot). Like GTD, for example. I’m not a huge practitioner of the GTD philosophy, but I read enough blogs about it, and as a Mac user/follower of Mac-centric software and tech news, am constantly in the loop about… GTD applications. I’ve tried just about every GTD app there is in the Macniverse, but seldom persisted (isn’t it strange there’s hardly even one equivalent GTD app on Windows that’s… near the quality of the many GTD apps we have on OS X?). Today, on a whim, I decided that implementing iGTD into my workflow would be a great idea. I had to tell someone about it on the phone.
Me: “Check your email, I sent you a screenshot of how I’m serious about doing what I promised you I’d do!”
Someone: “How do you go about proving that you’re serious about doing something you promised me.. in a screenshot?”
Me: “I downloaded this application, created a new project for you, and added the two tasks I was supposed to do under it. Marked it as high priority, even.”
Someone: “Instead of… actually just doing it?”
Me: “That’s right. Funny how I haven’t… thought of that.”
Moral of the story. Every once in a while, look up from your RSS reader and your GTD applications, and… actually try to get things done instead of blogging about getting things done. That is, if you’re a regular geek like me and not one of those not super-efficient GTD kungfu masters who can code beautifully, write really well, take great photographs, run a highly successful online empire, all while writing code that can change the world, and organizing the bits and pieces of your life using GTD applications. Alternatively. Use any combination of the following: pen and paper, pen and sweaty palm, a real stickie note stuck on computer screen. Because I could really do with getting things actually done right now, with the million and one projects I’ve very ambitiously taken on, being hyper-efficient might not help as much as having maybe eight extra hours in a day.
March 11th, 2008 at 5:55 am (#)
Same here, read all the GTD books, tried out the apps, and you know what? I just can’t follow that crazy regime everyday of my life. For starters, I cannot take it if my inbox is actually empty. Right now it has roughly 20000 emails.
March 11th, 2008 at 7:38 am (#)
I am a rather late comer to GTD, having been asleep in my Franklin Covey planner for the last decade, but recently started implementing GTD after finding an app that allows me to take it wherever I go, desktop at home and work, and on my iPhone. I posted my recent experiences with GTD on my blog at http://johnkendrick.wordpress.com.
March 11th, 2008 at 10:55 am (#)
Reading the book was definitely an epiphany of sorts for me - especially understanding that to-do lists should not live in your head. That said, I’ve not been sold on the whole 43 folders thing or for that matter Inbox Zero.
I’ve sort of cherry-picked some ideas from GTD that I find I can work into my habits easily - stuff like the “psychic RAM sweep”, 2-minute rule, weekly filing etc. But I still use my Inbox as a to-do list and guess what, it works.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:15 am (#)
I finally read the GTD book, and came away feeling like if I was that productive, it would just encourage me to work more (because I could get so much done!), and I don’t really want that. My cobbled-together system of Google Calendars, text files strewn across my desktop, and my own shoddy memory is keeping my bloody well busy enough. :)
March 11th, 2008 at 5:37 pm (#)
i’ve..never…heard…you…sound…so..singaporean…..
March 11th, 2008 at 11:40 pm (#)
Lainie.. every once in a while, I need to… convince myself of that. Malaysiaku Gemilang! :)
March 12th, 2008 at 4:10 am (#)
Nice post. It’s always the struggle - play with your system or actually use it for it’s intended purpose.
For me, I’ve been able to do the latter once I tried Things. It has met all my needs.
March 12th, 2008 at 7:35 pm (#)
I use the program iGTD, not to organize my whole life, but rather as a task manager. And yes, it is easy to spend more time organizing than doing.
By the way, I just ordered a MacBook Air :)
March 15th, 2008 at 12:35 pm (#)
I haven’t been keeping track of how long I’ve been ignoring Ready-Set-Do but I resonate with your post. I can get lost in planning how I’m going to do great things and not do them…
Having said that, of course I have to now go check out the iPhone app mentioned in the comments…
March 17th, 2008 at 9:43 am (#)
Good post! I too have tried those GTD apps but they slowly die down after awhile. Aside from being a procrastinator, I had problems syncing everything from my phone, online and 3 different computers.
Nothing beats pen and paper!