Two new books

I was on vacation recently, doing a little recharging and unhooking, and read two fascinating books - The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell, and Love is the Killer App: How to Win Friends and Influence Business, by Tim Sanders. Gladwell, a former columnist with the New Yorker, wrote a fascinating tome based on the idea that, like viruses, fads, crime rate reduction, restarurant popularity – choose the latest thing creating a buzz – all have a reason, a single point in time where they exploded, where they became "sticky", and he has dubbed this the Tipping Point. This was a really fascinating read, and it will take some time for me to fully digest it.

The other book that I mentioned, Love is the Killer App, is a book I picked up on a whim after attending a leadership telecast in the spring. While I have to admit I am not a fan of Sanders’ writing style, his insistence on using words like “biz” and “lovecat” to sound hip, and his invention of new words like “bizlove”, I think the content that Sanders includes is worth the read. He is very focused on reading within and without your core business – general reference, marketing and advertising, anything you can get your hands on. But after digesting it and absorbing it, he insists that you try and apply it – something I am very often guilty of. He also suggests that you not just apply it – evangelize it. Preach about it. Refer it to friends and business colleagues.

I have done this recently with both Getting Things Done and The Tipping Point, referring these to business associates and friends and family. For me, it is a bit of going out on a limb, however Sanders is right – it really does force you to internalize what you’ve read and use it properly when you are trying to tell someone about the book. Good stuff in both of these.

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Stop your infernal hacking of GTD!

I’ve participated on mailing lists (see links to the side), and David Allen’s own forum. I’ve read blogs, and I’ve read responses. I’ve seen people refer someone, with good intent, to different software packages. I’ve seen posts on how people have found the perfect application after 100 milliseconds of looking around it’s menus, and seen other posts about how TuboCalendar3000 will have GTD features or things that will have “transference” to GTD. I’ve seen people dismiss out of hand something that works for someone else, because they believe the program they use is the best.

I’ve seen Moleskine notebooks, Hipster PDAs, Palms and Treos, Windows Mobile Devices, and everything in between, from the simple to the elegant. I’ve seen excitement spawned by the latest GTD-related software at SourceForge, or from XYZ company, or from Joe in his basement McGyver-ing something from VB, Java, some string and a peach pit. All this has lead me to a conclusion:

WE ARE ALL WASTING TOO MUCH TIME HACKING OUR SYSTEM TO GET THINGS DONE, AND NOT ACTUALLY GETTING ANYTHING DONE.

Consider this a challenge, a manifesto, a rant, but please consider what I am saying here. I’ve experienced it. I’ve experienced the backlash that accompanies the posts about not wanting to try the latest and greatest version of Shadow Plan, or My Life Organized, or the aforementioned TurboCalendarTaskListandBreakfastCooker 3000.

It is time to confess, I am a PV (Plain Vanilla – I’ve even seen someone refer to Plain Chocolate, an update on Plain Vanilla, as if it is a Plain Vanilla 2.0) Palm user, using a Tungsten E and Palm Desktop. I will also tell you that I am a recovering Agendus user, and I stopped using it because of performance issues. I do not work in the technical or sciences field, but I am a real user of GTD on a day-in-day-out basis. (I have my Green Belt, thanks, despite what I thought in a previous post). I am happy with my system and it works for me. This is what everyone should strive for – something that works for them. I have no argument with that.

However, every day when I read a forum or read my e-mail lists, I read about someone who has found the latest and greatest software, or has been using MLO and has developed the XYZ Template (not sure if MLO has templates, I’m sure someone will chime in and tell me how it actually works…), or is resurrecting some long-dead program on their Apple IIe to see how it works with GTD, and to see if they can hack the Palm to sync with it, or there is some new program that seems GTD-ish and they are going to press the developer to include some GTD hooks. All the other GTD'ers then chime in with advice on how to set XYZ up, or how to go through a complex syncing to get it to sync with ANOTHER program, or a comment about how they tried it, but chose another program, and the poster should too.... It is all just so much window-dressing. It is all so time-wasting. It is what one poster on one of the forums called Productivity Limbo - a phrase that I really like. I’ve been there, I got the t-shirt – and trust me, you don’t want it.

I was at a point about a year ago, when I was en-route to work and recording voice memos to myself for later processing, when I screamed into my phone that I should stop farting (not the words I used) around with various software for my Palm, pick something, and use it. I did settle on Agendus for about a year, until 3 months ago, when the aforementioned speed problems made me stop. I kept that voice memo around for about a month to remind me to stop the constant treadmill of downloading and trying, downloading and trying.

If you have been on this cycle, think of this: how much time have you wasted importing all your todos/appointments/checklists/whatever into each system you’ve tried? How much time trying to seamlessly transfer data from one desktop program to another? How much time farting around, and calling it “Hacking the GTD system?”.

If you have found something like Bonsai or MLO or whatever, and have been using it for sometime, and that is your system, then great for you. But if you are like many that I see that are flitting from one system to the other, to the other, to the other….. I have some news for you:

THERE IS NO PERFECT GTD SYSTEM! It is dependent on the user using it, regularly, as their trusted system.

By all means, try something. But do it slowly and deliberately. Use something for a period of at least weeks if not months before you determine there is no way that you can integrate it into your system and be happy. Then, slowly, as if you are beta-testing, try out something new.

Good luck to you all, but remember – as you go on your quest, make sure that you are doing something on your way there, otherwise it is all for naught.

P.S. - Whether you agree with this post, or disagree with it, please leave a comment. I'm interested to see if other people feel this way, or if everyone thinks I'm out to lunch.

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A tired (and slightly overexposed) Kona.