Chapter 7 - Priorities function only at the conscious level.

As part of the Ready for Anything Yahoo! Group, I'm leading the charge to read a chapter a week of Ready for Anything. I will be posting my submissions to the group here.

This chapter is ringing very true to me right now. The last 10 or so weeks, I have managed to avoid the "blow up" stage, but I've also let my weekly reviews slip. I will be doing one tomorrow afternoon.

However, it is a lot of people around me that seem to be letting things slide until they do blow up that are really eating at me - mostly because I hear the brunt of it. (I'm now hoping that no one in my office is on this list). It is a very non-productive state, and when you are one of the few that feels like you are in a productive state, capturing everything, then things tend to be more noticeable around you.

There are many many things that are not in my system right now, but I'm trying to get them all in. I'm also trying to get things OUT. I have a context that specifically deals with some of my work, and it needs to be ploughed through. It will be a good weekend project, I think. It will certainly help me get some clarity back in my context lists.

Out of curiousity - is anyone else reading? Anyone else following? I've found this is much easier to do when divorced from my weekly review, because I don't feel like reading the 3 page chapters is an after thought. If you are, please comment!

Moving away from GTD?

I read a lot of stuff online, like just about everyone that is interested in GTD. The blogosphere, the web forums, the mailing lists, etc., etc. One trend that I have noticed is that GTD may be losing some popularity with folks - almost like it has "jumped the shark".

Specifically, it seems that people are moving off of GTD. They've found something else - often "Do it Tomorrow", which I have not read. And I find it funny. I've seen a lot of posts in various spots where people who claim to have ADD (jokingly and otherwise) have found GTD to be the saviour. Now they are moving on. Hmm...

What about you - are you moving on? Found something that helps you more? Let me know what you're thinking and doing now - I'd be curious how many dedicated folks are moving on, and whether part of it is the lack of structure that so many need leads to (you guessed it) endless farting around.

Monitoring progress...

Today have managed to do a number of things, but i the majority none of them have been in realspace - they've all been online. I've added stuff to my blog, I've looked for new widgets, I've played with Sitemeter (click the Sitemeter logo at the bottom to get the stats for this page - very revealing). I've done some cleaning, but there is more to do, so off I go to do it. I've planned to do some of it while a great radio program is on - Terry O'Reilly and the Age of Persuasion, which is a show on CBC about advertising and, in it's own way, consumerism. However, I'm hacking away at things that need doing, so here I go again, and off to do some more.

However, it's a GTD Sin: no list, just intuitive gut-level know it needs to be done stuff.

Hitching a ride on a runaway train...

This has got to be the worst implementation of GTD since the book has been published. Since the previous post, I've been nearly blinded by what I have to do. Staffing changes, holidays, working in other offices, an influx of new business... everything has been working against me. And what have I decided to do? Blog of course. This is the type of thing that I frankly railed against in a previous post, but here I am succumbing to it myself.

So, that being said - here I go! No more procrastination, I'm going to implement GTD AGAIN starting right now.

Wish me luck.

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.

Technorati Tags:gtd, gtd+hacking, hack+gtd, gtd+hack, geting+things+done, david+allen
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator