Getting Things Done (GTD) - Cult or Awesome?

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

latest post now in instapaper

aw ty

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/

― El Tomboto, Sunday, January 17, 2010 5:34 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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.

― El Tomboto, Sunday, January 17, 2010 5:50 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tthis is a great pair of posts

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?

hahaha

Not to get all That Guy, but in the 5 years since I started this thread I've learned a lot about the kinds of things I want to spend my time fucking around with--and ultimately 'making lists' and 'comparing notebooks' and 'searching through emails' in hopes of Finishing The Project is decidedly *not* the thing that I want to have receiving the lion's share of my energy and time. I have shit in my life--people, passion projects, meaningful hobbies--that matters way more to me than Accomplishing Decontextualized Things as such. My tools are simple enough that they do what I need and then get out of my way so I can do the shit the list helpfully reminded me is the Thing That Matters Right Now. I'm glad I've grown up enough that I don't waste time trying to decide what list something should go on anymore--it just goes where it should go, so that I can get it done.

my new gtd strategy involves moving to a career that lets me do one thing at a time, although i do now use http://workflowy.com to manage my work. best to do thing i've ever used.

yeah it's been so liberating for me to move into a position where i can construct my day and decide my own priorities, cause i get to firewall ~relatively~ focus time based on when i know i'm most productive. i keep hearing workflowy is good, i might peek at it at some point if the text file thing starts t obore me.

that's the other half of this--as much as i appreciate the GTD workflow and the tools its pushed me to adopt as a way to handle my attention management probblems, it also gives me a useful framework to lean back into when those tools are no longer so interesting and engaging that their implementation is fun enough to maintain my attention: i can trust that when the text files start to bore me, i can look for something else that suits my needs, because now i know my needs well enough to recognize what meets them.

it's odd that my career allows me to firewall focus time but people in this company interrupt me every 1m 52s

so of course i never get things done ever

ha==the other day i was at work and i caught some article about average uninterrupted time at work, and was making a note of it, when i was interrupted--resulting in this:

http://distilleryimage9.ak.instagram.com/e32594849c8011e2802a22000a9f3c9c_7.jpg

the longer you aren't interrupted, the more you might be doing something besides working

'are you busy? oh sorry. can you do this? oh, you're busy. can you just do this now? and where's that other urgent thing i asked you to do? oh, is that what you were doing? can you do that now?'

EVERY DAY

I have felt your pain, AA.

:(

i even put up a sign, no use

they just go 'oh lol sign' and talk anyway

how's it goin?

where are we at with that?

pestering disguised as polite chitchat drives me up the wall

just wanted to check in, make sure you didn't need anything

by the way can one of you take care of these 7 things

the worst is having multiple of these people in your life who don't really communicate or care about the larger scheduling picture but just whatever little task they're worried about at the moment. particularly if one is more experienced/savvy/devious and knows how to constantly get me to do their stuff before the other guy's stuff.