Getting Things Done (GTD) - Cult or Awesome?

All management and productivity plans/cults/styles are evil. As are team-building exercises and personality tests that you then discuss (a friend was bitching to me about some 'DISC' test his company made him take, then had other people try to guess which letter he was when he wasn't in the room?).

Evil evil evil.

i have never been able to keep an agenda or a planner or even enter shit into ical besides the one time a year (TIFF) i need to plan my life minute-to-minute. it's all in my head/email program.

kinda scary actually!!

haha for a minute i thought you were referring to like tax season with the ical and tiff talk and then i realized what those words/acronyms meant and then i laughed. but i think that is kind of awesome.

though i have no idea how you manage to live your life

how to work (almost) completely online = awesome.

contents of my google account + my moleskine = like my entire life.

The Zen Habits guy drives me a little crazy.

when the oil runs out where will all yr precious internet-stored files be? it is something i worry abt sometimes
xpost

there is a zen habits guy??

"zen habits" is the blog that the "how to work online" story was posted on.

ohohoh
i'm gonna go see if he drives me crazy

wow it seems I already follow all 50 Cheapskate steps by necessity.

except I make up for not drinking frugally by not owning Only One Car.

tried to get into this book about a year ago... couldn't finish.

i agree with daria-g a good bit. but hey, if you can take a couple good points of advice (and i think the book has a few) and make it work, gouge away!

i would say it's both cult (bad) and possibly awesome.

The way GTD enthusiasts have extrapolated these ideas into a complex of fussily micromanaged systems seems counterintuitive -- this is supposed to make me more productive and less stressed out how? And the GTD wiki-cult out there just seems like a seething monument to a billion tiny daily freakouts enacted by OCD people across the internet.
^^ This.

GTD seems like a really good way to fill up all the time I could be using for getting interesting shit done with filing bills and boring stuff into its system. Then printing a wee label. Meh, that stuff gets done anyway, and the interesting things don't really break down into "next actions".

I haven't read the book or even finished the wikipedia page on it. Overwhelming, too much for my needs. GTD via moleskine is fine for me, but then I'm not mid-management. I don't fuck with "next actions" or "43 folders" or anything.

So what part of GTD are you doing, then? Writing stuff down in a black notepad?

Writing stuff down in a black notepad?

basically, yes. as i said above, i'm using this tweak. capturing, "processing" (which i guess is just "next action"ing, but i hate anything that turns "action" into a verb), archiving.

I thought this was going to be a Larry the Cable Guy thread.

when i asked the gf if she'd heard of "gtd" she said "you know i fucking hate larry the cable guy"

As do all right thinking folk.

So what part of GTD are you doing, then? Writing stuff down in a black notepad?

I'm guessing that, as Jeff kinda said, the "system" is just being organized. And maybe a few common motivational tools thrown into the mix can't hurt. I don't have a problem with any of this, except maybe that some is getting rich off of "inventing" it.

someONE

being organized is for suckers

no it's not

That's what The Man wants you to think.

who wants to DO shit, right?

Obviously there's something to be said for beauty in chaos, structure visible only to the eccentric, whatnot. Systematizing can definitely come off as kinda soul-deadening. I spent a while on drugs, sleeping on books I'd never read, writing half-assed poetry (that coulda been great if I'd revised the shit), and spewing ideas about my Great American Novel. It was fun and I was often admirably described as a wild-eyed romantic.

I'm done with that now. I'm actually writing down those Great American Novel ideas, but now I'm paying some bills and actually completing errands & assignments too. A little organization is doing me a lot of good. I'm pretty sure I've kept my soul in the process.

I like index cards. A folded index card doesn't get lost in my pocket like a folded-up piece of thin paper. And if I'm really feeling Alzheimerish I make a list and put it on the passenger seat of my car and cross things off as I do them. One time I actually did all the things.
If I don't do all the things, which is always, I just throw the list away.

After doing what I can. Doing what is humanly fucking possible.

Which isn't everything. Fuck it.

hoos and beth both otm... you have to DO shit. How do you menage to feel good if you never DO anything?

Cult OR Awesome?

it could be an awsome cult?

My system is pretty simple. I like using a combination of web-based solutions and I always roll with my USB drive.

I use Remember the Milk (RTM) for task management. I love its simplicity and that I can drive it entirely with the keyboard shortcuts. I create tasks and tag them with all the different contexts (@computer, @home, @work, @errands, @school, etc). I set due dates and prioritize here. Basically any task that isn’t set in stone with a specific date goes on here. I can add and retrieve tasks with my cell phone, and have reminders sent to my phone. I try to do a weekly review with my tasks list.

For date specific tasks, appointments, etc, I use Google Calendar. It integrates well with RTM as well. I have reminders sent to my phone. This is probably one of the most important features for me, I always have my phone, so I’ll always get a reminder of when I need to do something or be somewhere.

I use Gmail for mail. I also use my email as a dumping ground for whatever random thought that I have that I feel I may need to remember later. I do this two ways. I can use a text message just to my email address. This way whenever I get back to my computer, that thought will be at the top of my inbox, I can move it either to RTM if it is a task or my personal wiki if it is just something I need to revisit later. I also use Jott. I do this if I don’t have the time to text, I just dial Jott, say “myself’, then record my message. Again, when I get back to my computer, it’s sitting there at the top of my inbox, ready to be moved to the appropriate area.

I keep a very plain wiki on my USB drive just to capture random thoughts. Very little time is spent formatting this, it’s basically a dumping ground for ideas.

Also I my USB drive, I keep all the portable applications that I might need. Keepass is great for keeping all my passwords. Also have encryption software, firefox, and few other applications. Also keep copies of my resume in all kinds of formats and academic papers.

Other things that I won’t go into more boring details, but they are still integral parts of my system

Bookmarking: del.icio.us, indispensable
Text macros: ActiveWords, totally indispensable software. I use it constantly throughout the day to save keystrokes.
Contact Management: Plaxo, still trying this one out, so far so good, big plus is that it syncs with Google apps.
News/Web browsing/Information: Google Reader. I don’t browse websites. I have everything from productivity website feeds to CTA transit alerts to a feed that reports all reported crimes that occur on my block.
Collaborative documents: Google Docs, good for sharing documents with my wife, since she uses it as well. Christmas lists, household things, etc.
Finances: Quicken, I keep track of every single transaction we make. Always good to know my balance since Washington Mutual seems to always have it wrong on their website.
Citations: Endnote, I basically make a reference and write a short annotation for every book I read or use. A global bibliography.
Backups: SyncBack SE, I do daily backups of all my documents, settings, and music to an external drive. Backup logs are mailed to me every morning.
Browser: Firefox with tons of Firefox extensions, greasemonkey scripts, and stylish scripts.
Physical activity tracking: Sanoodi, I try to keep track of all my runs, but I haven’t been good about entering them all. I need a GPS device.

In a nutshell, brain dumps go via text message or Jott call to my email, where I transfer it to RTM, gCal, wiki, etc. Tasks get done, get checked off. I don’t think I spend a lot of time micromanaging. I get a lot done. However, it never ends.

How to make POCKET

AWESOME

why is del.icio.us good if you only use one computer

BOOKMARKING - I dunno, however Safari does it
TEXT MACROS - waht?
CONTACT MANAGEMENT - 'recent calls'
NEWS/WEB BROWSING/INFO - um, Safari
COLLABORATIVE DOCUMENTS - other people suck
FINANCES - a prayer every now and then, check Bank of America on occasion
CITATIONS - I haven't gotten a speeding ticket in 18 months
BACKUPS - an extra birth certificate in my parents' gun safe
BROWSER - Safari
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY TRACKING - how tired my feet are and how much my left shoulder hurts

I have a lot of issues with concentration and organization so important things which get put off/forgotten inevitably become huge anxiety issues. I might give some of the basic things outlined a try.

For me the biggest enemy wasn't concentration or organization, but distraction. Surprise, surprise I discovered I got more work done if I kept IM, email, and my RSS reader either closed or sent off to another workspace. My personal mandate is if I add another feed to the reader, I have to remove two.

Checking things off my list = biggest productivity boost ever.

i swear i'm going to start a cult/self-non-help course or whatever and call it Don't Get Your Shit Together.

http://events.sut.org.uk/otmlogo.gif

Jeff, goddamnit, go to hell. If you can keep track of all that shit at once, I do not believe you need software to help you keep track of what's in yr brain. Your "keeping track of things" routine is about 19 times more complicated than my daily life. No, 29. 39!

Maybe I'll start to understand where you are once a doctor puts me on way too much medical speed and I start to freak out. Your system does sound like more fun than cleaning the bathroom floor with a toothbrush. Apart from that...

I'm sorry, jeff. I don't want you to go to hell. I'm horrifically envious.

from the "Don't Get Your Shit Together" blog (that doesn't have a lot of links and has the standard blogger template)

lifewhacks tip #34: Move back in with your parents

I dunno, it just sounds like a good idea.
posted by "the dude" on 12-12-2007 12:12:12pm

did that at 26.

Scarring experience.

Mister M uses a version of GTD in his work, and it works very well for him, because he is one of those people who will look at a huge block of work and kind of panic. It's a good way to turn an amorphous project into discrete tasks, and it suits him because it kind of calms him down.

I, on the other hand, have streamlined my life by having a job which features one task and one task only, which I do over and over again. No organization needed. Of course, now all my nice notebooks and pens and things that I love to buy are completely redundant. I might have to start writing letters to people.

mmm... assembly line

BOOKMARKING -
TEXT MACROS -
CONTACT MANAGEMENT -
NEWS/WEB BROWSING/INFO -
COLLABORATIVE DOCUMENTS -
FINANCES -
CITATIONS -
BACKUPS -
BROWSER -
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY TRACKING -

Jeff's post confuses me - people really link in to this network of software to track their life? REALLY? How many people do this? I'm not kidding here, or trying to be funny -I know I'm a luddite - but WHY? How in hell does this not stress you to death? What if this support system malfunctions or fails? I cannot believe that this way of life can make you more productive or happier, sorry.

Also, what are these tasks referred to above? Are they work-related or personal or a mixture/continuum of both? Are they related to a specific job? Some are obvious - finances, for example. What's contact management? I have a 20 year old filofax with addresses in, but I don't manage it. Does that count?

Text Macros? You save keystrokes - why?

Bookmarking? I use a bookmark.

Physical Activity Tracking. Why on earth do you want to do this? If I go for a run, then, well...I've been for a run. Why do I need to log this in a computer. If my time was good, bad or indifferent, then that's what it was.

I believe that I am about as productive as I can be, or want to be, using bits of paper and my memory.

I have never heard of this before, but it just sounds ridiculous. And by ridiculous, I mean, so blantantly stupidly obvious that it would take the biggest charlatan in the world to make a copyrighted "system" out of it and an even bigger idiot (no offense to the people here that use it or find it helpful) to fall for it hook, line and sinker.

In what way is any of this new? Writing things down? Making lists? Evaluating the importance/priority of things as they come up? Isn't that called Just Being Organised? You need a BOOK to tell you these things? I learned them in the 5th grade.

Or did you really think that all that homework was actually to teach you algebra or the fall of the Holy Roman Empire? No! it was to teach you to be organised and develop your own system for managing your workload. I guess I did learn something at those expensive schools.

I don't vote cult or awesome, I vote so patently obvious it's up there with selling bottled tap water and, I don't know, repackaging sliced bread as an "innovative sandwich solutions".

I guess I did learn something at those expensive schools.

Well, you didn't learn any tact. I am offended that you have called my husband an idiot because he finds this system helpful. No amount of "I don't mean to be offensive" before saying something offensive like that really helps.

Yeah, I freely admit. I learned task management skills, but I never learned people management skills. But it does shock me that people can be so disorganised in the same way it shocks you that I can be so rude.

And what I actually said was, you're not an idiot if you use it and it's helpful to you, but you're an idiot if you think this is something new or unique or amazing. It isn't, it's something most people learn in grammar school. And making a copyrighted cult out of it and charging people money to learn it *is* ridiculous.

See also EVERY OTHER BUSINESS INITIATIVE EVER.

I am happy to be disorganized, to be honest.

If I come across as angry or beligerant, I apologise. I'm not angry at people who use systems like this, I'm angry at the kind of people who make shedloads of money hawking books and clinics and workshops and charging consultation fees to teach people perfectly common sense things. It's like snake oil salesmen or travelling tent preachers to me.

I cultivate an air of completely disorganisation because, as Feynman said, it gets you out of having to do unpleasant things if you cultivate an air of unresponsibility. But I am actually a keenly organised person underneath the hippie pose. Ha ha. I would never admit that in the office, though.

http://www.akira2019.com/images/characters1/thecolnel.jpg

"They don't teach tact at the academy."