What's the next action

2 years of GTD - what does it lead to?

11 12 06 - 08:19 - Bookmark this post

My girlfriend asked me the other day: You are writing two years on your blog. But one day, you must know everything there is to know about GTD? You must be out of topics someday? One thing I have learned the last years is that GTD is a path to personal productivity with many many new ways to explore and find your own style. Since the incarnation of this blog I have been on and off the bandwagon, trying numerous online applications (how many Thinking MoleMonkeyTiddlyBackpack Addin Managers can you have?) and constantly finding better ways to improve my own productive self.
I wholeheartedly recognize the phrase from The Dave the other day: “You will need somewhat over two years to really get going with GTD.”
That is absolutely the truth. When I started with the book, first thing I did was do a braindump. Where? On a platform, waiting for a late train. Just on a piece of paper. I thought to myself, man, this is it! Now I am free to think creative again.

I found that piece of paper two weeks later somewhere on my desk and threw it away.

I started putting every single piece of information on projects in different filefolders. labelling them. Nicely tucked away in a drawer under my desk. One week later, everything was out on my desk again. Couldn’t find a thing and some projects were already over or had changed.

What I forgot, and what I found out just recent, is you need a Weekly Review. It is critical to the succes of your efforts. Doesn’t matter how you call your system or if you follow GTD by heart or just loosely. You need to bracket out some time every week to get clean, clear and current again. Otherwise it just builds up to these stacks of un-managable “stuff” you hate to deal with one day or another.

In my list of 21 links to start with GTD I referenced one article as my favorite. It is the connection between GTD and Tai Chi. Now, unfortunately I had to stop practicing Tai Chi at my local gym but I still try to follow the philosophy and principles. And I still feel a great relation between the two. For instance, I feel more than ever that it is the principle of the martial art that count, not the form. You need to follow the principle to understand the form.
Same with GTD. I think I practice GTD without all the hoopla that is described in the book and on numerous websites. At home, I don’t have a desk, I don’t have a drawer, labeller, filefolders. Don’t have room for it! I just have my laptop, sitting on the couch. Next to me I have a little Inbox. Paperbased projectmaterial? Almost non-existent in our house and if it is, it goes into big ringbinders in our closet on the other end of the room.
But I do feel I am Getting Things Done. Without frantically writing in my Moleskine and defining my own alpanumeric system to code and decode messages. What do I do? I have a stack of 3×5” cards with me and a pen. And I just jot down words, half sentences. When at home or at work, I put them in my Inbox and at least once every 3-4 days I empty the pile. Put it in my mindmaps, calendar, writing emails, checking a website. Whatever needs to be done. And after that, just DO the things. You will find yourself tweaking and fiddling with your system more than you would hope. I try to stop doing that and just get on with it. But every now and again, some reconfiguration may occur. And that’s OK. As long as it is done without holding up other projects or tasks.

One thing I learned just recently is you can put projects on your Someday/Maybe list. Sounds silly, but I had a revelation while brushing my teeth. Which is fun actually, watching yourself at 6 am in the morning with a toothbrush in your mouth, having a revelation. Here it is:
I have a lot of projects in my projectlist right now that DO have a Next Action, but they DON’T require that Next Action to happen as soon as possible.
For instance: Our backyard is a mess. It needs cleaning up. It needs to be reshaped, new plants, trees, furniture. Everything. First thing to do for me: Brainstorm some ideas to what I might want in my new garden.
Do I need to do this right away? No. It is almost winter and I don’t care about the garden right now. I have more important stuff on my mind. So instead of putting “brainstorm about garden” on my projectlist, I put it on my Someday/Maybe list.
Now this may sound a little silly but it makes a huge difference! Why? Because, when I do my Weekly Review every two weeks (ahem…) I see the NA in my Someday/Maybe list and I can think to myself “Not now buddy….not now” and I am free to NOT think about my new garden. Because I know when the time has come to start thinking and outlining and brainstorming about my garden, I will see it on my list. So no need to worry I might forget it. Easy as that.

Those are the little things you discover when you work on your personal productivity over the last two years. Some of the are obvious, others are more hidden. Which makes it fun to work on. One other thing I learned the other day. The Dave always talks about having an empty mind. Well, having an empty mind does not mean “not thinking about anything”, but actually it means “very clear thinking about a specific subject without the distraction of other subjects”. I found a very interesting article on this matter.

So there you have it, a fine piece of my mind about hte last two years. Bottomline: You will uncover hidden pearls more than you think over time. But just make sure you just get going with doing stuff instead of making a system to track trying to do stuff.

(Photo courtesy of Kogakure @ Flickr.com)

I sometimes feel like I have a long way to go, but because of posts like this i can convince myself that I am always making progress GTDing towards my MLW ;)

A little revelation I had recently, in planning work at, uh, work. In my GTD tool Outlook I create a task by send-and-delegate’ing an e-mail to the guy doing the planning. I CC the mail (which also has a little briefing) to the person that has to be planned to actually do the task. The trick is, I also assign the task to that planned-in person, so he (yes, all males at our little agency) can tick it off when it’s done. I then get a message that the task is being modified, and can tick it off my @Waiting for.

For some reason this sounds complicated, but I guess that’s because it’s so simple… ;)
Ruben Timmerman - 11 12 06 - 21:54

TO what does it lead. Sheesh.
Chris - 19 12 06 - 03:54