Comments on: Why Is Falling Off The Wagon Acceptable?

By: Joey Logano

Joey Logano — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:17:02 +0000

You have to fall off the wagon from time to time, in order to humble yourself, and to improve yourself. It only makes you stronger in the end.

By: James

James — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:02:47 +0000

Great comments as ever. I would stress that though I haven’t fallen off the wagon in a long while, I’ve had plenty of slips and stumbles along the way, it’s just not been that big drop.

I spent several months trying to figure out how to stop falling off the wagon (because it wasn’t just my productivity that slumped, it was my general wellbeing as well) and realized that, like a battery, the best way wasn’t to crank widgets till I went flat, but to pace myself better.

By: Bert Plat

Bert Plat — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:33:52 +0000

Because falling off the wagon, even when you’re black belt, means you’re out of your comfort zone and learning something. It’s easy to stay on the wagon if you stay in the same groove day after day, but then you’re not growing.

It’s easy to be enlightened and at peace with the world while sitting cross-legged on a mountain top, but much more of a challenge to remain so dodging the traffic in London.

By: Hilary

Hilary — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:19:16 +0000

Doing things that matter is infinitely more important than trying to set up a process that makes doing those things more efficiently. While doing things that matter you can critique and review the process so the next time you do it, you can do it more efficiently. Efficiency comes with time.

By: Ben Brooks

Ben Brooks — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:55:43 +0000

I would say that it is a necessary evil. Part of what makes GTD so easy to use, and yet so easy to stop using, is the built in flexibility. When you have a system that has guidelines but not written-in-stone rules (you must use paper or a particular program, etc.) you make is infinitely more usable and accessible to people. By the same token however, you make it much easier for people just to stop using the system. A catch-22 for sure.

By: Chrissy

Chrissy — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:27:22 +0000

I think it’s acceptable and even embraced because no one is perfect, and David Allen knows that. It isn’t enough to simply say, “Do it this way and you won’t fall off the wagon” because, inevitably, that would lead to people beating themselves up if and when it happened anyway (no matter what, people fluctuate in their habits and patterns). It’s much healthier and more productive to embrace it, acknowledge it, and learn from it.

Every time you fall off the wagon, something new is learned. You analyze what went wrong, when and why. You learn how to prevent the same thing from happening in the future, and, more importantly, you learn how to get back ON the wagon.

That’s just my two cents – and I’m a person who continuously falls off the wagon. I consider it a part of life. Sometimes GTD is exactly what I need and sometimes it just hinders me. I allow myself to fall off and jump back on over and over, without feeling bad or trying to adapt my process to avoid it. I see what you’re suggesting here but I’m afraid that there are few things any of us can do consistently without occasionally falling off.