Organize IT

This guest post was written by Rich of Half-A-Dozen Monkeys.

The main focus of David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology is… well, to get things done. It aims to give you a tool to enable you to identify everything you need to do and then go and get those things done. This is fine. No, this is superb. But it does create one particular problem – it consciously blurs the boundaries between all aspects of your life. It seeks to provide you with a solution to all strands of what you do in one fair swoop, on the assumption that for a lot of people the boundaries are already a little fuzzy.

On Monday I talked about the misconception of creativity – that it’s about thinking big, opening your mind, etc. This got me thinking about what I believe to be another big misconception. Many people claim that GTD and creativity don’t work together, and to be frank it’s kind of frustrating. It’s such a matter-of-fact statement, I’ve yet to find anybody back that statement up and I feel it’s based on certain stereotypes of GTD and productivity in general. I’m by no means a GTD-zealot, but I am a fan, I have found it useful, and yes, I like to think I am fairly creative. I do believe the two mix and they can mix very well. Below are my reasons why I believe that.

Excuse the rambling nature of this post but I’ve had a few thoughts about creativity recently and I want to get it off my head (in the spirit of my last post). You see, creativity seems to be associated with hippy-like ideas about thinking big and opening your mind to new ideas and different experiences. Don’t focus on small things, think about the big picture! But I’m not so sure…

I’m pleased to announce that this month marks the third birthday of Organize IT. Unfortunately there won’t be a party or cake but I’m still very proud of this achievement, and just a little bit amazed because, ignoring such things as holidays and the little matter of my wedding last year, this blog has been active each and every week of those three years. Given that most blogs die a lonely, neglected death within their first month, it’s safe to say I’m pretty damn happy with what I’ve achieved so far.

Clutter is a big problem for numerous reasons – it gets in the way, it makes it difficult to find stuff. In fact, I think that de-cluttering your surroundings is so important to your overall wellbeing I have an entire section called Clutter 101 dedicated to it. But what about the psychological effect? It’s great being able to find your keys, know exactly where your passport is and not have to dig through piles of paperwork to find that old receipt, but it goes much deeper than that.