GTD Dictionary: Cranking Widgets

Cranking widgets:

• To stimulate, activate, or produce.
• Something considered typical or representative.

One of the big things that David Allen covered in GTD was the distinction between simple, mindless tasks that required little thought or focus, and those complicated projects where copious amounts of planning and thought are required, and which can send you into a spiral of stress and confusion. Allen described the former as widget cranking – the equivalent of going to work in a factory and doing whatever simple task was required of you as items came down the conveyor belt.

The thing about cranking widgets is it’s easy, measurable and, perhaps more importantly, it’s low-stress and satisfying in a very simple way. You know what you’re producing and how fast you’re doing it. It’s easy to know when you’re being productive and when you’re not. You don’t have to put in any heavy thinking. Unfortunately such work is hard to find nowadays and when it comes to all those intimidating projects and tasks, things quickly become much more complicated.

In the modern workplace, it’s no longer enough to just crank widgets all day. You won’t get paid for just stamping and stapling the paperwork all day. You will get paid for dealing with what paper to use, what goes on the paper, how it gets presented and who it gets sent to. In effect, you have to put in the thinking and planning yourself to deal with the increased complexity and detail.

However, as David Allen argues, you can still crank widgets, or at least achieve the essence of working that way, by breaking your work down to next actions.