Organize IT

A couple of months ago I posed a little question on Twitter, having spent quite a bit of time figuring out how best to categorize Organize IT. I was surprised by the number of people who responded with their opinions and preferences. Productivity, personal development, lifestyle design, or other? What’s the name for all of this? What are all us bloggers actually writing about? And does it really matter what it gets called? Of course not, but it would be interesting to see what the general consensus is…

A simple question today that I hope will get some varied responses. How did you learn GTD (or if you use something else, how did you learn that)? The obvious answer will probably be that you just read the book, but that wasn’t the case for me and I suspect it isn’t the case for many of you guys too. I originally came across GTD via several blogs like Lifehack.org and picked up tips from those for a few months before finally purchasing the book. I applied bits and pieces from the book as I needed them so I suppose you can say I never really had a “full” GTD implementation (the original highlights that I took from the book were contexts, next actions and, er… having a big filing system).

In the process of writing Monday’s post on why I prefer the almighty pen and paper combination above all else, I ironically started to feel a slight twinge of curiosity about all those GTD apps out there. Most of the GTD related tweets on Twitter revolve around people’s experiments with different apps and I pretty much always skipped over them… until now.

As I mentioned on Monday, I’m currently reading a book called Do Good Lives Have To Cost The Earth? which discusses what living well actually means (basically, not the consumerist pursuit of material things that we’re used to) and how we do not have to damage the planet in order to achieve it. It’s well worth a read, but it brings up the question of what a good life really is. All the contributing authors in the book have their own take, what’s yours?

The whole idea of work/life balance has been a big issue for quite a few years now. As we become more embroiled in work and businesses demand more and more from us, it increasingly encroaches on our personal time. It’s no wonder the popularity of personal productivity and time management has soared. But how do you actually create this work/life balance?