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My Evolving GTD System: Part 1 February 2nd 2007
 GTD
 2 comments
As promised here is part 1 of my discussion regarding how I have implemented GTD over the last year and a half, and how it has evolved. What I like to consider my first iteration essentially involved an A5 ring binder and a set of dividers. These dividers included ‘Current Tasks’, ‘Undefined’ (essentially a Someday/Maybe before I came across the term) and ‘Archive’ (I also had a ‘Misc’ divider for various other bits and pieces but this was largely unconnected to the system as a whole). It happened to be A5 because it was very compact and, as you will read further down, I never even used half a sheet when writing down next actions so it would have been a big waste to use any size bigger. The overall size was quite a bonus in that I found it very easy to carry around with me. The system was originally formulated from reading various information from the Internet as I did not initially have the GTD book. It worked as follows; each task was put on a seperate piece of paper which would have the start date, the context, a tick box and then the task and details relating to it. When a task was completed I would write the completion date, tick the box and move it to the ‘Archive’ section. The beauty of it, at least to start with, was that completing a task and moving its sheet was very satisfying, because not only was I ticking it off as complete I had the physical action of moving it out of my next actions to my completion archive. While a lot of what the approach involved made logical sense, in practise it was really a lot of bureaucracy and unecessary fiddling around and as the system started to bed in and get used more it became a niggling issue. Everytime I needed to write out a new task I would have to take a blank sheet out of my binder, fill it in with various reference information that I would actually not use, and then put it back in the binder. So for my next iteration I cut out much of this fiddling. Contexts have never worked for me. I rarely have hundreds of tasks and/or large scale projects to manage. I did experiment with listing tasks under context headers but because I can scan my list of tasks in a few moments and pick out those that need doing there and then without having to refer to contexts, it did not take off. So, obviously that was one of the first things to go (I will no doubt be discussing my experiences with contexts at a later date). For similar reasons, I took out the need to write down the start and completion date, except for date sensitive tasks. After this I was simply left with a tick box and the task details though arguably I could have even done without the tick box as I was still moving tasks to the ‘Archive’ section upon completion. I also briefly experimented with using index cards. The idea was appealing (and still is in some ways) because of the size and flexibility. However, I could never find a way of keeping all the cards together as neatly as using sheets and a ring binder. In the next part of this series I will be discussing how opening and shutting ring binders for each task sheet gets very tedious, and how everything has come together into the system I use today.
Save Space In Your Home By Throwing Out Boxes January 31st 2007
Living
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I am going to be having a big party at my place with a lot of guests staying over and I wanted to get rid of as much clutter and junk as possible to create a bit of room. During this process I came across what is quite possibly the most simple but effective de-cluttering tip you will come across.
Introduction To Mind Mapping And GTD January 28th 2007
GTD
5 comments
While mind mapping has had some mention in relation to GTD I have never really used it before, apart from the occasional doodle in my notepad or when I was studying at school/university (even then more on the behest of the teacher). However I have just come across Bubbl.us via LifeDev and I am very interested by it because of its simplicity and ease of use. You don’t even have to register and log in to try it, which is always a bonus in terms of actually bothering to use something in the first place. While it’s early days I am keen to incorporate mind mapping into my workflow and I’ve detailed some ways of doing exactly that below.
Interesting Links: 24th Jan 2007 January 24th 2007
Links
1 comment
Its time for another bout of interesting links I have found while idly browsing between failed attempts at decorating the house. As always I consider these websites to have stimulating content regarding productivity, personal development and GTD. While you are certainly not obliged to return a link to my site, any support would be greatly appreciated!
Tweaking Your GTD Implementation January 22nd 2007
GTD
8 comments
Black Belt Productivity recently posted about GTD and whether it is a flexible framework open to interpretation or something that is set in stone with strict rules that need to be followed to allow it to work. Given how so many people implement GTD I would have to say it’s the former. David Allen’s book (whether intentionally or not) gives you so much freedom on how to adopt GTD and more importantly what tools you wish to achieve it. Everyone works and lives differently. We all have different expectations and demands on our time and lives so it’s important to create an approach that fits around you. |
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