Sun 20 Aug 2006
So on numerous occasions my personal productivity grognard buddies (I count myself in the clan, although I don’t attend monthly area productivity meetups and the like) have been raving about this relatively new system called Getting Things Done by David Allen, and how it’s been really revolutionizing the way they… er… get things done.
I’m more-or-less firmly in the Franklin-Covey system, and have been for the past 14 years. The thing is, though, lately I keep finding holes where I’m simply not fast enough to fill them. Back in college, and in Japan, when I wasn’t working from emails (and the necissity of Fast Work), I was so able to easily rule my life by Franklin Covey, but haven’t been able to keep up so easily recently. I wasn’t able to put my finger on why, though.
Anyway, this Getting Things Done system seems to incorporate a lot of the original thought behind the Franklin Planner, but the actual tasking is done in a way that’s compatible with a life of answering dozens of emails a day, or being swamped with hundreds of tasks at once, in a way that Franklin doesn’t seem to keep up with.
I’m just now working through the first few dozen pages of Getting Things Done, and it’s really talking to me. I definitely wanted to put this on Beth’s radar, as she’s been interested in personal productivity, and wanted to throw past Judd as well, as we’ve both been hard-line Franklin-Covey dudes for a long time.
I wanted to poll my other friends out there, though: Do you use this Getting Things Done system? If so (or if not) why? And is it working for you?
As I get through the book and start utilizing some of its elements, I’ll report on my journal.
Oh, incidentally: I lost five pounds in the past two weeks (most likely in the past week alone, actually). I haven’t really changed my eating habits too much (in fact, I ate a bunch of junk food on Thursday and Friday afternoons), but I’ve been really giving them new ECCO boots a workout, going walking some 3-5 miles, 2-3 times a week. Nothing revolutionary, but it’s paid off. I expect to hit a wall soon unless I also delve deeper into the Yoga and “Turbo Abs” stuff that I’ve been sloooowly getting into. I’ll keep y’all posted.
August 21st, 2006 at 7:48
Yes, I use getting things done, and I love it. I occaisionally end up shifting some of the specifics of how I go about it from index cards to pocket notebooks to larger notebooks and back to business cards, and it has been such a titanic success for me that i don’t talk about it too much because when I do I sound like some sort of brainwashed cultist.
That said, like most everyone I’ve spoken to, my implementation is idiosyncratic. It tends to be a system that peopel use 80% of, but a different 80%, depending upon who you talk to, so if you end up bastardizing it, there’s nothing weird about that.
Anyway, it’s worked really spectacularily well for me, like, magically has made more time in my day kind of well. The kind of mindfulness it’s trained me for is a big reason that my diet and health changes (to say nothing of writing schedule) have stayed on track this year.
-Rob D.
September 12th, 2006 at 5:43
I discovered the GTD Phenomenon thanks to then-neighborly to San Francisco [43 folders](http://www.43folders.com) site a few years back.
I *do* have a GTD implementation that works for me, however it is one of the major weak points of Allen’s methodology that he doesn’t explain tools how you actually got things done with GTD.
The *best* lesson I took away from Allen was the idea of inbox empty - where inbox empty doesn’t mean everything dealt with, it just means that everything that has come in has entered your trusted system ( or else you can’t psychically let go of it ) and will be dealt with.