Getting Things Done – Avoiding the Flavor of the Week System
Posted by Shawn on November 9, 2008
I am an advocate of David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”, or GTD concepts. As a “former” list junkie, a system that encourages list making felt like it was heaven sent. No longer are my desk, notebooks, refrigerator, mirror, car window, and computer screen filled with post-it notes listing those items I had to either do now, or remember to do at some point in the future. No doubt that 3M is by now feeling the pains of reduced revenue, as I rarely purchase the handy yellow, multi-color, or Dilbert sticky post-it notes.
GTD.
Get items out of your head.
Put items into a trusted system.
Collect.
Organize.
Do.
Process.
Someday Maybe.
Next Action.
Review Weekly.
Like any new idea or concept, one quickly becomes very engaged adapting the system. I used to love carrying around a notebook, more often than not your typical three hole, college-ruled notebook. People would chuckle because I would always have a notebook with me, capturing down either lists, more lists, or useful information. Rarely do I go back to review what I have written, but if I need to find something I know the first place to look.
Technology has not completely done away with the paper notebook, but it has lessened its importance in society. Write something down on paper and you can scan, fax, make a copy, email the scanned copy, but it is still your handwriting, readable or not. Enter it into a computer (or Blackberry, phone, or any other digital device), and you can save it, spell check it, email it, print it, process it, save it in a database, sort it, etc. Just like this article you are reading right now; it was created by entering the text into a computer rather than by writing it on paper.
So, when it comes to my implementation of GTD I was thrilled to use a computer to capture, organize, store, and process my information. The problem I have run into over the past several years is what application or system to use. I have used, MS Word, Excel, Outlook, text files, list organizing applications, and some GTD applications that others have written. Every time I think I have a great system I eventually find out that it really doesn’t work for me and I am not gaining the advantages for GTD. Maybe I’m asking for too much, but I want a system that is easy to maintain (I find Outlook very time consuming to use the task list even after tailoring it to my style), easy to see everything at a glance (Word works great for this until I try to find my Next Actions), easy to add and manage items (Excel is great for columns and sorting, but I hate dealing with trying to list all steps to complete an action and keep it looking organized), and I can access from my home and work computers as well as my Blackberry without having to copy back and forth.
I was very excited when I tried Goggle Docs as it eliminated the need to copy back and forth between computers. As I tried the document and spreadsheet files in Google Docs I had the same issues as with the MS products. My current GTD system is using the Google Docs spreadsheet; I’m still playing with it and like some things about it but cannot view the spreadsheet on my Blackberry.
So, a call out to all you GTD junkies. What systems have you found that work for you and you are convinced that you will stick with for the long run? And for those of you who are still looking for that perfect match, how close have you come on your quest?
I still carry about a notebook at all times, so I can try using that again while the perfect GTD computer solution attempts to find me.
