Partial, or Complete GTD?
Good news and bad news
Even after all these years, I’m still receiving more and more weekly requests for apps I’d recommend, endorsements of what other software folks are using, and personal application suggestions for the methodology of GTD. There’s good news and bad news for me in all that.
Good news: More and more people around the world are finding out about GTD with a positive attitude and trying to figure out how to implement it—for their software development startups and/or their personal uses. The great thing about GTD is that nothing you do, based on its principles and techniques, will hurt ( I say “it’s not like running with scissors”) and anything about the model you apply will improve your condition—professionally and personally. Keeping stuff out of your head; deciding what each of them means and what you need to do about them; organizing the results of that clarifying process into your external system of reminders; reviewing the inventory of your commitments; and then making more trusted choices about your focus and activity at the moment. Doing any of that is great stuff—Bravo!
Bad news: The majority of apps, personal systems and practices that people try to implement to do that job don’t really do the complete work of totally emptying your head so you can stop using it as your office. The difference between partially doing GTD and really fully doing it is phenomenal. “Really fully doing it” is a rarity and seldom done by any software and most people. If you ever get there, and have habits installed that keep you there, it creates transformative results in life and work. We’ve collected a volume of testimonials to that effect. But if you don’t get to that place? You won’t really trust either one. Some commitments and attentions are still in your head, not in your external brain. So you don’t really trust either one. Because you will tend to still be driven by the “latest and loudest” banging in your head vs. a trusted reflective process with what’s in your system, you won’t find the system worth the effort to keep it complete and current. Welcome to '“falling off the GTD wagon” which is an almost universal experience with people who try to adopt it.
The point of implementing the GTD processes is simply to create the ability to put all your attention focused upon where you want to put it at the moment, with clarity and confidence.
As the Confucian sage Mencius put it:
If you know the point of balance,
You can settle the details.
If you can settle the details,
You can stop running around.
Your mind will become calm.
If your mind becomes calm,
You can think in front of a tiger.
If you can think in front of a tiger,
You will surely succeed.
That’s why my second book was entitled Ready for Anything.
David
Of course people contact you wanting the best from the best! It is important to normalize falling off the wagon. :-) For me I am about progress, not perfection, and THAT creates self trust. A weekly review for some amount of time is better than none. If I make my list for the day, and look at it again, that is a win. If GTD is a form for the practice attention, then maybe at some level some self trust is better than none because of the efforts of systemizing and attending to what is in our care. Currently using just written lists and no software for simplicity. Thank you for writing!