Phase 1. Use a GTD system. It works well. Things are getting done, nothing is being forgotten, and you’re feeling less stress. Life is good in Phase 1.
Phase 2. You grow confidence in your system. So much confidence that you throw new tasks into it with giddy abandon. Adding tasks to the system starts to give you the same feeling of accomplishment as actually completing the task. (This is obviously wrong, and the first warning sign.)
Phase 3. Tasks are going into the system much faster than they’re coming out. It starts to grow out of control. The number of tasks becomes overwhelming, and you resist looking at them.
Phase 4. You try to regain control by “organising” the system. You make categories and special lists. You associate actions to projects. You invent new disciplines for yourself to “keep things organised”.
Phase 5. The work required to keep the system up-to-date starts to exceed the time spent on the actual tasks it tracks. Now you feel it’s not working. Something has to change.
Phase 6. You notice an article or an ad for a “simple”, “clean”, and/or “powerful” to-do manager. You think, “That’s what I need! This system I have now is too complicated, too hard to use.” And you switch. Maybe you figure out a way to export all your projects and actions from the old system and import them to the new. Or maybe you decide to “start fresh.”
Repeat from Phase 1.
I’ve personally been through about 7 or 8 different GTD systems. That’s 7 or 8 times through the cycle above. I know it well. And I just completed Phase 6 again this week.
As a future reference for myself, more than anything else, here are some thoughts on what makes GTD tick — what makes a “good” GTD system.
First, and most important, GTD is a process of thinking, not a system or a tool.
A couple of years ago, I heard an interview with one of the “coaches” from the David Allen company, talking about her experiences teaching GTD. She said that often people will ask what’s the best tool to keep GTD lists, or complain that they really like their Filofax, or their Outlook, or their Post-it notes. She would say, “That’s fine! I can teach you how to do GTD on Post-it notes.” Her point being that GTD is about thinking what is the next action, and relieving your brain of the burden of having to remember so much stuff.
So it really doesn’t matter what your tools are. In fact, I’ve found that the tools can actually get in the way, because they distract me from the really important job of thinking.
Second, don’t invent parts of GTD that aren’t really there.
A classic and very common example is association between projects and actions. It’s so common for GTD tools to offer a way to link projects to actions, that many people I know think that it’s part of GTD. It is not. This is like that Real Monopoly meme. Go back and read the GTD book again — it’s not in there. There is even specific advice not to try to link projects and actions. You just need a Next Actions list, a Projects list, and that’s it.
The rationale for this is that if the project is current, the action real, and you are doing your Weekly Review, you will know which actions relate to which project.
Having learned this lesson once already, I again fell into this trap while using Flow. I am now convinced that trying to link projects and actions is death to a GTD system. Having actions tucked away in project lists just keeps them out of sight, out of mind. And it hides the true size of your system. Keeping your lists short should be part of the motivation to get things done, and to not over-commit yourself.
Third, use the Someday/Maybe list aggressively.
When you find yourself with a bit of time, scanning your actions list to find something you can get done, you should be able to complete any action on the list. If you look at an action, there can only be three possible reasons why you can’t do it right now:
- It needs a context, either a place or a person, to get done. If this is the case, you should really annotate the action with that context right away, so you don’t go through this again next time.
- It’s not really a next action, i.e. you haven’t done enough thinking to boil down the next “physical, visible thing needed to move the situation forward.” If this is the case, do that thinking now, and replace this action with the real next action. Then do it.
- You don’t want to do it. If you don’t feel motivated to complete the action, and it’s not because of the two reasons above, then either delete it and forget about it, or move it to Someday/Maybe. (This also applies to projects.)
The goal here is to keep your Projects list and your Next Actions list as short as possible. They should be a list of things that you are really motivated to complete. Looking at these lists should get you excited, not make you groan.
Moving something to Someday/Maybe is not throwing it away, so long as you commit yourself to reviewing the Someday/Maybe list regularly, about twice per month or so. Of course, when you do, delete things that you recognise will never happen — you don’t want that list to become overgrown and full of useless crap, either.
Fourth, no metadata, no notes, just things on lists.
Another bad habit encouraged by all these GTD tools (especially electronic) is adding all sorts of tags, due dates, priorities, notes, etc. The best GTD system I ever had was paper-based. I really encourage people to try running a non-electronic GTD system for a few months. The nice thing about paper-based systems is they resist a lot of metadata cruft. You can write down due dates, tags, priorities, etc., but it’s a lot more effort, so you don’t so much.
This is how it should be, even when using an electronic tool. The occasional due date or priority highlight is fine, but over-reliance on them dilutes their meaning, to the point of becoming a waste of time.
Fifth, don’t get too hung up on contexts.
I’ve never found it helpful to keep separate lists for each context, mostly because there would just be too many of them, and again, having a lot of lists means actions are hidden and easily forgotten.
It’s best to just keep one big list of all actions (or two, if you use “the line”), and note your contexts at the beginning of the action, e.g. “@Dad — ask about ideas for Mum’s birthday present”. It works well for both paper and electronic systems, because you either scan down the list visually, or just search for “Dad”.
And anyway, what are those contexts? For me at least, there’s @Home and @Office, and maybe @Shops, and the rest are people. And since most actions in “people” contexts can be accomplished by phone, email, or text, they can actually be done anywhere, anytime. So don’t spend a lot of time adding contexts. Add them only when not being in a context prevents you from completing an action here and now.
Finally, GTD is about getting things done.
Any time spent fiddling with the system is time not spent completing actions. Behind every minute spent “organising” the system, is a reason why you’re not motivated to complete the actions in there. Find that reason. Figure it out. Move forward.
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