ceehjay said:
Recent posts on this thread, as well as another, just confirm what David Allen says. You have to fit GTD to your way of doing things.
What about when people's way of doing things is not effective? I have analyzed my ways over the years and found a lot of room for improvement. Just doing GTD required radical changes in my "way of doing things."
In fact, my greatest successes have come as a result of
changing the way I do things. With certain results, people have asked me how I achieved them, as if it is something magical. But no, I had lots of failures and ineffectiveness, and I tore those apart looking for better ways. And even with ways that achieved good results, I have found
better ways to achieve
better results. Everything is negotiable. Show me a better way, I'm going to change my way.
For me, effectiveness always trumps preference. If 2 ways of doing things are equally effective, then I will choose the one I prefer. But I will choose a more effective way over a way I prefer. And I will also learn new ways if I think those will be more effective after I have learned them.
It is not my personality to file stuff. I just don't like it. It takes time. I hate clutter, so I would rather shove it all in a drawer or closet. But I have been convinced that filing is more effective for retrieval. If a better way gets invented, though, I'm going to take advantage of it.
I believe that to be most effective, you have to fit your way of doing things to reality. And you have to be flexible to change your way of doing things to take advantage of new technology. It is rarely ideal to rigidly adhere to one way forever.
I know people who just will not change their way of doing things and are now out of work because their old way is inefficient; there is now a new and better way; but they resist learning and using the new way.
ceehjay said:
I tried LifeBalance. Oh, my! It was taking way more time FOR ME than to just do the task or make my paper lists. I hated it.
If we are to be critical of overhead in general, nothing beats the initial overhead of GTD -- collecting and processing ALL your stuff and setting up a system to organize it. When people come to this forum overwhelmed by that initial time-consuming overhead, what do we tell them? "Stick with it, it will get easier, it will be worth it." Why not complain about how we could be just doing tasks instead of collecting and processing a huge Inbox?
It takes more time to do
all the workflow advocated in GTD than to "just do the task" or "just make a list on paper." There is a lot of overhead in following GTD. It takes a lot of time. If I am showing someone how to GTD, I can't say, "just do the task" or "just write a list on paper." That's not a fair description of the whole process of GTD.
The
whole GTD process is also supposed to include Organize and Review. The reality is that if I optimize Collect to be fast by using paper, I have to spend a lot more time and energy during the Organize and Review stages. I think that some people experience problems with the whole workflow of GTD because they have optimized Collect and Process but have failed to optimize Organize, Do, and Review.
Reading many posts about Weekly Reviews on this forum (and others), I have seen that
1) many people do not do it;
2) some people do it regularly, but they have often streamlined it considerably from the description in the book.
One of the time-consuming things about unmodified GTD is keeping projects and actions linked and synced. It is clear that some could really gain by finding faster, easier ways to do this. How many people may have tried and abandoned GTD because they struggled with this part of it?
Initially it took me more time to enter actions to Life Balance than to jot them on paper. But that was because I had not optimized my use of the tool. Now that I have optimized, though, I can enter tasks nearly as fast with Life Balance as with jotting them on a nearby pad of paper, plus I save time and effort during all the other stages of workflow.
So why shouldn't I describe these advantages as best I can for the people who may benefit from it? It's OK for people who use paper to criticize digital, but not the other way around? I have used paper. And I have used both Life Balance and GTD long enough to have given them
both a fair shot. I got past the initial overhead with both of them.
ceehjay said:
Thank God for paper. I repeat, I can write it down on the pad in front of me far more quickly than turning on the PDA or pulling up a program on the computer.
I hear this complaint about computers and PDAs all the time, and I think
it is not always justified. I repeat, it
is possible to rapidly enter tasks to a computer or PDA.
People sometimes
unfairly compare the time it takes to enter something in a PDA versus on paper; the comparison is unfair because they use the computer/PDA in a grossly inefficient way, while they have optimized their paper capture to the max. When I first used digital capture, I was inefficient, but I have since found efficient ways. All I have tried to point out is that it is possible to optimize digital capture too, especially if you work at a desktop computer a lot. I can process my Inbox and enter 20 new actions to desktop software faster than anyone can write them down on paper.
Is it fair if I compare my optimized digital capture to an inefficient use of paper? Say I have a leather binder with a lock and then complain about how long it takes me to get the binder, unlock it, find a pen, flip through the pages to find the right one, get the ink flowing in the pen, and then write down my note? Paper users would tell me to keep a pad nearby open to the right page, and get a better pen.
Compare apples to apples. Optimized paper to optimized digital, over the whole lifespan of what you need to do with the idea you are capturing, including Organize and Review if applicable.
I find paper capture best for things that do not require later organization and review. For inputs that come and go quickly, paper or even short-term memory would seem best. Say I get a letter that requires a phone call and I decide to do it after lunch. Jot it on a post-it and just do it without entering it into my system. Paper is great for this kind of capture, but it should also be noted that the whole thing doesn't go through the GTD machine. GTD itself is overly complex for lots of do-it-as-it-shows-up work.
Likewise for people who spend little time near a computer, capturing to paper is most effective. And for people like my father who cannot type.
But if I get an input that is going to be part of a project, that I'm going to want to review later, that I want to be in my GTD system, entering it via PDA or computer really saves me time
in the long run. I push one button on my PDA. I am now in my Life Balance Inbox ready to add a new task. I grab the stylus, and start writing. My Graffiti writing is slightly slower than my illegible handwriting (only because I use a Clie), but the total time start to finish is barely slower on the PDA because I have minimized it. I push the button again, and now I'm looking at my @Home list, where my brand-new task is listed near the top of my prioritized list.
What is so bad about this? This is great. It's effective.
ceehjay said:
I think the implication that some of us just aren't getting it is unjustified. There is not just one way to GTD. I love hearing how others use GTD, but I don't like the implications that someone else's way is inferior. Each of us will find the way that works best for us -- and it probably won't be exactly like any other person's way.
I would hope that people are willing to consider their systems' overhead without feeling upset. I am just trying to rationally discuss advantages and disadvantages. Nothing can be learned from constant "me too!" agreement.
No, there is not just one way to maintain a GTD system. Outlook is popular, for example, especially when modified and customized. I don't know much about using current versions of Outlook for GTD. So I read those threads looking to see if it could be better than my current way. If I see a big enough advantage in Outlook, I'm going to switch.
But just because there are many ways, it does not logically follow that they are all equally effective. Some may have been devised to fix the disadvantages of others.
Reading posts on this forum, I want to be open-minded to learn about more effective ways to accomplish the goals of GTD, where more effective = less overhead to achieve the same or better result. What's the best outcome I can achieve with the least amount of time and energy?
Over the past couple years, I have improved my system and my effectiveness, partly from getting ideas from others' success and changing my own ways. Frankly, my early systems had problems. No improvement is ever possible without being willing to ask, Where and how could I improve this? It is not a threat, it's an opportunity to grow.