Great question, however, before I start rambling on about my personal reasons for using GTD, I wanted to ask some clarifying questions (no pun intended):
- What's going on in your life? I am not prying or anything but just asking if you have a lot of things going on in your life at the moment: spouse, family, friends, work, career, education, personal things, etc.? Maybe not?
- Do you do a good job managing the agreements and commitments you make to yourself and others? Would someone describe you as a person of your word, being dependable, a reliable team member, etc.? How would you describe yourself?
- How relaxed and generally "present" are you with the people, places, and things going on around you at any given time? Do you find yourself being preoccupied, mind wandering, thinking "Don't forget to ...", etc.? When was the last time you had fun and the world just faded away in the moment?
- How is your personal life? Are you taking vacations, going to the doctor/dentist/eye doctor regularly, thinking about where you want to be in 5, 10, or 20 years? What does retirement look like?
I ask these questions because when people to sit back and reflect on how they're doing in life, more often than not, there's a lot of "Yeah, I've been doing good at this one part but other parts have gotten stale / forgotten". Folks often realize, they need to be better at managing themselves and being honest with what they can, want, and need to do.
GTD provides the framework and method to get a better handle on those things. It's hard to decide what to do when you're not really sure of all of things you could, would, should be doing. That's it, in a nutshell: GTD gives you the ability to look at those things in your life and keeps them in focus.
It takes a lot of time, continued practice, and consistent effort to get good at GTD. Much like exercising, building relationships, doing a profession, etc. Don't give up and don't be too hard on yourself if you fall off the wagon. Everyone does, including David.
For my personal ramblings:
A lot of the attraction to GTD, for me, is just the ability to manage commitments to others and myself. I think we can all remember a time where someone
promised they'd do something for us by a date and then broke that commitment. We naturally begin to trust that person less and not hand them important things or believe them when they make claims. I don't want to be that person.
As well, I have met many people in my life who seem very composed and always on top of things. It seems like they are prepared for anything and dependable. I think everyone wants to be like that, me especially. I needed to be better at managing myself; not only for professional purposes but just for life. If you don't have a grip on life then life's got a grip on you. That's no fun at all.