Really questioning GTD

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holritzphotography;44108 said:
Am I assuming right that the general consensus is that you can use GTD within a schedule, or is it better not to?

The better thing to do is that which gets more things done. If you get more things done with a schedule, by all means, schedule your time.

I prefer to live my life without a schedule, and appreciate that GTD allows me to do that. I used to schedule my time in fifteen minute increments, and it was highly effective when I had no interruptions. But I had enough interruptions that I eventually realized I needed a system that could handle interruptions more gracefully.
 
Ah! Makes sense! I needed more flexibility as well... So what's the best way to implement a balance between a schedule and using GTD?
 
SoftwareGuy;43978 said:
After doing GTD for a while, I fell off the wagon. In the process of getting back on, I started to seriously question how effective GTD really is.
I have had this same experience. In my analysis of my experience with GTD as well as the most-frequently-posted-problems (here and elsewhere), I decided that GTD's greatest strengths were in the areas in which it is most explicit and concrete -- the phases "Collect" and "Process." The "Process" algorithm, in particular, is a gem that, all by itself, greatly improved my productivity and peace of mind.

The "Organize" phase of GTD I found to be helpful in some ways but to complicate things in other ways. For example, "How do I link projects with their Next Actions" is a FAQ. In my experience, it was critical that I find a way to get the benefits of this organizing but to do so more efficiently.

Streamlining the overhead of organizing, for me, is all about tool choice. It is often said that GTD does not care what tool(s) you use, but it does not follow that you can equally efficiently use any tool. If you have a lot of nails to drive, it's critical to choose a nailgun rather than a hammer. Personally, I abandoned vanilla Palm for long lists of projects and NAs. There are tools that IMO require far less attention from me.

The phases "Do" and "Review" are, for me, the phases of GTD that required additions and modifications (YMMV). The first weakness here is prioritizing, another FAQ. I do not work best from a long list of unprioritized NAs which I then must choose from intuitively on the fly. (However, I imagine that for people with packed calendars, these lists could be spectacularly successful.) I solved my priority problem 1) by using a tool that reasonably prioritizes NAs with a useful algorithm, and 2) by scheduling blocks of time for tasks/projects that require them, as discussed in this thread already.

Julie Morgenstern's time management book has useful scheduling strategies that I integrated with these phases of GTD. For example, she emphasizes the concept of knowing how long it takes to complete tasks. Say you have 200 NAs on your various lists and estimate that it will take 100 hours to complete them. And you have 50 projects that will take an estimated 3 months to complete. So altogether you have about 4 months of work in the system now. Knowing explicitly how much time you have already committed is a great reality check to prevent you from taking on more commitments.

The second problem I had with "Do" was procrastination. GTD (the "Process" phase) spectacularly eliminated procrastination caused by lack of clarity about what to do. (For example, having "Mom's birthday" on a ToDo list instead of a nice clear NA.) However, perfectionistic procrastination really gummed up the works for me. There IS overhead in maintaining a GTD system (or probably any system), and if you don't have good throughput of your NAs, that overhead grows to epic proportions. You can't just keep adding, adding, adding projects and NAs. You must find some equilibrium point where tasks entering the system are roughly equally to tasks leaving. This is an area that GTD doesn't necessarily address (perhaps assumes), but since it was a problem for me, I had to address it.

Finally, the problem I had with "Review" was simply that I did not like to do the Weekly Review as described in the book. It was a time-consuming pain in the rear for me (YMMV). Much of the review described in the book was to get the system up to date. I streamlined this by 1) using software to automate some of the process, and 2) updating more frequently. I now keep my system up to date pretty much continuously, as stuff happens, or during hectic times, at least once a day.

Those were my experiences and my thoughts about them. My advice to you based on what you've written in this thread:

1) Long and growing lists: Growing lists indicate that either a) you aren't Doing tasks fast enough, or b) you are adding tasks too quickly, or both. To address b), hypothetically schedule everything on your current lists. Estimate the time for each task and project. Group related tasks efficiently and schedule blocks of time for them. Pencil this all in on weekly calendars until it's all scheduled. Leave reasonable amounts of time for things that might come at you each day. This is not a schedule to necessarily follow, but just to become more explicitly aware of everything that's on your plate. If it's too much, or you have a gut feeling that certain things will never get done, renegotiate them (i.e., remove them from your lists somehow!). The goal here is to achieve an equilibrium state where you have a reasonable amount of stuff in the system, and inflow equals outflow. Keep renegotiating and filtering incoming tasks until you achieve equilibrium.

If you are not Doing tasks fast enough, then you need to find a way to get your procrastinating rear in gear, which is beyond this thread, but there are many other threads in the archives that may help.

2) Different tool(s) and/or processes: Once you have reached that equilibrium state, if you still dislike the amount of overhead to maintain your system, then start looking for tools and processes to reduce your overhead. But it may be that being realistic about commitments you take on will keep them at a manageable scale without any change in tools.
 
holritzphotography;44116 said:
Ah! Makes sense! I needed more flexibility as well... So what's the best way to implement a balance between a schedule and using GTD?

First, don't think of the two as separate. Your schedule is an integral part of your system for Getting Things Done.

Second, think of your schedule as part of your hard landscape. That is, treat appointments with yourself as seriously as you would appointments with a client.

Third, build in flexibility. Don't overschedule yourself.

Good luck!

Katherine
 
Yes. The "sweet spot" differs from person to person; some people work more effectively with more scheduled time than others.
 
Thanks for the feedback everyone! :)

Andersons, what tool are you using to prioritize your NA's, and what tool are you using to "automate" your review process?

Thanks!
 
kewms;44120 said:
Second, think of your schedule as part of your hard landscape. That is, treat appointments with yourself as seriously as you would appointments with a client.

I know that is one of my biggest issues with my hard landscape, and its something I'm working on. I have trouble treating my appointments with myself (ie. going to the gym) as seriously as other things (ie. meetings during the day).

It's been tough to put my finger on the problem, but that statement right there just crystalized things nicely.

THANKS!
 
holritzphotography;44169 said:
Andersons, what tool are you using to prioritize your NA's, and what tool are you using to "automate" your review process?
I use Life Balance and MyLifeOrganized and have extensively discussed them in other posts. Search the forums to find out more than you ever wanted to know. ;)

I shouldn't say that I have automated the review process so much as streamlined the system-update process so that I can keep it up to date in real time, most of the time. Syncing to a PDA means that I can review in little odd bits of time here and there (5 minutes here waiting for my spouse, 5 minutes there in line at Trader Joe's, etc.) and also as I am working on different projects.

holritzphotography;44169 said:
That said, I was simply on a daily schedule before where every day had certain blocks of time allotted to certain types of tasks (I'm a photographer working from home, so the blocks were "communication - email and phone," "To-Do list", "customer jobs," etc.)

I felt like I could use a change in the way I was "getting things done," so I started implementing GTD. My biggest hang-up so far has been the seeming lack of structure where, without a specific schedule every day like I had before, I just go to a check list and randomly pick what I'm going to do next, and check email or make calls whenever instead of limiting the time I take care of communication like I did before.
I suggest thinking more specifically about what worked before and precisely what really could "use a change." You do not want to change what is working! Photography has a workflow of its own. A GTD system should not change that workflow but rather should incorporate it. Probably whatever needed a change were things that did not fit into the photography workflow. Perhaps your "To-Do list" block?
 
jkgrossi;43998 said:
J(...)especially if that's the most important thing that you should be working on.

GTD doesn't say, "don't prioritize". Rather, it says, "don't hard-code your priorities because they're going to change".
(...).
Importance and priority, often these two are mixed up. Importance, questions of what and why may change and depend on perspective. Priority, a question of time is the same for anybody on the planet. Your mother's birthday is on that day, there is no other, calling her on that day is a priority regardless of perspective on that day.
The GTD principles tell you first to act according to context, your environment, what you CAN do where you are with the tools and time at hat hand. Then comes maybe the importance.In the mother's birthday example you cannot call her without a phone and some privacy. When you are in that environment you may make your calls. Your mother may not even be the most important call, say there's a job offered to you and all you need to do is call an say 'yes'. And after that, priority speaking, with all the other calls on your list you call your mother first.
Priorities, what to do first, usually come from the outside world. I sometimes say in meetings when people asks me 'is it urgent ?' - 'if you need to go to the bathroom that is urgent.' or 'priority number one is always common sense' .
GTD I believe does not provide a framework to 'organize' or plan your work time-wise or along questions of importance. It's a system to keep all things moving and out of your head makeyou feel better about everything regardless of importance of priority.
personally I believe that especially setting priorities yourself does slow things down. I am talking about doing something first for some vague reason or none at all. Here's the example. When I work far away everything I want to do home I have to do within 60hours on fr/sa/su. If I do my shopping in the city in the perfect order say I get 10 items done in the time I have following the perfect order. 2 items left for next week. If I had to give priority to some item, and consequently work on with a different but more time consuming (doing prio one first) order I only get 7 items done in the same time 5 unfinished for next week.
it could be a 10minute break between meetings. Perfect things is to do 2 x 5min calls. Why declare a call of 6min I could do later prio1 and not use the other 4minutes ?
 
Prioritizing Framework in GTD:

1. Trash or keep it somewhere?
2. Actionable or Reference? A-Z archive, Project Support
3. Someday or Now? @Contexts
4. Someday or just Maybe? Someday/Maybe, Tickler, Hard-Landscape
5. @whereIamnow: which action do I do now?

Everything you make decisions about on step 5 is already declared important by prior steps. Urgent and important, or just urgent (hopefully not to much) is always in your Hard-Landscape or tickler.

To decide during the first four steps you can consult yourself by leading a 20,000 ft- 50,000 ft conversation with yourself (or your notes regardign those matters).

Show me one prioritizing-scheme that is more elegant than that. Challenge this, like David said.
 
dermeck;44457 said:
it could be a 10minute break between meetings. Perfect things is to do 2 x 5min calls. Why declare a call of 6min I could do later prio1 and not use the other 4minutes ?

I don't know about you, but the only way to guarantee I can keep a call to five minutes or less is to call when I *know* I'm going to get the other person's machine. I can usually tell which calls will be 5-15 minutes or so and which will take an hour, but that's about it.

Perfection is a noble goal, but it's not so easy to decide in advance what the "perfect" thing will be. Especially when you're dealing with other humans, rather than inanimate objects.

Katherine
 
2 Minutes

One reason my task list starts to overflow is that I dont practice the 2 minute rule. I neglect this rule most often when I have that "dont want to screw with this right now mindset". So the email sits, the phone call goes unreturned, etc.

I'm keying in on this. I believe this should be the first filter for what makes it to your task list.
 
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