10+ years in & I still can’t get anything done

hurst87

Registered
At the time that I found GTD, I Created this belief that it was going to be capable of solving all of my problems. I thought, if I could only just see everything and get it out of my head, maybe I could turn things around. I’ve been trying for ten years.

I understand all the terminology, what goes where, what the components of each are, etc. but I’ve never been able to make it work. I have always thought this is because of the limitations of the tools that are and are not available. In all these years, I’ve never found a tool that can do what I want it to. IQtell was close, though. I’ve tried coding my own tools as well, some decent. Never good enough.

I’m beginning to worry that maybe it’s just not for me. Another issue is that I have OCPD and also OCD compulsions, particularly checking. There is a very strong likelihood that I will never be satisfied with the tools available to me.

Has anyone else struggled after so long? Anyone with any similar mental disabilities that have made adopting and maintaining the practice to be more difficult ? Or know if any magic tool out there that checks all the boxes ?

I’ve tried: Asana, IQtell, nirvana, motion app ( pretty cool ), Notion ( hate it ), Coda ( obsession over the last few years, ruining mg life ), Omnifocus, Evernote, Monday.com, click up, Wrike, todolist… probably forgetting some.

I don’t think I can handle a paper system. Paper is hard for me. The second I make a mistake on it, I will want to throw the entire thing away.
 
Hi. I sympathise. I've been doing GTD for longer than 10 years. I still haven't mastered it.

An empathetic person may wonder - what are the problems you refer to that you thought GTD could solve? What is it in your life that you hoped you could turn around? Were your problems related to your OCPD and OCD? Perhaps, as well as GTD, you need some help that is of another kind than that which GTD can offer?

It's interesting that you focus on software tools. Many members of these forums have commented that GTD is "tool agnostic". It is more a set of principles or an approach to how we deal with things. I admit though that I too have spent many hours trying to find the "ideal" software tools. I think we may both need to admit that they don't exist.

Perhaps you need to focus on one small part of GTD and get that working really well. The benefits might surprise you.

May I ask...do you do a Weekly Review?

Best Wishes
 

Gardener

Registered
I suspect that this is a time-and-projects version of the housekeeping rule, "You can't organize clutter."

No matter how magnificent your organization and storage systems, a house with too much stuff in it can't be successfully organized. Sometimes, maybe, you can herd all the stuff where it belongs, and have one brief instant of apparent organization, and then it falls apart again.

Dana K. White ("A Slob Comes Clean") has a concept, the "clutter threshold", which is the amount of stuff that any given person--with their home, their personality, their responsibilities, eveyrthing about their life--can keep under control. If they have more than that, the house gets out of control over and over and over and over and over.

They have to get rid of stuff. And probably more stuff. And more and more. Most people who have been so far unable to keep their house under control have to get rid of more stuff than they imagined they'd have to get rid of.

So, returning to your question, have you ever tried drastically - DRASTICALLY - cutting down on activities and obligations? I suspect that you are substantially over your clutter threshold.
 

schmeggahead

Registered
I have OCPD and also OCD compulsions, particularly checking.
I'm thinking of Meg Edwards in one of the guided weekly review sessions saying during the mind sweep part, "I'm not saying that you have to capture every thought since you were born, you can be strategic." Without realizing what I was doing, I was doing exactly that capturing everything I could think of, instead of capture just what came to mind or had my attention. This control of mind sweeps might not be so easy for you to do, based upon what you have said. True?

I share my GTD practice with my practitioners and they have alway jumped on the band wagon, tying it into how they were helping me. It gave them another tool. If you are seeing someone to assist re: your compulsion, I would suggest letting them know about your use of GTD.

Paper is hard for me.
I never understood my system more deeply than when it was on paper. Even electronic lists printed out worked better for me. They would be perfect by their nature of already being edited.
tool out there that checks all the boxes
When my system doesn't check all of the boxes, I capture that deficiency in a mind sweep someday maybe list about GTD. When I devote time to improving my system, I look at that list, pick one and work on it. I consider my system checks all of the boxes because the ones that aren't currently checked are controlled in the someday maybe list. Easier said than done, I know. When I worry about an aspect of my system, I review that list.
Clayton.

P.S. @hurst87 , I understand my worry is not and cannot be the same as your OCPD and OCD. I don't know that I have these. I can't fully articulate a solution due to insufficient understanding. I hope that any of my experiences that resonates with you helps you.
 
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alsa

Registered
I have been around GTD for now 20 years and, you know what? I have come to realize that I needed to simplify everything. I got rid of a lot of possessions, both physical and mental clutter, put a bunch of my projects on my Someday / Probably Never and just generally let go.

In a way, I have outgrown GTD. It is for someone who really is a knowledge worker. I'm not. At least, not to the extent that most people who visit these boards are. I never got around to reading GTD for kids. Maybe I should, just to see if I can approach it again from a much simpler perspective.
 

dtj

Registered
First blush thought, "Tools don't do the work". It's a good analog to "You can't spend your way to prosperity". Choosing and optimizing your tools is something that can easily eat up lots of time that could likely be used actually working on the "things" that you want to get done. I've helped several people that have been dazzled by the numerous bright and shiny things, which honestly I am attracted to as well, and I told them to use the "first fit" method for choosing a tool. Start at most primitive, paper, and work up the spectrum until you find a tool that minimally satisfies their needs, and adopt and go! Just start ticking things off the lists, which is the ultimate aim. When you outgrow that, move further up the spectrum, but only after quite a while of living with the more primitive tool.

My system is OmniFocus at a strategic level, and paper at a tactical level because it allows me to put thick black lines through done items, which gives me a huge mental boost. And I use mindmaps (Mindnode, specifically) for planning in the center area between strategic and tactical.
 

Oogiem

Registered
I got rid of a lot of possessions, both physical and mental clutter, put a bunch of my projects on my Someday / Probably Never and just generally let go.
I think that's a healthy sign and part and parcel of what GTD really is.

I have outgrown GTD. It is for someone who really is a knowledge worker.
This, however I disagree with. I don't think you ever outgrow GTD. What does happen is that yout needs and systems change over time. I also strongly disagree that GTD is only for knowledge workers. I could not have developed a top notch sheep flock recognized as one of the best high eperformance flocks in North America without GTD. I think the principles apply to any type of work or play.

Choosing and optimizing your tools is something that can easily eat up lots of time that could likely be used actually working on the "things" that you want to get done.
That is so true. It's often easier to procrastinate by rearranging the chairs on the decks of a Titanic system that fails to meet your needs rather than working within a systme that is just good enough. When the pain of the system becomes too much then is the time to rethink how your system is organized. But beware, any major change in system will reduce your actually work output for a while until you get the old system converted andlearn how to use the new one.

I'm in the middle of a major system change in my own GTD system. It's been wrenching and painfully slow to get back up to the productivty level I had with the old system. I made the decision to change a major portion of my system in mid May last year. I investigated several options and tested them with sample sets of projects and info to see which one worked best for me and that I wanted to move to. (Yes, that meant that for a while I had projects in multiple places so Iahd a lot of different tools to look at to get a full picture of my stuff.) I started full on conversion of my system in December of last year and I should finish the conversion process this week. I think it will take me another month to get back up to the speed and ease of flow I had in my old system. So nearly a year of the conversion project from start to finish.

That's the major reason I spend a lot of time to decide what I want and once I make the decision I don't change it for years unless I am forced to for some reason. I always shudder at the folks who switch up their GTD systems on a regular basis. I would never get anything done that way but that is me, YMMV.

However, I have, on two occasions, declared GTD bankruptcy and started fresh with a new instance of my existing system when the cost in time and mental energy to move stuff into a new version of the same system was less than the cost and mental energy needed to weed out the good stuff in the old system a piece at a time and deal with re doing it. Even that process takes time but it's a lot less than switching systems.
 

dtj

Registered
I believe that productivity tools especially should be like “strong beliefs, loosely held”. Work hard in your system, but understand that circumstances change. I have adopted, in many areas if my life, the notion of “decide to always decide” that was popularized by Richard Feynman. As a physicist at the top of his game, he had lots of bright and shiny opportunities that were continuosly flooding him. To “solve” the problem, he decided to always choose Caltech. He also chose to have chocolate cake at lunch, rather than building decision fatigue along the way. Many big name CEOs do it with their wardrobes. So, just decide, until you do something else. Sounds stupid, but it works, especially with tools.
 

Stefan Godo

GTD Connect
At the time that I found GTD, I Created this belief that it was going to be capable of solving all of my problems. I thought, if I could only just see everything and get it out of my head, maybe I could turn things around. I’ve been trying for ten years.

I understand all the terminology, what goes where, what the components of each are, etc. but I’ve never been able to make it work. I have always thought this is because of the limitations of the tools that are and are not available. In all these years, I’ve never found a tool that can do what I want it to. IQtell was close, though. I’ve tried coding my own tools as well, some decent. Never good enough.

I’m beginning to worry that maybe it’s just not for me. Another issue is that I have OCPD and also OCD compulsions, particularly checking. There is a very strong likelihood that I will never be satisfied with the tools available to me.

Has anyone else struggled after so long? Anyone with any similar mental disabilities that have made adopting and maintaining the practice to be more difficult ? Or know if any magic tool out there that checks all the boxes ?

I’ve tried: Asana, IQtell, nirvana, motion app ( pretty cool ), Notion ( hate it ), Coda ( obsession over the last few years, ruining mg life ), Omnifocus, Evernote, Monday.com, click up, Wrike, todolist… probably forgetting some.

I don’t think I can handle a paper system. Paper is hard for me. The second I make a mistake on it, I will want to throw the entire thing away.
Hi Hurst, to be honest I had to look up what OCPD and OCD are = I do not have any first hand experience with these.
After looking up I know that I had clients with OCPD. They were checking their emails compulsively (a bad habit which got temporarily worse once they learned the clarification process - they were proud and waiting all day for the next input to show up to jump on it) - we needed to understand the role of those inputs in their life to stop the obsessive checking.
Q. Can you define for yourself the ideal state with what you would be satisfied with? What would you have, see, experience?
 

schmeggahead

Registered
declared GTD bankruptcy and started fresh with a new instance of my existing system
I have done this more than two times:

When I discovered that a mind sweep doesn't mean you have to do it.
When I discovered organize includes whether I have the bandwidth to do it.
When I discovered being able to review my system in a reasonable amount of time was critical.
When I discovered defining an outcome (what done looks like) and a next action is counter productive for someday maybe.

In these instances, my attention was so weighted on my system.
I was continually encountering my old lack of understanding of these key concepts.
Once I abandoned those old mistakes to reference, my attention went to a few key items, with mind sweeps rebuilding my system based on what had my attention. Done started happening much more easily.

Clayton.
 

Aliman

Aliman
Thank you so much @Gardener for pointing to the reality that we can't organize clutter. Also @Oogiem for the rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I suspect that this is at the root of many people's GTD issues. After all, GTD does exactly that--helps you Capture, Clarify, and Organize EVERYTHING. But we often forget we can't do that. I have a giant pile of Backlog that would generate AT LEAST 100 Projects. So I'm supposed to add another 100 Projects onto the 90 I have now?!? Hardly! I need to radically simplify. I suspect others who have challenges with GTD after several years need to do the same thing. I really needed to see this thread.

@Oogiem when you declared bankruptcy did you go through and do an analysis and take some Projects that were crucial, or did you jettison everything by grabbing only one life preserver and diving over the side, abandoning the entire ship?

Aloha, Aliman
 

dtj

Registered
Sometimes you just have to cry "Uncle!" and do a bankruptcy, but I avoid that like the plague, because it doesn't fix the original problem. Bankruptcy is empty calories. I am inclined go into ruthless and use some consideration before nuking projects and actions.
 

Gardener

Registered
Sometimes you just have to cry "Uncle!" and do a bankruptcy, but I avoid that like the plague, because it doesn't fix the original problem. Bankruptcy is empty calories. I am inclined go into ruthless and use some consideration before nuking projects and actions.
There's a middle ground of "someday/maybe bankruptcy"--I move EVERYTHING to Someday/Maybe and then shop from that to fill my current lists.
 

dtj

Registered
There's a middle ground of "someday/maybe bankruptcy"--I move EVERYTHING to Someday/Maybe and then shop from that to fill my current lists.
That's actually very similar to how I clean my various "landmarks". For instance, to clean my desk I sweep all the not-bolted-down bits into a big tote and put it into the laundry room. From the clean sweep, I fetch stuff as I need it. Very cathartic, if nothing else. I'm doing that right now with my shelves that accumulate stuff without consequence. I label the tote "TBS" for "To Be Sorted" and get it off the battlefield. That has a way of naturally diminishing the home field advantage that the junk enjoys.
 

Oogiem

Registered
I have a giant pile of Backlog that would generate AT LEAST 100 Projects.
Someday/Maybe for me currently has about 800 projects FWIW

@Oogiem when you declared bankruptcy did you go through and do an analysis and take some Projects that were crucial, or did you jettison everything by grabbing only one life preserver and diving over the side, abandoning the entire ship?
um not quite either. I built my new raft (the structure in the old system but a fresh copy) and then while keeping the old system tethered to me by a lifeline I looked at the current reality and started fresh with new projects and system. But if I really needed to I could swim over to the dinghy behind me with my old system and salvage something important. Not much (I actually can't remember anything that was worth the sharks in the water to recover) but I had it available if I needed it. I re-created the important ones just in the course of working.

I could not have done it if I didn't have the backup of the dinghy dragging behind I that I knew had everything I on it I had once considered important.
 

schmeggahead

Registered
Someday/Maybe for me currently has about 800 projects FWIW


um not quite either. I built my new raft (the structure in the old system but a fresh copy) and then while keeping the old system tethered to me by a lifeline I looked at the current reality and started fresh with new projects and system. But if I really needed to I could swim over to the dinghy behind me with my old system and salvage something important. Not much (I actually can't remember anything that was worth the sharks in the water to recover) but I had it available if I needed it. I re-created the important ones just in the course of working.

I could not have done it if I didn't have the backup of the dinghy dragging behind I that I knew had everything I on it I had once considered important.
I have about 40 Someday/Maybe lists with about 5-35 items on each.
I find my Someday/Maybe lists become unmanageable to review when they get much larger, so they are split or culled.
Many times I will find in review that I've already started working on items because the opportunity to do them came up organically rather than pulling from Someday/Maybe.

You can do everything but not all at once & it's ok to decide not to decide. Someday/Maybe really helps me with these (from a GTD Summit Speaker).

Thanks,
Clayton.
 

Oogiem

Registered
I have about 40 Someday/Maybe lists with about 5-35 items on each.
I find my Someday/Maybe lists become unmanageable to review when they get much larger, so they are split or culled.
Many times I will find in review that I've already started working on items because the opportunity to do them came up organically rather than pulling from Someday/Maybe.
I also have many different someday/maybe lists and I also split them whent hey get beyond about 1 screenfull in my main mac computer I'll scroll a bit but not much. I also find that every quarterly review I can often either delete a few someday/maybe items that actually got done, cull a few I no longer need to keep and add a few that hav come up this quarter.
 

gtdstudente

Registered
At the time that I found GTD, I Created this belief that it was going to be capable of solving all of my problems. I thought, if I could only just see everything and get it out of my head, maybe I could turn things around. I’ve been trying for ten years.

I understand all the terminology, what goes where, what the components of each are, etc. but I’ve never been able to make it work. I have always thought this is because of the limitations of the tools that are and are not available. In all these years, I’ve never found a tool that can do what I want it to. IQtell was close, though. I’ve tried coding my own tools as well, some decent. Never good enough.

I’m beginning to worry that maybe it’s just not for me. Another issue is that I have OCPD and also OCD compulsions, particularly checking. There is a very strong likelihood that I will never be satisfied with the tools available to me.

Has anyone else struggled after so long? Anyone with any similar mental disabilities that have made adopting and maintaining the practice to be more difficult ? Or know if any magic tool out there that checks all the boxes ?

I’ve tried: Asana, IQtell, nirvana, motion app ( pretty cool ), Notion ( hate it ), Coda ( obsession over the last few years, ruining mg life ), Omnifocus, Evernote, Monday.com, click up, Wrike, todolist… probably forgetting some. what a

I don’t think I can handle a paper system. Paper is hard for me. The second I make a mistake on it, I will want to throw the entire thing away.
Because digital can seem to be an abstract medium, and since paper is not an option, what about 'concrete' hand-held white-boards? Just a suggestion to help keep you going :)
 

gtdstudente

Registered
At the time that I found GTD, I Created this belief that it was going to be capable of solving all of my problems. I thought, if I could only just see everything and get it out of my head, maybe I could turn things around. I’ve been trying for ten years.

I understand all the terminology, what goes where, what the components of each are, etc. but I’ve never been able to make it work. I have always thought this is because of the limitations of the tools that are and are not available. In all these years, I’ve never found a tool that can do what I want it to. IQtell was close, though. I’ve tried coding my own tools as well, some decent. Never good enough.

I’m beginning to worry that maybe it’s just not for me. Another issue is that I have OCPD and also OCD compulsions, particularly checking. There is a very strong likelihood that I will never be satisfied with the tools available to me.

Has anyone else struggled after so long? Anyone with any similar mental disabilities that have made adopting and maintaining the practice to be more difficult ? Or know if any magic tool out there that checks all the boxes ?

I’ve tried: Asana, IQtell, nirvana, motion app ( pretty cool ), Notion ( hate it ), Coda ( obsession over the last few years, ruining mg life ), Omnifocus, Evernote, Monday.com, click up, Wrike, todolist… probably forgetting some.

I don’t think I can handle a paper system. Paper is hard for me. The second I make a mistake on it, I will want to throw the entire thing away.
"I don’t think I can handle a paper system. Paper is hard for me. The second I make a mistake on it, I will want to throw the entire thing away."

Me too, so I keep things clean with Post-It notes by writing on the bottom of them and clip-away the bottom upon completion for eco-frugality and 'attractive' neatness after drawing a temporary 'celebratory' line for done. Digital is, for the most part, simply makes GTD too abstract for me.
 
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FocusGuy

Registered
"10+ years in & I still can’t get anything done"

I am still learning and discovering GTD. I red the book almost 10 times and I still discover things and practice.

For me one of the core aspect is about the someday list. I made it before on Omnifocus by AREA And projects. Now I have a single action list as a Someday may be folder. I Keep all actionable stuff on another folder I call it " active projects " . I try to put in each project only but what is absolutly necessary as the very next first action

I also still have difficulties applying the 2 mn rules on the flow.

Anyway I indeed I think that GTD is just an wonderfull process.

If I resume it I would use two words only : Commitments and Clarity.

The key for me is to keep on my context list only but the very next action well clarified

The secont key is to put every thing I dont intend to do very very soon in someday may be. Very soon means for me what doesnt has my attention. The question of attention eg lessoning to my little voice is also one of the core principle I discovered with GTD. It can be tasks I may do today or later. I use a someday may be tag for this and a specific perspective to show me what area is concerned. This way of managing someday stuff helps me for clarifying ans cleaning my someday list. I can choose to make actionable task every day at night looking at this perspective.

This is about control

Another point is about perspective. Knowing where to go from Horizons 3 to 4 is for me complicated at the present moment. Lot of things are mooving in my life. I am more on a storm than a quiet sunny day. This has effects on horizons 0 > 2 +5

On another hand GTD also helps me there. It shows me what I dont intend to do and it makes me adjust my way.

As David Allen said "you can do anything but you can't do everything" this is crucial to understand and apply.
 
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