Customizing GTD For My Personality

[theilluminated]

I really love GTD. If I haven't had the system, I would never be where I am today (I am launching a company). But it was not without struggle, but that is for personal reasons and also the reason why I am writing this as well.

One characteristic about me (since I was a kid) has been the need to follow instructions and recipes in a borderline autistic fashion. Or being too micro-manager about everything. I had a tendency to be too structured and caught up with how things should be done (according how I perceived the system), instead of doing the tasks.

This would mean fleshing out and overplanning too much. In one way GTD encourages such behavior in a way, but for me that is the wrong thing to do. I get much more done if I just start on things and follow them through, park where I am in the task management system (OmniFocus), and continue later.

Fleshing out and planning will extensively give my brain the false impression that it is actually complete, and I fail to do the things I put on my lists because my thought and intention has gone beyond that point.

OmniFocus in that regard doesn't work for me. I use mind maps to get a greater overview and create tasks there. I actually never use contexts (except for errands) in every day life. Everything I do is on the computer, email or online. It is also so random that defining actions in contexts actually decrease my productivity. This would probably be quite different if I was not working for myself where everything is quite streamlined, but that also means I have to be conscious about that too.

I still use the calendar heavily, and a single actions lists with due dates in OmniFocus. I still use it as a capture tool and I really enjoy using the program. It works for small projects, like getting a new suit for an upcoming baptism, but greater things with many moving parts I see it fall apart. It just looks like a great big outline of text, I lose oversight and control.

A great long list of next actions and contexts does not work with my personality. I need to define (a bit broadly) what I need to do, place my thoughts in a mind map and then assign which areas I need to work with. My work consists of doing things that will probably take an hour or so to do for each area, so fleshing it out when I am working with it, create the sensation that I need to get this done now.

I started this practice recently, where I will write down on paper what I want to accomplish for today. Either projects or parts of a projects. Writing it on paper makes it real and seem more urgent, it gives my brain a sense that I should get this done, it creates attachment.

Letting go of the need of having everything totally like the book, has been very interesting because I learned so much about how I work. I need a bit of freedom, of fluidity and flexibility, to rely on my intuition to get things done as I work on them. Too much planning makes me feel trapped, rigid, that I have to do something that in the back of my mind feels wrong (simply because my mind has moved on). I have to hack my brain.

I wanted to share my experience, and hear if anyone else has had a similar experience.

 

[Folke]

I get much more done if I just start on things and follow them through, park where I am in the task management system (OmniFocus), and continue later.

I do that a lot, too. I just write a single line, and play it by ear. That line can represent a project, an action, a sequence of related actions - it doesn't really matter. No need to write more than necessary.

Fleshing out and planning will extensively give my brain the false impression that it is actually complete, and I fail to do the things I put on my lists because my thought and intention has gone beyond that point.

Yes, I might agree with that, but I don't quite have that problem. I write down everything that I might forget, and I "file" it in an appropriate place (project etc), where I know I will see it at the right moment of an upcoming review. That's what it is mainly about for me. If I have many actions or sub-actions etc listed it does not mean I have a better plan. All it means is I apparently have had a hell of a lot more thoughts concerning that particular project - compared to a "single-line project" (previous comment) that I am more confident about.

I actually never use contexts (except for errands) in every day life. Everything I do is on the computer, email or online. It is also so random that defining actions in contexts actually decrease my productivity.

I have very few contexts as well. In addition to errands I also have @Person (requiring real-time interaction; call or grab someone), @Reflecting (requiring a calm and clear mind) and a couple more contexts.

I think contexts are useful, but only if defined in a useful way. I think for most of us it would no longer be meaningful to classify our actions as computer, internet, phone, tablet etc, as we tend to have these available all the time.

A way to totally revitalize the use of contexts in computer apps would be to not only allow them to overlap (multiple contexts), which is already very common, but to also allow them to be eliminated rather than selected. This would open the door for very specific precision tagging of tasks without necessitating much tagging work, and would allow users to generate a single list of appropriate tasks for this morning's - or this moment's - particular situation.

A great long list of next actions and contexts does not work with my personality. I need to define (a bit broadly) what I need to do, place my thoughts in a mind map and then assign which areas I need to work with.

I avoid long lists, too, but I have no need for a graphical mindmap. Instead, use a strictly hierarchical approach with only a limited number of objects under each "node", which makes the totality possible to grasp and digest. The "nodes" represent actions, small projects, large projects, goals, individual areas of responsibility (e.g. family ambassador), groups of areas of responsibility (e.g. private). My current tool (Doit) has four hierarchical levels, which is enough for mapping most of this well enough.

I still use the calendar heavily, and a single actions lists with due dates in OmniFocus.

One thing I have always shunned like the plague is "artificial" dates. When I learned that there is a methodology called GTD that also shuns this I became a fervent follower.

 

[ArcCaster]

agreeing with your thought on next action lists -- my perspective is that a next-action is really a 'bookmark' -- for whatever reason, I stopped working on a project, and recorded a 'book mark' so that when I re-engage with that project, I know where to start -- once I re-start from that bookmark (next action), who knows how long I will read -- it could be an hour, it could be a day -- and, starting from that bookmark, one thing leads naturally to another