Data visualization in GTD...

I don't remember David talking specifically about visualization in any of the gtd books, but there are a few things that are a bit obvious. Like viewing a list of projects, and mind maps. But I wondering why this topic isn't touched more upon in the gtd books. I
Personally find myself creating more visuals in order to "envision the successful outcome" ...
 
What data should be visualized?

What data should be visualized? I think GTD is for getting things done - not getting things visualized (GTV).
 
Tado--

Look under "focus" and "outcome focusing" in the index of Getting Things Done book and you will find some really helpful references to visualization. It's actually quite a big part of GTD. In fact, we do a whole part of our two-day class on the Power of Focus, or as a standard alone course "Managing Projects and Priorities."

Hope that helps.
 
I think there are two different aspects to visualization here. Not sure which one you were referring to.

First, there's the visualization that MUST be done in your head to define successful outcomes and next actions (and for all the Horizons too). It's very important to SEE that successful outcome in your head and to SEE yourself doing that next action. Otherwise your list end up being very amorphous things that still leave a lot of mental garbage in your head. Seeing is also very important in defining what your context has to be when you do your actions. The more you use your imagination and externalize that image, the easier it is later for you to focus on what can be done in your current situation.

Second, the other aspect of visualization I think refers to tools. The tools in which you captured the above visualization must be as frictionless as possible in recreating that visualization in your head. I think there is much improvement there that can be done. However, one must be careful with tools. Even though I can imagine an awesome piece of software that shows me at a glance how my next actions are tied to my life purpose, software can never do the necessary work of clarifying this stuff to begin with. Incomplete thinking and amorphous lists will always stay that way no matter what tool you use.

Can you expand a bit as to what type of visualization you had in mind?
 
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