I've reread the books a few times but this is my first listening to GTD Fast. I like it a lot. It is definitely worth purchasing even if you, as I, have already gone through the books.
So here are today's random thoughts after listening to a side and a half of GTD Fast.
On side 1 David quotes Covey as saying no one said on their deathbed, "Gee, I wish had spent more time in the office." Then David makes some humorous self-deprecating remarks about not being by nature a highly organized person nor liking to work all the time.
How am I to take this? One way is to hear it ironically. But for this analysis I will assume that David really means what he says.
What are the implications of David's remarks?
1. Instrumentalism
This forum contains some monster threads about how our jobs do not meet our vision of what we want to be doing with ourselves. DA is telling us to wake up and live in the real world. It would be great if our office work were (take your pick): creating world peace, advancing human understanding by opening new vistas of knowledge, generating new aesthetic values, or eliminating scarcity. But if that were the case, many of us might very well wish, on our deathbed, that we had spent more time in the office. After all, wouldn't it have been great if we had not only fixed global warming but also eliminated nuclear weapons? Too bad we didn't cancel that trip to Vegas three years ago and solved the mind-body problem instead.
The reason David must be saying that it's good to spend less time in the office is that for many of us what we do in the office does not represent the highest expression of who we are. But you know what? We still choose to spend time in the office because in the social context where we find ourselves, it is very helpful to have the job we have to pay the bills for the things we choose to consume.
So, our job is an instrument. Our job is a tool. When we are about to shed this mortal coil and we do our life review (no relation to weekly review) we are unlikely to express remorse about things that are not good in themselves, but good for the consequences they bring about, according to David. We will review our lives and remember those experiences of that which is good in itself: fun, play, karate for DA, family, whatever turns you on.
So DA's position on Side 1 of GTD Fast is that GTD enables you to be more productive thereby increasing your leisure time by decreasing your office/work time. Thus DA describes GTD as good for a person like himself who is "lazy," i.e, a person who seeks to create more leisure and less work.
Although I choose to interpret DA nonironically here I find great irony in the means he chooses to express himself. He quotes Covey against Covey. The Seven Habits book is all about choosing values first and deriving lower-order actions from higher-order values. Thus, Covey's is not an instrumentalist approach. His system is not wertfrei, as Rainer might say, it is not value-free but value-laden.
The irony is that if one really believed that no one wishes on their deathbed to have spent more time in the office, then no one is a Coveyite. If I start with my overarching value--to create a world of abundance, let's say--and I dedicate myself singlemindedly to making that desired outcome manifest in the world, then I, and others of my ilk, might surely regret having spent too much time out of the office.
The Covey quotation by DA makes sense only under an instrumentalist interpretation. I might add that this makes total sense. I am not sure, but I would guess that the people who attend DA's seminars are mostly the corporate executives Peter Drucker writes about. I imagine most of these people work for organizations that sell soap or software or financial services. Very few people on their deathbed think, "If only I had created 1.8 million bars of soap instead of the 1.5 million bars I actually created."
2. Materialism
DA is not a crass materialist. Let me say that straight out. He waxes poetic, on the parts of Side 2 that I have listened to, about the importance of visualization. But he understands that, at the end of the day, visualizations, ideas, and thoughts are only as good as their material manifestations in the world that we see, touch, taste, smell, and hear. He speaks adoringly of the importance of spending time thinking. But, again, he understands that, at the end of the day, thinking is only as good as the next material actions that emerge from that thinking. And before those next actions can be materially actualized they must be materialized first as a written item in a list.
Myself, as you can probably tell from my lengthy ramblings, I tend towards idealism. I would, to be honest, much rather read DA's book 15 times than spend two hours slogging through a spreadsheet, or half a day finding a better widget to solve our production problem. But sweet ideas butter no peas. DA slaps me in the face and tells me to snap out of it.
The fundamental key of GTD is to externalize or materialize one's thoughts. That is the essence of GTD. It bears repeating. If I am a GTD adept I will always be asking, "What is the next action? What is the desired outcome?" because my thoughts are always oriented outward towards the world. "GTD" could as well be an acronym for "Getting Thoughts Done." "Done" means materialized. If I solve Fermat's last theorem but I don't publish it, I didn't "do" anything.
So, what do I mean when I say that GTD is materialist? I am saying that there are three stages to getting things done. Stage 1 is the thought, vision, or idea. Yes, DA is a nuanced materialist. He acknowledges the reality of our thoughts. Stage 2 is the externalization of the thought produced in Stage 1 into a list. You don't have to externalize your thoughts, if you want to reject GTD. But then, as DA very humorously points out, you are wasting your mind by clogging it with psychic RAM. Get it out of your mind! Materialize! Externalize! Your material (or electronic) list is a very good place to store your next action. Your mind is a very bad place to store you next action. Key insight! Stage 3 is the materialization of the next action listed in Stage 2. Stage 1 creates a mental representation. Stage 2 creates a symbolic representation out of your mind. Stage 3 transforms the symbolic representation into a material reality.
The sequence is: 1. thought, 2. symbolic representation, 3. material actualization.
I hope this is of some use to others. I think that it is good therapy for me. As you can see, I like theory. GTD keeps kicking me in the pants and tells me, "Enough theory, time for practice!" I am not bashful about calling DA a genius. He's given me the theory I need to go beyond theory.
"Philosophers had hitherto attempted to understand the world; the point, however, was to change it."
So here are today's random thoughts after listening to a side and a half of GTD Fast.
On side 1 David quotes Covey as saying no one said on their deathbed, "Gee, I wish had spent more time in the office." Then David makes some humorous self-deprecating remarks about not being by nature a highly organized person nor liking to work all the time.
How am I to take this? One way is to hear it ironically. But for this analysis I will assume that David really means what he says.
What are the implications of David's remarks?
1. Instrumentalism
This forum contains some monster threads about how our jobs do not meet our vision of what we want to be doing with ourselves. DA is telling us to wake up and live in the real world. It would be great if our office work were (take your pick): creating world peace, advancing human understanding by opening new vistas of knowledge, generating new aesthetic values, or eliminating scarcity. But if that were the case, many of us might very well wish, on our deathbed, that we had spent more time in the office. After all, wouldn't it have been great if we had not only fixed global warming but also eliminated nuclear weapons? Too bad we didn't cancel that trip to Vegas three years ago and solved the mind-body problem instead.
The reason David must be saying that it's good to spend less time in the office is that for many of us what we do in the office does not represent the highest expression of who we are. But you know what? We still choose to spend time in the office because in the social context where we find ourselves, it is very helpful to have the job we have to pay the bills for the things we choose to consume.
So, our job is an instrument. Our job is a tool. When we are about to shed this mortal coil and we do our life review (no relation to weekly review) we are unlikely to express remorse about things that are not good in themselves, but good for the consequences they bring about, according to David. We will review our lives and remember those experiences of that which is good in itself: fun, play, karate for DA, family, whatever turns you on.
So DA's position on Side 1 of GTD Fast is that GTD enables you to be more productive thereby increasing your leisure time by decreasing your office/work time. Thus DA describes GTD as good for a person like himself who is "lazy," i.e, a person who seeks to create more leisure and less work.
Although I choose to interpret DA nonironically here I find great irony in the means he chooses to express himself. He quotes Covey against Covey. The Seven Habits book is all about choosing values first and deriving lower-order actions from higher-order values. Thus, Covey's is not an instrumentalist approach. His system is not wertfrei, as Rainer might say, it is not value-free but value-laden.
The irony is that if one really believed that no one wishes on their deathbed to have spent more time in the office, then no one is a Coveyite. If I start with my overarching value--to create a world of abundance, let's say--and I dedicate myself singlemindedly to making that desired outcome manifest in the world, then I, and others of my ilk, might surely regret having spent too much time out of the office.
The Covey quotation by DA makes sense only under an instrumentalist interpretation. I might add that this makes total sense. I am not sure, but I would guess that the people who attend DA's seminars are mostly the corporate executives Peter Drucker writes about. I imagine most of these people work for organizations that sell soap or software or financial services. Very few people on their deathbed think, "If only I had created 1.8 million bars of soap instead of the 1.5 million bars I actually created."
2. Materialism
DA is not a crass materialist. Let me say that straight out. He waxes poetic, on the parts of Side 2 that I have listened to, about the importance of visualization. But he understands that, at the end of the day, visualizations, ideas, and thoughts are only as good as their material manifestations in the world that we see, touch, taste, smell, and hear. He speaks adoringly of the importance of spending time thinking. But, again, he understands that, at the end of the day, thinking is only as good as the next material actions that emerge from that thinking. And before those next actions can be materially actualized they must be materialized first as a written item in a list.
Myself, as you can probably tell from my lengthy ramblings, I tend towards idealism. I would, to be honest, much rather read DA's book 15 times than spend two hours slogging through a spreadsheet, or half a day finding a better widget to solve our production problem. But sweet ideas butter no peas. DA slaps me in the face and tells me to snap out of it.
The fundamental key of GTD is to externalize or materialize one's thoughts. That is the essence of GTD. It bears repeating. If I am a GTD adept I will always be asking, "What is the next action? What is the desired outcome?" because my thoughts are always oriented outward towards the world. "GTD" could as well be an acronym for "Getting Thoughts Done." "Done" means materialized. If I solve Fermat's last theorem but I don't publish it, I didn't "do" anything.
So, what do I mean when I say that GTD is materialist? I am saying that there are three stages to getting things done. Stage 1 is the thought, vision, or idea. Yes, DA is a nuanced materialist. He acknowledges the reality of our thoughts. Stage 2 is the externalization of the thought produced in Stage 1 into a list. You don't have to externalize your thoughts, if you want to reject GTD. But then, as DA very humorously points out, you are wasting your mind by clogging it with psychic RAM. Get it out of your mind! Materialize! Externalize! Your material (or electronic) list is a very good place to store your next action. Your mind is a very bad place to store you next action. Key insight! Stage 3 is the materialization of the next action listed in Stage 2. Stage 1 creates a mental representation. Stage 2 creates a symbolic representation out of your mind. Stage 3 transforms the symbolic representation into a material reality.
The sequence is: 1. thought, 2. symbolic representation, 3. material actualization.
I hope this is of some use to others. I think that it is good therapy for me. As you can see, I like theory. GTD keeps kicking me in the pants and tells me, "Enough theory, time for practice!" I am not bashful about calling DA a genius. He's given me the theory I need to go beyond theory.
"Philosophers had hitherto attempted to understand the world; the point, however, was to change it."
