GTD a flawed system?

[Anonymous]

Flawed system

I like the GTD system. Here are a couple of additional thoughts:
1. I believe the Covey system has a good suggestion that approx 20% of your time could be spent on Anything (hopefully quadrant 2 -Important but not Urgent). When faced with a 10 hour day I block off 2 hours for whatever I want to do.....
2. Julie Morganstein in her book on T. Mgt discusses time mapping. This is setting up blocks of time during the week for specific "contextual" tasks. You would work on the appropiate next action list category according to the block of time it's assigned to for that day or week. I really like this because when is "cleaning off my desk" ever going to be a priority compared to everything else? But on my calendar, say Thursday 2 to 4pm, "office organization" I am free to work on the tasks assigned to that category.
3. It's interesting to note that in implementing GTD, David Strongly suggests blocking out 2 days; clearing your schedule and avoiding interuptions. Hmmmmmm. Scheduling your priorites and projects...kind of like planning your day! (think about it!) Not trying to be coy here. Just wondering if you noticed it too!
4. GTD has gotten me off center in getting little things done. (and they're all little, right?) For example, when I think that I could get something done in less than 2 minutes, I go ahead and do it. (instead of adding to the list and maybe Never doing it) I so much like that!
The filing systems are excellent. The Next Action question is something I can really use. Got my Palm and I'm all set .......!
Mike C

 

[peaston]

Adults need to tinker

I frequent the Science, Industry & Business Library in mid-town Manhattan almost every other week. I've checked out countless books and audio tapes on productivity, business organization, and similar topics, but David Allen and Stephen Covey are the only two on my shelf at home. Covey crystallized for me the link between my work and my principles and has helped me develop a life plan. Allen's magic is that he distills big ideas into daily processes.

Because GTD was written for a general audience, the focus is on processes and tips that can be more universally applied. But the system can not meet every contingency for every profession. That is why Allen makes good money as a consultant. I am sure that in his consulting work, he must alter his approach or help his clients conform his approach to their work.

I was practicing law when I first discovered GTD and after reading it I made some immediate improvements to my work processes just by implementing a next-action approach and organizing those actions by where I would need to be to do them so that I could better batch my work. I found, however, that GTD provided less guidance for project-based work that is as complex as legal work. Yet, I was able to take his basic principles and flesh them out to develop other processes necessary in my work.

When thinking of what additional processes I had to add to GTD, two come to mind.

(1) Priorities.

Generally, I don't like to spend much time prioritizing lists. The process is often abused and becomes counter productive. But for my law practice, it was absolutely necessary and even I am starting up my own company, I still find it help full to indicate an item's priority. As David Allen suggests, I treat all date/time-set tasks as events and put them on the calendar. "Call John at 3pm on April 5th" would not appear on my task list.

But I had to further develop GTD when it came to tasks that did not need to be done at a specific time, but had specific deadlines. I suppose that I could treat such tasks as events scheduled long before the deadline, but then why not just put all tasks on the calendar?
How one should handle these tasks will vary widely depending on the type of work you do.

The first thing I do is determine if the "task" is really a project. If not--if it really is the very next step--then what *I* do is put it on a next action list and give it a due date long before the actual deadline . Depending upon the PIM application I am using, I will be alerted if I don't do it by the arbitrary due date, at which time I carve out time and schedule the task as an event to make sure it gets done.

This gives me a period of time when the task is "soft." I will hopefully get it done when doing similar tasks. But if I don't get to it, I make it into a "hard" task (an event on my calendar), which I must do at the time I set, regardless of what else I might be doing. For example, if I have to call an adversary to discuss settlement before a trial conference, I will give it a due date a week before the deadline set by the court or rules of civil procedure and add it to my telephone action list. Most likely, I will make that call when I make time to make a batch of calls on my call list. But if for some reason I don't, then come that due date, I will make an appointment in my calendar to call at a specific time.

I also prioritize items with no deadlines. But I keep it simple: Hot, Warm, and Cold (a/k/a 1, 2, & 3, or Red, Black, and Blue). Hot items are those that have to be done or are very important to accomplish a personal goal, even if there is no deadline. I try to reserve this only for very important items. They will be the first I will attend to on any list. Cold items are those that don't really have to be done, but I would like to do them fairly soon. They are just shy of being in "someday/maybe." This could be a task to order a book from Amazon.com that a friend recommended, for example. Warm items are for everything else.

I prioritize my projects and goals in the same way.

(2) Incorporating Roles and Goals.

I find David Allen's 6-level Model for Reviewing Your Own Work useful, but I wanted a more concrete way to integrate it into my work flow. I did this by creating my Roles & Goals lists. In my palm, these are Memo-based lists, not To Dos. First I have a short and simple list of my roles: husband, lawyer, writer, entrepreneur, etc. Next I made three lists of goals: 1-2 years; 3-5 years; and lifetime (could also be 30,000 ft, 40,000 ft, & 50,000 ft). In each goals list I have a heading for each role, and under each role I list my goals for that role and for that time period.

I go over these four lists as part of my weekly review. First I see if I need to add or remove any roles, which is rare. Next I look over my goals and see if any have been accomplished or if I have any goals to add. Then I cross-reference my project list with my 1-2 years goal list, and make sure I have at least one project for each goal. Finally, I make sure that I create tasks and set aside time for each of these projects.

Note that nothing I've written really deviates from GTD. I am simply tweaking its processes to fit my life. I didn't expect a custom-tailored solution to my specific and ever-changing needs, but GTD provides a good framework onto which I can craft my own.

 

[Anonymous]

Reply to Peaston

Peaston,
Thanks for your input. This is great stuff! I am a CPA so I need to pay close attention to due dates. I really like the next action list transfer to a scheduled time and day "hard" task idea. I am always amazed how quickly I get behind on self-imposed due dates. I guess subconsiously I know "it's" not really due yet. But practically I know that timeliness is the number one thing our clients want. And we need to beat their expectations. Thank again.
Mike C

 

[Busydave]

Reading this thread after my exhausting weekly review this weekend has been immensely therapeutic. Yes, I found it stressful and tiring to look at the size of my projects lists, both work and personal. But these are the responses I have picked up in this thread:

GTD does not create any more work: it just sets it out in an orderly manner – you may end up knowing that you have 300 – 500 hours of work to do, but you had that anyway, and it is still going to take 300-500 hours to do. However, we will now think twice about taking on new stuff.

Gate-keeping and renegotiating: at this moment I feel these are the MOST important area of GTD (in fact, I am clinging to them for dear life!). It should be easier to say "no" when we have a clear illustration in front of us of how much we have on our plates.

The “permission” that GTD gives us to renegotiate dissolves the misconception that our lists are carved in stone. I felt for a while that the current projects lists were irrevocable commitments to get the stuff done. But this would be out of synch with the real world. GTD is not a prison. Life and business will require us from time to time to reshuffle our projects, move some up, and jettison or transfer others. That is a reflection of how the world works and how we need to move with it.

In a work scenario it is harder and braver to say no. But it is also more dangerous not to say it. The effect of not saying no is failure, personal first, and then maybe corporate.

This puts us in a strong position. Like thinking up front, if we renegotiate with those to whom we have made commitments (even ourselves), then we are taking the initiative. It is an honest and moral path: just compare it with ducking and dodging, or downright lying after the promises have become overdue (not to mention the guilt!).

GTD doesn’t let us hide from life; it encourages us to deal with it fairly. “Commitment” is not just a technical term; it is rightly loaded with an inter-personal layer of meaning. It recognises that almost everything we do is intimately bound up with human connections.

 

[dnnichols3]

GTD Flawed - Maybe Humans - Deffinately

I disagree with the system is flawed. I am in the process of setting up telecoaching and Meg stated, GTD is Simple but not simplistic.

I don't believe there is a system out there that will make your life stress free. That is up to you and the choices you make. (As my husband reminded me while I was grumbling and working last night).

I agree more documenation would be nice in regard to implementation suggestions. However, I'm not sure you can document enough scenarios to make it useful to everyone else. Because bottom line when I am stuck I am stuck regarding "this particular thing" within specifics of my environment. I fight the "freak my self out trip" and struggle with avoiding blowing a fuse and thinking down to the true next action. I hear telecoaching will help with this. I think there are additional skills to develop but they all go back to
- defining the outcome
- defining the next doable action
:idea: Preventing yourself from accepting the assignment and being able to have a complete list of projects to explain why.

But make no mistake there will be work involved. Building habits takes time, but I believe it will be worth the effort.

 

[craigm]

Weekly review

Have you done the weekly review weekly? I know that I've not been good about doing it, but when I get the weekly review done, I feel like I'm back in the driver's seat. Without it, I feel like I'm still driving, but the longer and longer I get away from the review, the more my butt is hanging outside the window. The review is the key to making it all work. I think when people complain about the system not working, they're right: they're not doing a weekly review, and without doing the weekly review weekly, you feel out of control. Your lists are next action piles, not next action lists.

 

[Anonymous]

Anything, not everything

I think I heard this best from Jason Womack (a David Allen coach) when he said, "You can do anything you want in life, but you can't do everything." In my mind, seeing it all in front of me helps me determine what things I need to re-negotiate and what things need my attention now.

 

[Rainer Burmeister]

Re: GTD a flawed system?

I think GTD needs another book dedicated solely to implementation of the system. I believe I saw in a thread that the next book may focus on principles. This is the wrong direction to head in. Enough about the principles and benefits and more on implementation.

I would like to read a book that deals with the appliance of the GTD method in different scenarios of profession, a book with chapters like "GTD at school", "GTD for laywers", "GTD in engineering", "GTD for the shop owner", "GTD in sales", etc. or a series of booklets or articles of that kind.

Rainer

 

[mochant]

Re: GTD a flawed system?

I think GTD needs another book dedicated solely to implementation of the system. I believe I saw in a thread that the next book may focus on principles. This is the wrong direction to head in. Enough about the principles and benefits and more on implementation.

I would like to read a book that deals with the appliance of the GTD method in different scenarios of profession, a book with chapters like "GTD at school", "GTD for laywers", "GTD in engineering", "GTD for the shop owner", "GTD in sales", etc. or a series of booklets or articles of that kind.

Rainer

Rainer - there are a lot of people writing about GTD and how they put it into practice. If you've not yet discovered RSS (Really Simple Syndication) news feeds, I encourage you to take a look at a free web service like Bloglines. There, you can construct one or more searches that will generate an ad hoc subscription related to that term.

RSS is a tremendous tool for me. I have cut my surfing/searching time by more than 40%, have better information delivered right to my Inbox (I happen to use an Outlook add-in to do this - NewsGator), and am able to scan a vast amount of input with the ability to click into anything that looks interesting. That saved time gives me more time to either get things done or decide not to :wink:

 

[eez]

mochant,

Thanks for the tip.

I just subscribed to Bloglines and entered to my subscription David Allen's and Jason Womack's blogs.

My question is - how can I find other people'b blogs, dealing with GTD (I am especially interested in practicing GTD for lawyers)

thanks

 

[Rainer Burmeister]

Bloglines

Mochant,

thank you!

Ez,

at the "My Blogs" page you can search for the item you want. I typed "GTD" , checked the "All Blogs" button and found lots of entries about GTD.

Rainer

 

[mochant]

Re: Bloglines

Mochant,

thank you!

Ez,

at the "My Blogs" page you can search for the item you want. I typed "GTD" , checked the "All Blogs" button and found lots of entries about GTD.

Rainer

ez and Rainer - that's exactly right. Construct a Blogline search and it will find new items on a regular basis. There are more tools you can investigate as well. Two I recommend are:

Feedster - http://www.feedster.com
Technorati - http://www.technorati.com

Technorati is particularly useful when you've found a good site and want to see who referenced (linked) it. Just enter the URL of the site you'vefound, click the search button and look at the "cosmos" for that site.

Also, if you're looking for a desktop aggregator (as opposed to web-based), you can get a free license for Scopeware's aggregator at their website: http://www.newswatcher.com/. This tool uses a sophisticated indexing engine to make your aggregated feeds searchable and uses a unique visual display to let you shuffle through the search results. It's free for a limited time (regular price will be $29.95).

 

[alsa]

If I had to pick just two things about GTD that I would want anyone to utilize it would be:

1. Write every little thing down for later review -- don't keep it in the brain!

2. Do a weekly (thorough!) review of all your commitments!

After a few weeks of following the above anyone can feel a significant difference between past and present organizational habits, and definitely much more peace of mind and self-assurance that things are under control at any time! At least, that's how I feel. Amazingly this system is easy enough to start slowly and progress to something that is hard to leave for anything more efficient!

 

[alsa]

Barry Glenn

I understand your frustration. GTD is the best system I've found, but I still havent found clarity on what to do next when there's a list of 200 todos and 70 projects. At best, it just gives me a clearer picture of how overwhelmed I am. Like you, I think it doesnt get down to the reality of day to day, moment to moment execution (you call it implementation).

There's alot I like, but there's also this big barrier.

I really doubt any more that there can be one perfect system for us all as we all have different projects and the number of them each week and month. I think we intuitively deep down know what our priorities should be -- so just following that gut feeling and getting the relief of knowing exactly what we need to do, could do, AND choose NOT to do (at least, not in the foreseeable future -- thus, we retire it to Someday/Maybe) guides us to our daily Next Actions. I have been doing this since New Year's and really have more confidence that what I am doing is well thought-out and purposeful. I find that I should not be afraid to writing all my "I need to..."s down -- I don't have to necessarily do it all -- I can just pick and choose later knowing what I am forsaking for what!

Thanks David, Jason, the rest of the GTD team, and everyone on the board!

 

[Jason Womack]

A pleasure working for you all!

Thanks David, Jason, the rest of the GTD team, and everyone on the board!

Hello all,

Just wanted to make sure I said this "out loud."

It is an honor working with the David Allen Company, and working for all of our clients.

Already this month, I worked with clients in Boston, Washington DC, and San Francisco. The rest of the month: St. Louis, Anchorage, Los Alamos!

Thanks for the opportunity to spread this information...