Curious if anyone has applied GTD to one’s spiritual life or “goals” – prayer, scripture reading, works/outreach, church activities, etc. Without prying, I’d be interested in knowing of anyone here has found this a useful tool in the spiritual aspect of their lives. Thanks!
GTD for Spiritual Life/Practice/Discipline??
- Thread starter Rogaine Warrior
- Start date
What sort of actions are we talking, here?
What do you mean, if there is no next physical action?
Makes me think of spiritual 'goals' such as "attain enlightenment".
I suppose you could put
"enlightenment"
on your context list: @Waiting for
or perhaps it would have to go on the someday/maybe list?
or how about the non-goal of letting go of all attachments?
I suppose one would have to COLLECT all their attachments first into their trusted system, and then process each one, and then hope to DELETE each attachment in the pile, rather than defering or delegating it.
But seriously, all aspects of Spiritual Life/Practice/Discipline fit into a comple GTD system just like any other human endeavor - all the way from the 50,000 foot level (what is the purpose of my life?) all the way down to the runway - even if that means taking off from the runway in full lotus position.
moises said:But what if there is no next physical action?
What do you mean, if there is no next physical action?
Makes me think of spiritual 'goals' such as "attain enlightenment".
I suppose you could put
"enlightenment"
on your context list: @Waiting for
or perhaps it would have to go on the someday/maybe list?
or how about the non-goal of letting go of all attachments?
I suppose one would have to COLLECT all their attachments first into their trusted system, and then process each one, and then hope to DELETE each attachment in the pile, rather than defering or delegating it.
But seriously, all aspects of Spiritual Life/Practice/Discipline fit into a comple GTD system just like any other human endeavor - all the way from the 50,000 foot level (what is the purpose of my life?) all the way down to the runway - even if that means taking off from the runway in full lotus position.
I think that "next physical action" is a somewhat faulty concept, especially for those doing "knowledge work." I often have to just plain think about my ideas for my work. All work is done by your brain, whether it's manipulating symbolic concepts, as with thinking, or manipulating muscles, as with physical action. Work is work, whether more mental or more physical. It does not matter whether that work is more mental or more physical, as long as you have the reminder you need to get it done. Reminders might bemoises said:But what if there is no next physical action?
- Think about X
- Pray
- Consider next chess move for online game
or
- Run 5 miles
- Bring boxes of holiday decorations down from attic
The first group are actions that are more mental than physical. The work done is mostly symbolic. The second group are actions that are more physical than mental. But all are actions and can be identified with a verb.
- Think about X
- Pray
- Consider next chess move for online game
I do have a NA for prayer and it has been helpful for developing the habit, as I rely less on the PDA to remind me to pray than when I put the task in Life Balance about 6 months ago.
With respect to it not being a physical action, I would argue that to pray or meditate effectively, you have to physically prepare yourself for the exercise. The ritual or for praying does require some physical actions.
I suppose you could put a whole set of physical NA's such as:
1. Remove yourself to a quiet area.
2. Read a passage from scripture.
3. Close eyes.
4. Allow yourself to relax and take several deep cleansing breaths.
5. ...
you get the idea - Is it necessary to have this level of granularity in your tasks? For me, since these are all part of the ritual I do when the task of praying is being accomplished, I do not feel compelled to write them down. I just do them when reminded.
The level of detail is up to your comfort level.
best
- Pray
- Consider next chess move for online game
I do have a NA for prayer and it has been helpful for developing the habit, as I rely less on the PDA to remind me to pray than when I put the task in Life Balance about 6 months ago.
With respect to it not being a physical action, I would argue that to pray or meditate effectively, you have to physically prepare yourself for the exercise. The ritual or for praying does require some physical actions.
I suppose you could put a whole set of physical NA's such as:
1. Remove yourself to a quiet area.
2. Read a passage from scripture.
3. Close eyes.
4. Allow yourself to relax and take several deep cleansing breaths.
5. ...
you get the idea - Is it necessary to have this level of granularity in your tasks? For me, since these are all part of the ritual I do when the task of praying is being accomplished, I do not feel compelled to write them down. I just do them when reminded.
The level of detail is up to your comfort level.
best
Sure, that's why I talked about actions that are "more mental" versus "more physical" and gave fairly extreme examples. The actual act of praying, especially silently, is pretty purely mental. A chess master contemplating his next move is doing purely mental work. But most actions are both mental and physical to some degree.Instigase said:
No, no, no, definitely not. The more fine-grained tasks you put in your system, the more you spend time managing and organizing your system instead of just doing the tasks.Instigase said:
One of the major components of GTD is getting all the humdrum stuff out of your head and on to paper (or electronic bytes). I guess this makes it easier to see the big picture, when you get rid of all the foreground. What is the meaning of life.... oops wait a minute I need to remember to buy milk and bread at the shop tomorrow.
What I do find is that since using GTD, all of the chatter in my mind i.e. less fundamental things is even more than ever, but now I can make sure I record it all whereas before I was missing some good (and many lousy) ideas. I am happy with this because I would rather deal with practical "real" stuff from day to day then have my head in the clouds thinking about philosophy, the universe and what makes it all work. There is probably a time for all that and I suppose I trust my brain to tell me when that time is.
What I do find is that since using GTD, all of the chatter in my mind i.e. less fundamental things is even more than ever, but now I can make sure I record it all whereas before I was missing some good (and many lousy) ideas. I am happy with this because I would rather deal with practical "real" stuff from day to day then have my head in the clouds thinking about philosophy, the universe and what makes it all work. There is probably a time for all that and I suppose I trust my brain to tell me when that time is.
"Think about X" as a next action
Disclaimer: what follows is all my very humble opinion.
The big idea I got from GTD (actually I got it years earlier in Alan Lakein's How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, but it only clicked after David Allen gave me all the apparatus to accompany this big idea) is that my success rate in achieving my goals falls off precipitously when I allow myself to use "Think about X" as a NA.
I now strongly encourage myself to avoid thinking. If I want to know what my thoughts are, I give myself the NA "Write about X." I find it useful to adopt the fiction that I lack privileged access to the workings of my mind. Accordingly, I insist that I express myself externally, usually in written form.
By following DA's advice to "get it out of my mind" I have not achieved mind like water and I have not achieved a stress-free life. But I have become significantly more effective and productive. I have also learned what my thoughts were by expressing them.
I use the phrase "expressing my thoughts." This suggests that there is a preexising entity called "thought" and a subsequent entity, "expression", and the latter represents the former. What I've learned is that my thoughts tend to be vague, amorphous, and shot through with affective (emotional) components. An expression is much more than a simple representation of a thought.
Thinking did not serve me well when it came to functioning in the world. Expressing does serve me very well when it comes to functioning in the world. It took David Allen to teach me this lesson.
Since I would like to function well in the world I have adopted the policy of reducing thinking and increasing expressing. One of the subpolicies I have is to avoid creating thinking NAs. In their place I will brainstorm, freewrite, mind map, or speak aloud into a voice recorder. All because David Allen told me to get it out of my head.
andersons said:
Disclaimer: what follows is all my very humble opinion.
The big idea I got from GTD (actually I got it years earlier in Alan Lakein's How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, but it only clicked after David Allen gave me all the apparatus to accompany this big idea) is that my success rate in achieving my goals falls off precipitously when I allow myself to use "Think about X" as a NA.
I now strongly encourage myself to avoid thinking. If I want to know what my thoughts are, I give myself the NA "Write about X." I find it useful to adopt the fiction that I lack privileged access to the workings of my mind. Accordingly, I insist that I express myself externally, usually in written form.
By following DA's advice to "get it out of my mind" I have not achieved mind like water and I have not achieved a stress-free life. But I have become significantly more effective and productive. I have also learned what my thoughts were by expressing them.
I use the phrase "expressing my thoughts." This suggests that there is a preexising entity called "thought" and a subsequent entity, "expression", and the latter represents the former. What I've learned is that my thoughts tend to be vague, amorphous, and shot through with affective (emotional) components. An expression is much more than a simple representation of a thought.
Thinking did not serve me well when it came to functioning in the world. Expressing does serve me very well when it comes to functioning in the world. It took David Allen to teach me this lesson.
Since I would like to function well in the world I have adopted the policy of reducing thinking and increasing expressing. One of the subpolicies I have is to avoid creating thinking NAs. In their place I will brainstorm, freewrite, mind map, or speak aloud into a voice recorder. All because David Allen told me to get it out of my head.
[Next Actions] No "thinking" next actions
Another very humble personal opinion:
In my GTD system there are no thinking-type next actions allowed.
Brainstorming, yes, drafting, yes, mind-mapping, yes, but thinking? No!
The reason for this is that I use GTD only for productive purposes, i.e. for
physical actions, tasks and projects that have a wanted goal, result or outcome.
If I want to be creative and/or do some thinking I either do this during breaks
or schedule some time for this.
Please read http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2778
Rainer
Another very humble personal opinion:
In my GTD system there are no thinking-type next actions allowed.
Brainstorming, yes, drafting, yes, mind-mapping, yes, but thinking? No!
The reason for this is that I use GTD only for productive purposes, i.e. for
physical actions, tasks and projects that have a wanted goal, result or outcome.
If I want to be creative and/or do some thinking I either do this during breaks
or schedule some time for this.
Please read http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2778
Rainer
First of all, if you brainstorm, freewrite, or mind map, you are thinking the whole time. You're channeling the thinking through symbolic written language and in some cases structuring your thinking.Rainer Burmeister said:
Secondly, I do not agree that a no-thinking rule applies equally well to everyone. I infer that you and moises believe that written/structured thinking techniques are the only ways you personally can think productively. I'm not disagreeing with that view at all; I certainly don't know how you think most productively. But I don't believe that a no-thinking rule must be extended to apply to everyone, not to me or to half a dozen colleagues I know well.
I need to do a lot of thinking for my job. I like to think; it's why I chose my job; and I am fairly good at it. And I sometimes think most effectively and most efficiently when I'm not slowed down by having to express the thoughts in language. Writing things down, even by the fastest way of typing, is slow. And in some cases, the thoughts aren't even verbal. At other times, I do use structured thinking techniques that require a pencil in my hand. Both types of thinking are valuable to me, depending on the desired outcome.
Here I infer you to mean that if I put a thinking-type next action on my list, I'm using GTD for non-productive purposes. Hmm. I wasn't clear enough about my own thinking-type next actions; I put a thinking-type next action on my list if it is the next action I need to do in order to achieve the outcome I want. I always know exactly what I want to achieve by thinking about something. It's no different than any other action. If the next thing I need to do is think about something, and there's no obvious benefit to using a structured outlining technique like a mind map, or writing down every word as in freewriting, I write "Think about X" on my NA list. And then I do it.Rainer Burmeister said:
An example of a productive mental action is visualization. I once visualized my entire performance once per day for several months. It took over an hour each day to visualize the performance in real time. The action was purely mental, and the resulting performance was my personal best.
Mental action can be as goal-directed and outcome-oriented as any other action. Conversely, physical actions can be a pointless and useless waste of time -- especially when not well thought out ahead of time. I have seen people busily do actions for days that achieved nothing and could have been completely avoided if they had thought about the situation ahead of time for 10 minutes.
The value of an action for my own productivity is determined by how well it achieves a desired outcome, not whether the action itself is more physical or more mental. The vast majority of my actions do have some physical component, but I don't care whether they do or not, as long as I reach my goal.
A
ActionGirl
Guest
I agree that writing can slow down and even interfere with the thinking. Still, I think it's probably a good habit for most of us to capture the results of the thinking before moving on.
I'm guessing you probably do this somehow, perhaps through a new NA, e.g. "program (or write about) newly discovered solution," or "think about the next step of the problem."
I'm guessing you probably do this somehow, perhaps through a new NA, e.g. "program (or write about) newly discovered solution," or "think about the next step of the problem."
Limit cases and granularity
1. I spend time thinking. This is an important fact about me.
2. "Visualize Tuesday night's muscial performance" is a well-formulated and legitimate NA.
3. If I were to painstakingly formulate my tasks in exquisitely fine-grained detail, I would have many purely mental NAs. There would be a dialectic of thought and extramental performance. Reading is a good example. Actual reading is almost purely mental. But productive reading for me involves notetaking, underlining, etc. There is a constant back and forth of mental and extramental processes.
4. In my post above I wrote "Since I would like to function well in the world I have adopted the policy of reducing thinking and increasing expressing." I agree that it would not be wise or achievable to set myself the goal of eliminating thinking. Pre-GTD I was bending way too far in the "thinking is action" camp. In order to achieve a better a balance I had to push myself hard in the opposite direction. I discourage myself from using "Think about X" as NAs. But such NAs can be justified in cases of visualization and other mental rehearsals, and in cases where one wishes to achieve very fine-grained descriptions.
5. Therefore, "Think about X" is a well-formulated and legitimate NA. But, as much as I can, I systematically and rigorously seek to formulate my NAs in ways that lead me to get my thoughts expressed in external forms. And, to the degree that I have moved towards increased external expression, my productivity and happiness has increased.
On a much more controversial and personal note, more than a year ago I learned of the book The Feeling Good Handbook by David D. Burns, from this forum. This book is more accurately a workbook, for it consists of a series of written exercises that are to be completed over a one month period. The author is a cognitive behavioral therapist. I had read books on cognitive behavioral therapy in the past and their ideas impressed me as important and powerful. But I never did anything more than mentally acknowledge their importance.
Then I read the same ideas in the David Burns book. The difference was that, while reading the Burns book, I was also constantly completing the exercises and writing about how those ideas applied to my personal situation. To my amazement, as the weeks progressed, my scores improved markedly on the anxiety and depression questionnaires that Burns includes in his book.
I believe that it is possible that I could have achieved comparable improvements if I had done no writing but had only rigorously rehearsed mentally the things I wrote. It is possible. But it would have been much more difficult and it would have required much more discipline. The ideas of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) had been available to me for years. But the benefits accrued to me only after I expressed these ideas in external form.
My point now really has nothing to do with CBT. I am not trying to defend it. I am sure it is not for everyone and I am sure there are other schools of therapy that are also quite effective. My point is that I had comprehended CBT quite well for years. But that purely mental grasp did not benefit me in my week-to-week life. Once I expressed the ideas repeatedly in written form I saw my life improve markedly week-to-week. I functioned better in the world. By getting the ideas out of my head and into external form I was a happier and more effective person.
I was learning of the benefits of this new (to me) therapy at the same time that I was implementing GTD. And I saw that GTD was built on some very similar principles. Get it out of your head.
1. I spend time thinking. This is an important fact about me.
2. "Visualize Tuesday night's muscial performance" is a well-formulated and legitimate NA.
3. If I were to painstakingly formulate my tasks in exquisitely fine-grained detail, I would have many purely mental NAs. There would be a dialectic of thought and extramental performance. Reading is a good example. Actual reading is almost purely mental. But productive reading for me involves notetaking, underlining, etc. There is a constant back and forth of mental and extramental processes.
4. In my post above I wrote "Since I would like to function well in the world I have adopted the policy of reducing thinking and increasing expressing." I agree that it would not be wise or achievable to set myself the goal of eliminating thinking. Pre-GTD I was bending way too far in the "thinking is action" camp. In order to achieve a better a balance I had to push myself hard in the opposite direction. I discourage myself from using "Think about X" as NAs. But such NAs can be justified in cases of visualization and other mental rehearsals, and in cases where one wishes to achieve very fine-grained descriptions.
5. Therefore, "Think about X" is a well-formulated and legitimate NA. But, as much as I can, I systematically and rigorously seek to formulate my NAs in ways that lead me to get my thoughts expressed in external forms. And, to the degree that I have moved towards increased external expression, my productivity and happiness has increased.
On a much more controversial and personal note, more than a year ago I learned of the book The Feeling Good Handbook by David D. Burns, from this forum. This book is more accurately a workbook, for it consists of a series of written exercises that are to be completed over a one month period. The author is a cognitive behavioral therapist. I had read books on cognitive behavioral therapy in the past and their ideas impressed me as important and powerful. But I never did anything more than mentally acknowledge their importance.
Then I read the same ideas in the David Burns book. The difference was that, while reading the Burns book, I was also constantly completing the exercises and writing about how those ideas applied to my personal situation. To my amazement, as the weeks progressed, my scores improved markedly on the anxiety and depression questionnaires that Burns includes in his book.
I believe that it is possible that I could have achieved comparable improvements if I had done no writing but had only rigorously rehearsed mentally the things I wrote. It is possible. But it would have been much more difficult and it would have required much more discipline. The ideas of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) had been available to me for years. But the benefits accrued to me only after I expressed these ideas in external form.
My point now really has nothing to do with CBT. I am not trying to defend it. I am sure it is not for everyone and I am sure there are other schools of therapy that are also quite effective. My point is that I had comprehended CBT quite well for years. But that purely mental grasp did not benefit me in my week-to-week life. Once I expressed the ideas repeatedly in written form I saw my life improve markedly week-to-week. I functioned better in the world. By getting the ideas out of my head and into external form I was a happier and more effective person.
I was learning of the benefits of this new (to me) therapy at the same time that I was implementing GTD. And I saw that GTD was built on some very similar principles. Get it out of your head.
Answer to Andersons
Of course it often happens that I don’t know what to do with a project and “Think about project X” then is an idea about what I could do about this problem. But for me this means that I have to design an action plan for this project. “Think about project X” translates to “design an action plan for project X” in my world.
Because I don’t know how long the job “design an action plan for project X” will take it can’t be a part of my NA list. It has to be scheduled and when the time slot allocated for it is over, there is no guaranty that the work (design an action plan for project X) is completely done. Sometimes a second run has to be scheduled.
All this is supposed to happen on the levels of current actions and small projects.
The higher levels are not part of my GTD system because there are too many social factors (i.e. persons) involved here and I haven’t found a way how to apply GTD to teams, groups or social conflicts. At these higher levels I have outlines of responsibilities and areas of focus, collections of notes, maps, project diaries, and personal journals. And this is were the creative or strategic thinking happens.
Rainer
From a psychological point of view this is right. But from the perspective of the user of my next-actions-lists this knowledge is useless. If I would encounter an action reminder like “Think about X” on my NA list then I still wouldn’t exactly know what I am supposed to do in that moment. “Think about X” would be too vague for me.andersons said:
Of course it often happens that I don’t know what to do with a project and “Think about project X” then is an idea about what I could do about this problem. But for me this means that I have to design an action plan for this project. “Think about project X” translates to “design an action plan for project X” in my world.
Because I don’t know how long the job “design an action plan for project X” will take it can’t be a part of my NA list. It has to be scheduled and when the time slot allocated for it is over, there is no guaranty that the work (design an action plan for project X) is completely done. Sometimes a second run has to be scheduled.
All this is supposed to happen on the levels of current actions and small projects.
The higher levels are not part of my GTD system because there are too many social factors (i.e. persons) involved here and I haven’t found a way how to apply GTD to teams, groups or social conflicts. At these higher levels I have outlines of responsibilities and areas of focus, collections of notes, maps, project diaries, and personal journals. And this is were the creative or strategic thinking happens.
Visualization isn’t a productive mental action in my world because there isn’t a product produced in visualization. The way I see it, visualization is a creative mental action generating a more skilled person, a better version of yourself.
Rainer
If you wouldn't know how to do this particular action, then of course you shouldn't formulate it this way.Rainer Burmeister said:
NAs that will help an individual achieve a successful outcome are highly individual. They are specific to an individual. They are specific to a goal. My point in this thread is that GTD should not make rules about what verbs should or should not to be used in formulating NAs. Each individual must evaluate what specific NAs successfully achieve her own goals.
If I never choose "Think" as the verb for a NA, it will be because "think" is not the next action to achieve any of my desired outcomes. I will not make an a priori rule outlawing all thinking.
My guideline about NAs is that I should know how to do them when I see them in a list. And they should help to successfully achieve my desired outcome. The verb can vary with the situation.
Sure there is. Neural networks in your brain are activated and then changed; changes become more or less permanent if they are reinforced. Visualization is just another learning technique that is useful in some ways. In some situations, it's infinitely more effective than making a "mind map."Rainer Burmeister said:
I don't understand what makes something a product that is produced in your world. A mind map is productive because you can see writing on a piece of paper when you are done? Changes in the brain can be seen with appropriate technology -- fMRI, PET, EEG. Behavioral outcomes of those neural networks can also be measured. In my world, we see and measure these changes all day long. The knowledge and skills which result from learning are real. And they are valuable assets for "knowledge workers."
In my example of visualization, it was an action that took time and effort and helped to achieve an important outcome goal. I fail to see how that was not "productive." It was mental practice. Physical practice was on my list of things to do as well. When I practiced physically, muscles moved. When I practiced mentally, the same brain areas that control those muscles were activated, and the same muscle fibers were activated as well, but below the threshold that will trigger actual movement.
Visualization helped me achieve something I could not with physical practice alone: simulation of the performance environment. Learning is highly specific. If I practice alone in a relaxed environment, I will not be prepared to perform publicly in a high-pressure environment. It's useless to practice many hours physically, only to fall apart during the high-pressure performance I spent 1,000 hours practicing for.
Mind maps would have been useless.
If I want to change my brain by increasing my knowledge and skill, I do the actions that will achieve that outcome (and track them with GTD). If I wanted to lower my cholesterol, I would similarly do the actions to achieve that outcome, and track them with GTD. Both outcomes are hard to see directly without the technology, but nonetheless there are actions I can do to achieve them.
GTD easily handles any individual's desired successful outcomes (visible or not) that can be achieved by action (physical or mental).
M
m_s
Guest
I'm going to talk across the current of the thread so far...
I have been a Buddhist for 16 years, and a member of a Buddhist Order for the last 5 years. For the first 15 of those years, I meditated almost every day. And then I took a very busy job - working as secretary to a senior teacher in the Order - and I was completely overwhelmed by busyness, and by the million words and actions per day that I needed to process. When I sat down to meditate, my experience was so painful that I started to miss more and more sessions; by October 2004 (1 year into the job), I was meditating maybe once or twice per week.
I want to stress this: my experience of meditation was painful - this had to do, I think, with the complete lack of control, the fact I seemed to have no choices left as to how (and when) my mind worked, and the fact that all the techniques I had used (and taught) for years were simply not working, and all the administrative/work tools I had used in previous busy jobs also were not working.
I gave up. I did an intensive retreat for two weeks in India last December, and I loved meditating, though my mind still was very busy. But day-to-day, I just stopped meditating; and since January 2005, I've meditated maybe 5 times. I did another intensive retreat in June, here in England, and that was fantastic, such a relief; but I couldn't bring my meditation back into my life after the retreat ended. So it's been more than a year since I had anything like a regular meditation practice, and most of a year since I tried to meditate off-retreat.
And then I discovered GTD a month or two back, and that has made such a difference. 'Mind like water'? Sure, I know that experience - that was what drew me to meditation in the first place, and kept me doing it regularly for 15 years. And now? Well, I'm setting up my system, and I'm learning to trust it; and I'm putting things in files instead of in my head or on my office floor. And slowly, slowly, meditation is seeming more and more appealing again. Last night I listened to a recording of David's interview for Human Media, 'Relaxed Focus' (http://www.humanmedia.org/program_david_allen.php3?c=r), and I so appreciated that he said a few things in the second half about meditation and practice.
Do I use GTD in my practice? At the moment, it feels like GTD might be making aspects of my practice possible again, because it's given me tools to set down the burden of my thoughts, and because that allows me back into the experience of 'Mind like water'. So yes, I do. And I know the discussion that's preceded in this thread is important and valuable, but I just want to underline that we might all be implementing GTD in our practice in more basic ways than in correctly forming our NA lists - it might be what's making practice possible at all.
I have been a Buddhist for 16 years, and a member of a Buddhist Order for the last 5 years. For the first 15 of those years, I meditated almost every day. And then I took a very busy job - working as secretary to a senior teacher in the Order - and I was completely overwhelmed by busyness, and by the million words and actions per day that I needed to process. When I sat down to meditate, my experience was so painful that I started to miss more and more sessions; by October 2004 (1 year into the job), I was meditating maybe once or twice per week.
I want to stress this: my experience of meditation was painful - this had to do, I think, with the complete lack of control, the fact I seemed to have no choices left as to how (and when) my mind worked, and the fact that all the techniques I had used (and taught) for years were simply not working, and all the administrative/work tools I had used in previous busy jobs also were not working.
I gave up. I did an intensive retreat for two weeks in India last December, and I loved meditating, though my mind still was very busy. But day-to-day, I just stopped meditating; and since January 2005, I've meditated maybe 5 times. I did another intensive retreat in June, here in England, and that was fantastic, such a relief; but I couldn't bring my meditation back into my life after the retreat ended. So it's been more than a year since I had anything like a regular meditation practice, and most of a year since I tried to meditate off-retreat.
And then I discovered GTD a month or two back, and that has made such a difference. 'Mind like water'? Sure, I know that experience - that was what drew me to meditation in the first place, and kept me doing it regularly for 15 years. And now? Well, I'm setting up my system, and I'm learning to trust it; and I'm putting things in files instead of in my head or on my office floor. And slowly, slowly, meditation is seeming more and more appealing again. Last night I listened to a recording of David's interview for Human Media, 'Relaxed Focus' (http://www.humanmedia.org/program_david_allen.php3?c=r), and I so appreciated that he said a few things in the second half about meditation and practice.
Do I use GTD in my practice? At the moment, it feels like GTD might be making aspects of my practice possible again, because it's given me tools to set down the burden of my thoughts, and because that allows me back into the experience of 'Mind like water'. So yes, I do. And I know the discussion that's preceded in this thread is important and valuable, but I just want to underline that we might all be implementing GTD in our practice in more basic ways than in correctly forming our NA lists - it might be what's making practice possible at all.