GTD lacks a systematic method for filtering and focusing

[bcmyers2112]

Enlightening

Oogie, thanks for sharing your process. I'm not a farmer, but there are still some elements of your system worth considering in my world.

Although I've found my issue to be too much planning. I am a salesperson and my work is in a constant state of flux. Therefore I've found it's best for me to loosen up. I have learned to ask myself, "What's the minimum amount of planning I can get away with here? What's the simplest way I can do this? Is this even worth doing?"

Most of my projects can't be scheduled -- they depend on what the customer does and says, and that's difficult to predict. So I roll with the punches and adjust as needed.

Still it's interesting to hear about how people in varied professions apply GTD. Thank you for sharing your system with us.

 

[Folke]

Oogiem

Thanks for explaining.

I am both disappointed and relieved to learn that even the great Omnifocus has its limitations - at least now I know I do not need to rush out and get myself a Mac just to get some decent software.

Yes, those strictly sequential projects really are a pain. I am using Nirvana, a beautiful and well-made app overall, which has that exact same silly setup for projects. It is sad, because it would seem like such a simple thing to fix. Instead of having the two project types (parallel and sequential, both of them imperfect; and confusing to many new users) they could simply have a single project type with a sequential section within a parallel main section (the sequential one feeding into the parallel one when that gets empty). That would have the merits of both, plus allow you to have more than just one current action right now. (And it could be refined even further, of course).

We are all ultimately limited by the limitations of our software.