Know what actually to do! What does doing look like???

[Yaaqoub7]

GTD is a system for getting all of your obligations and intentions into a system, so you know you're not forgetting anything and you know what to work on at any given time. For getting organized, it is a great system.

However, what I found was that it doesn't help you do anything. It assumes you can just sit down and do the things on your list when you have time, as long as you know what you probably should be doing. My trouble has always been with getting myself to do things -- tackling difficult, boring, complex, or intimidating tasks, or just getting myself to work on anything at all.

GTD is more for busy people who want to get more done and feel less stressed about it, or are struggling with organizing what they have to do -- but it takes for granted that you have no problem doing the stuff once it's organized.

Your valued thoughts after reading this & suggestions??? thank you!

 

[cfoley]

I had two days recently where I found it very difficult to do anything.

On the first day, I was totally stuck. I just couldn't seem to do anything at all. Eventually, I decided to take the pressure off myself for the day. I decided that if I could do just one action, that I could call it a win. I looked at my context list and chose the easiest, quickest thing and focussed on it. I felt a little bit better when I completed it. Not much better, just a little bit better. Then I thought about what to do next. I could stop for the day. After all, I had already given myself permission to stop, but I decided to do one more action. I chose another quick one. It wasn't easy to do but I focussed on just that one action, completed it and felt a little bit better again. I kept going like this for a few hours and managed to complete a reasonable amount. Don't get me wrong, it was not my most productive day ever. Each action was a struggle and I certainly did not reach a state of flow, but I achieved more and felt a lot better about myself than if I had given up, or spent the day refreshing my email.

It is very unusual for me to have days like that, but when it does happen, it is very useful to have my thinking done already with a list of actions at hand. What happens more commonly for me is that a particular project gets stuck. This brings me to the second day. I caught myself procrastinating on the next action that I had chosen to do. I know that this often means that the next action is too large, so I took a piece of paper and broke that action down into smaller parts. I got really granular. Start computer. Launch software. Open file. Etc. I also thought about other actions that might be needed and wrote them down too as granularly as possible. Now it was really easy to get started and build some momentum. Some of those actions turned out to be wrong but that wasn't a problem. They were easy enough to discard.

I certainly feel that GTD helped me to make progress despite some internal struggles on those occasions. Are these the sorts of things that you had in mind with your question?

 

[FocusGuy]

GTD is a system for getting all of your obligations and intentions into a system, so you know you're not forgetting anything and you know what to work on at any given time. For getting organized, it is a great system.

I will answer with my heart. What I will say after this is only the result of my own experience. I hope this will help you as it helped me years ago.
I discovered GTD about 16 years ago (2007.02) I was stressed and overwhelmed. I was launching a corporate real estate company at Paris (France) and had no money to do it and I was the only one working with a wife and a daughter who was 13 years old. So the circumstance were complicated but I made it.

So,

Absolutly. It is the best system I used since 15 years ! If you make it well you can see at a glance all your engagements and the very next action to make it happens. Control and perspective is the key. Control is for managing, perspective is for guiding. Anyway as every technics it takes time, singleness and efforts. Nothing is free in life !

However, what I found was that it doesn't help you do anything.

I don't agree. Of course GTD won't make it for you. It just give you as a map or a picture what is around you. It doesn't mean you have to do all of them. It goal is just to be assured to do the best you can do at the right time. Nothing else in this control part.

It assumes you can just sit down and do the things on your list when you have time, as long as you know what you probably should be doing. My trouble has always been with getting myself to do things -- tackling difficult, boring, complex, or intimidating tasks, or just getting myself to work on anything at all.

It is a question of thinking about GTD and taking altitude. Be patient. Understand, apply and do it step by step NOT tweaking it. Just apply it core principle and do it one by one until it is a core habit. You will see a lot of changements. Then you will understand where and when to put you efforts and also, may be why.

GTD is more for busy people who want to get more done and feel less stressed about it, or are struggling with organizing what they have to do -- but it takes for granted that you have no problem doing the stuff once it's organized.

GTD is not only for stressed people. Stress is often done by because a part of your brain want you to realize stuff but you feel overwhelmed by so many things that you stress. It is a brain storm. But later, thanks to GTD, you realize that most of stuff is just an illusion and has no interest. It is the difference between be efficient and being occupied. Most of us are occupied. Gtd helps you to understand how being efficient and why means what you do.

So, don't throw the baby with the water bath. Yes indeed GTD is hard. There won't be so many literature about it if it was not !

Personally, It took me years to understand some core principle and also years to apply them. I could not afford a GTD Coach and sadly still can't.

And GTD is not a miracle. What you do is only but your own responsibility. As alway you have to choose. Choose your H5,H4, H4, choose your H1 and at last choose your H0. Also understand how you can make it thanks to your H2. Take time for personal reviews (not only weekly) Use a good digital tool you trust and like and make it happens.

It can also change your goals and what you decide about your life. For me it made me realize I want at 61 years old to evaluate in my professional life.

 

[ivanjay205]

GTD is a system for getting all of your obligations and intentions into a system, so you know you're not forgetting anything and you know what to work on at any given time. For getting organized, it is a great system.

However, what I found was that it doesn't help you do anything. It assumes you can just sit down and do the things on your list when you have time, as long as you know what you probably should be doing. My trouble has always been with getting myself to do things -- tackling difficult, boring, complex, or intimidating tasks, or just getting myself to work on anything at all.

GTD is more for busy people who want to get more done and feel less stressed about it, or are struggling with organizing what they have to do -- but it takes for granted that you have no problem doing the stuff once it's organized.

Your valued thoughts after reading this & suggestions??? thank you!

I honestly could not disagree more with this note. I understand everyone has their own ways, their own "lists of to do's" but I find that when GTD does not work 99% of the time it is not being used right. I am a long time GTD'er and I am an overcommitted person being a business owner in a small/medium sized business and a workaholic on top of that. I have tried other systems and always come back to GTD.

In unpacking what I am reading here (and forgive me if I assume wrong) the first thing you need to do is capture everything. It sounds like you get that and understand that the system is built around getting everything into a system to know what is on your plate, what is not on your plate, etc. That is the first step and I can see you grasp it.

However, while organizing and clarifying into contexts gives you the ability to choose what to do it sounds to me like either (or a combination of) your lists are not clarified enough and you are not using the someday/maybe enough. The reason I say that is you mention tasks are too difficult, complex, or intimidating. That to me means you didnt do the job in the clarify stage. Tasks should be fairly simple, quick, and easy to tackle in GTD if broken down. Your projects including many next actions are large, complex, etc.

In addition, if you are truly doing the weekly review only carry in your system on a week to week basis what you possibly could do. Not everything. That immediately reduces the friction so you do not see 160 next actions available. That is the prioritization in GTD.

Lastly, I really suggest you look at the higher horizons. There are lots of things people want me to do. But if they do not move the needly on my personal ambiitions, my company goals, or my areas of responsibilities saying no is important. That is a hard lesson and something I still struggle with.

When you master the combination of these items I mention your lists begin to attract you not repel you. Why, because you are confident in those moments of time that are available you can knock some things off.

 

[TesTeq]

GTD is more for busy people who want to get more done and feel less stressed about it, or are struggling with organizing what they have to do -- but it takes for granted that you have no problem doing the stuff once it's organized.

@Yaaqoub7 So… GTD is like a soap. Soap is sitting in the bathroom waiting for your desire to wash up. But if you don't want to wash up it's useless.

 

[bcmyers2112]

However, what I found was that it doesn't help you do anything. It assumes you can just sit down and do the things on your list when you have time, as long as you know what you probably should be doing. My trouble has always been with getting myself to do things -- tackling difficult, boring, complex, or intimidating tasks, or just getting myself to work on anything at all.

My response to this is twofold. When I procrastinate, sometimes it's because something in my action lists hasn't been properly clarified as a next action (i.e. a physical, visible task that I can do in one sitting). Or there's something I need to do first. Before calling on a customer, I may need background from a colleague first. Or before I put together a quote, I may need help with the quoting tool. (I'm in sales and new to my job, so I'm picking examples that would be relevant to me. But I think you get the idea.)

Other times I procrastinate because something else is getting in the way emotionally, such as fear. I've found that no productivity system can motivate me to do something because I'm too afraid to do it. That issue has required some personal work for me that is somewhat outside-of-scope for GTD. For me it required some time away from GTD. Although today I do use GTD techniques to help manage that personal work, which is ongoing.

 

[bcmyers2112]

GTD is like a soap. Soap is sitting in the bathroom waiting for your desire to wash up. But if you don't want to wash up it's useless.

Is that your subtle way of telling me I need a shower?

 

[DavidAllen]

I need them, regularly. But sometimes I have to MAKE myself take a shower.

 

[Gardener]

However, what I found was that it doesn't help you do anything. It assumes you can just sit down and do the things on your list when you have time, as long as you know what you probably should be doing.

I think it has tools to help with getting yourself to do a thing:

- The Next Action concept, where you separate figuring out the next little thing you can do from the actual act of doing it and from the big project looming over it.

Sometimes Next Actions successfully cut a hard thing into little bites so that it's not hard after all. When I'm avoiding a Next Action, that often means that it's too big.

So, let's say that the project is "Clean out garage". Bleah. There is no Saturday morning when I will march out there to just do that.

But if the Next Action is, "Fill one kitchen bag with garage trash," or "Throw out three things from the garage," THAT I can do.

And it MAY turn out that writing and working Next Actions like that will get the garage cleaned out without much pain.

Or if I find that I can't even "throw out three things," then the Next Action may turn to, "Spend fifteen minutes researching decluttering coaches."

Or it may turn out that I was able to work a bunch of Next Actions that made the garage better, so that the really hard stuff--like deciding which of those six boxes of Great-Grandpa's carpentry tools are going to stay and which are going to go--is at least supported with more space and the momentum that comes from the previous victories.

Because sometimes Next Actions are a way to get all the speedbumps out of the way until the day that you're ready to do a hard thing.

When the day comes that you have the energy to go out and do some big manual labor thing, you already have the supplies, the protective gear, the instructions/plans/drawings, the analysis of the best stopping point, and so on. You have all that because you worked a series of Next Actions to build up to this point.

Or when you have the emotional energy to go have that talk with your boss or customer, you already have all the data and diagrams and estimates, because you worked a series of Next Actions to create them.

- Another tool: Someday/Maybe, where you stash what you're not doing so that it's out of sight. It appears to me that many people include everything they COULD be doing in their main lists, in case they have the opportunity to work an action. I don't. Everything but the things that I'm extremely likely to do this week is in Someday/Maybe.

So if I COULD have these active projects:

(Yes, I realize that these projects are not properly named. The outcome based name is something I've never been able to make myself do.)

Clean out garage
Redo landscaping by the street
Clean out shed
Re-gravel crazy paving
Reorganize pantry

and so on. But, no. No no no. I will pick ONE household project, and that's if I'm not overloaded on projects in other categories. If it's winter, with nice weather and horrible weather on alternate days and I really want to get out there on the good days, I might have one indoor project and one outdoor project. All the rest are in Someday/Maybe. But that's just me.

 

[gtdstudente]

GTD is a system for getting all of your obligations and intentions into a system, so you know you're not forgetting anything and you know what to work on at any given time. For getting organized, it is a great system.

However, what I found was that it doesn't help you do anything. It assumes you can just sit down and do the things on your list when you have time, as long as you know what you probably should be doing. My trouble has always been with getting myself to do things -- tackling difficult, boring, complex, or intimidating tasks, or just getting myself to work on anything at all.

GTD is more for busy people who want to get more done and feel less stressed about it, or are struggling with organizing what they have to do -- but it takes for granted that you have no problem doing the stuff once it's organized.

Your valued thoughts after reading this & suggestions??? thank you!

Yaaqoub7,

GTD might not "help you do anything.", however, it might help you do more than nothing?

 

[bcmyers2112]

I need them, regularly. But sometimes I have to MAKE myself take a shower.

Whoa. Succinct, powerful and true. Wish I had said that.

Reminds me of when I did competitive running in 2017 after a lifetime of being sedentary. At a certain point I just had to make myself get out there and run. Even though there were days I didn't want to. It was worth it.

@TesTeq: full disclosure, I did not shower today. But I have Covid and am in my isolation period. I think I get a pass today.

 

[manynothings]

I couldn't agree with you more, OP. Here are some of my thoughts:

I have never really understood what effective GTD would look like, and I never once succeeded in reaching the productivity standard I aimed for with GTD. Yes, GTD is extremely useful, but it would be inappropriate to claim it as a packaged solution where anyone can use it to upgrade their lives. There is so much more to the human brain than what is detailed in the underlying principles of GTD, that sometimes, GTD just falls flat on its face.

For example, one problem that has persisted with me for a long time is the handling of large, unbreakable tasks. Most advice I see is just "break it down into next actions, and tackle them one by one". What if the task cannot be done so? Something like tackling a difficult computer science problem. You can't just break this process down. In essence, when doing this task, the mind is breaking it down into bite-size parts, but the thinking processes really feel like they are way past what our human mind can quantify and qualify. For us mere humans, we are left with just an extremely large, daunting task that can take hours of exhausting our mental resources to complete: solve computer science problem. GTD does nothing to help now, and since I don't like doing hard stuff, does this mean that I cannot escape the incoming procrastination cycle? I know for sure everyone here faces these types of situations, so why do so many GTDers seem be cruising by them, handling them with such grace in the reply section? Is there something wrong with me? Am I just not extracting enough of GTD?

I welcome anyone to give me GTD-centered suggestions with the scenario I described above, but over time, I have submitted to the fact that GTD is just a side character. Not everything can be resolved with GTD, and perhaps by my luck, GTD did not happen to be the tool that would aide me in my most serious work-related struggles.

 

[gtdstudente]

Whoa. Succinct, powerful and true. Wish I had said that.

Reminds me of when I did competitive running in 2017 after a lifetime of being sedentary. At a certain point I just had to make myself get out there and run. Even though there were days I didn't want to. It was worth it.

@TesTeq: full disclosure, I did not shower today. But I have Covid and am in my isolation period. I think I get a pass today.

Get well . . . resting is today's best work

 

[Gardener]

Something like tackling a difficult computer science problem. You can't just break this process down.

It seems to me that you could break it down, and would normally break it down, so I must not be following what you mean here? Can you detail a little more?

 

[manynothings]

It seems to me that you could break it down, and would normally break it down, so I must not be following what you mean here? Can you detail a little more?

I probably should have made it clear that I was talking about olympiad computer science problems. If I had been referring to research-type problems, then I would 100% agree with you. However, with problems intended to be done within shorter time frames of up to several hours, I cannot guarantee that I will have the freedom of ending my session at any time. For me, going into these problems feels like committing to them. For me, it is much more productive, albeit intimidating, to fire up those synapses for 3 hours straight, rather than waiting for the next day to restart
my thinking processes, as all the intuition about the problems get somewhat lost quickly over time. (Of course, there is a fine balance, as there are times where an 8-hour rest is absolutely necessary to have a fresh new look at the problem. My point is that I cannot expect this to always be the case.)

In summary, yes, I will eventuallly be forced to "break the problem down", but in the wider perspective, it won't mean much since I still need to maintain that sort of mental state as a large chunk.

 

[Gardener]

I probably should have made it clear that I was talking about olympiad computer science problems.

Hmm. I'm trying to think of an analogy that I have a more intuitive feel for. I was guessing that you were thinking of problems that don't have a clear, straightforward path to an assured solution, which it sounds like you are in part, but you're also thinking of the subset of those problems that benefit from, or flat-out require, an unbroken period of sustained effort?

 

[mcogilvie]

For example, one problem that has persisted with me for a long time is the handling of large, unbreakable tasks. Most advice I see is just "break it down into next actions, and tackle them one by one". What if the task cannot be done so? Something like tackling a difficult computer science problem. You can't just break this process down. In essence, when doing this task, the mind is breaking it down into bite-size parts, but the thinking processes really feel like they are way past what our human mind can quantify and qualify. For us mere humans, we are left with just an extremely large, daunting task that can take hours of exhausting our mental resources to complete: solve computer science problem. GTD does nothing to help now, and since I don't like doing hard stuff, does this mean that I cannot escape the incoming procrastination cycle? I know for sure everyone here faces these types of situations, so why do so many GTDers seem be cruising by them, handling them with such grace in the reply section? Is there something wrong with me? Am I just not extracting enough of GTD?

In any difficult technical problem, you have to look at the problem in its particularity as well as generalizations or simplifications which might help you. You also have to examine the possibly relevant tools, techniques, concepts and previous results you can bring to bear on the problem. This is breaking down the initial approach to a hard technical problem into smaller chunks, and falls easily within the Natural Planning model of GTD. As someone who has mentored many PhD students in physics, I can tell you that a key difference between a grad student and most undergrads is that the grad student learns how to do this.

 

[DavidAllen]

If I were to offer €1mil to anyone to get started on anything, no matter what, they'd probably stop procrastinating. I'd just notice where they went and what they started doing, to earn the money. That's the next action.

 

[Tom_Hagen]

I probably should have made it clear that I was talking about olympiad computer science problems. If I had been referring to research-type problems, then I would 100% agree with you. [...]

In the case of programming challenges, many if not all elements can be reduced to an algorithm, where each branch can be the next action. For example, Fowler wrote a book on refactoring where each type of refactoring was reduced to an algorithm, i.e. a set of next steps. Suppose you have a graph problem to solve - finding the shortest path. The first step may be to search for possible solutions on the Internet. You will surely come across Dijkstra's algorithm, Bellman - Ford's and others. The next step may be to match the best algorithm to your problem. You will probably write it in functional style. It doesn't matter if you write it down or not, you still have to act according to the next steps - functions. GTD - can only help you, not hurt. Even if for some reason you have to work through it in one sitting, note that regardless of whether you apply GTD or not, you will still act in a certain way as you follow the next steps. The above also applies to writing code in a modular, object-oriented, generic style, etc. The same applies to factorization, scripting, etc. Of course, the next step can also be code design, etc.

 

[René Lie]

If I were to offer €1mil to anyone to get started on anything, no matter what, they'd probably stop procrastinating. I'd just notice where they went and what they started doing, to earn the money. That's the next action.

I'd probably opt for taking a nap...

But I'd like to add to this that it's a fascinating - and most likely a revealing - method!