Lifehack: Is GTD generally too difficult for people to use?

[Folke]

Comparison with the age-old intuitive method

I believe (or know), as I also said in my original post, that GTD's biggest "rival" is not the methodologies that are based on time planning (those are only the second-largest rival), but the age-old intuitive-habitual model (the "no-methodology" methodology, if you will).

The vast majority of mankind use neither lists nor calendars nor any other such thing on a systematic everyday basis. Probably many of them do not really need anything of that kind, but quite a few probably could benefit from systematically writing things down, analyzing and structuring them in some way, for example the GTD way. The Lifehack article, at least in part, seems to have these folks in mind. The article says that GTD reminds people of business and other organized work, and that a structured approach is exactly what they want to avoid in the first place and that GTD therefore is too "businessy" and complicated for people in general. So, is this true or not? Is it relevant to even consider?

I believe this argument gives us a hint about the maximum overall "market potential" for all structured approaches combined, including GTD - since the majority of the population would not think they need anything structured at all, and if they sometimes do they would probably solve it intuitively by using isolated ad-hoc lists, such as shopping lists. But what about the "borderline" people - those that really have enough different stuff on their minds and would need a more structured approach, but intuitively reject structure? Is GTD too complicated for them? Well, it might well be, but that would hold true for all structured approaches. Could GTD be described and presented in a way that makes it easier for these people to accept it - a "GTD Light" version? Well, perhaps. For example, a shopping list or packing list, which most people feel comfortable enough with, can be easily generalized into other forms of "context" lists, such as a list for "miscellaneous errands", "computer" and so forth. And the distinction between what to put on a calendar and on a list might be useful even at the entry point level.

But all in all I would say that GTD is just as simple (or difficult) for the non-professional person as any other structured approach, so I would be inclined to question the relevance of that line of argumentation in the article. For example, everybody does not need a car, so it would be wrong to single out Mercedes as a bad car just because you have to open the doors (complicated), start the engine (complicated) etc. That's a "complication" you have with all cars - if you don't need a car, don't buy one.

Overall, I think the more fruitful and relevant comparison is between GTD and Time Planning.

 

[bcmyers2112]

Here is the thread in which I made comments that have been paraphrased by another forum member as, "No, GTD is all about simplicity, for everybody":

http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14979-What-is-GTD-continued

I'll leave it to everyone else to decide for themselves whether this was a fair characterization of my comments.

 

[theilluminated]

While it is certainly true that most people live with an intuitive-habitual mode, it is largely how we have done things throughout evolution. Of course we have made plans etc, but never had as much input as now. There are new things all around and our minds are racing much more because of it. Simply the stream of new info has to be filtered and that leaves our minds to spend more energy on that, leaving less for other tasks. Not to mention the amount of stress in every way (every way that releases cortisol, and thus activiates the fight and flight mode) which inhibits us even further.

In my country at least people view business and personal time quite differently. As a society we have the tendency to loathe work/week days and live for the weekend. Anything reminiscent of work in any way, be it structure, boring tasks etc. are very much shunned (unless you got your own house and kids, still minizing it). The fact could be that many people actually do not care about work, just the people working there makes it okay, so being reminded of work structure might be really annoying.

This is my current peeve with Making It All Work, it tries to make everything sound rosy and fantastic with small puns and stuff here and there about the business of life and game of work (if I remember correctly). I'm simply in no way receptive for such language (nope, I'm not even grumpy now! and Getting Things Done book is so ingrained with business language, making both books simply more difficult for me to read because I have to decipher the meaning too often. It is simply tiring and some times very irritating. If I were to pinpoint a large issue with GTD, it would not be GTD itself, but the language surrounding it. I've had a few friends look at the books, read a few paragraphs and they couldn't go on because it was filled with business-language back to back.

If they re-wrote GTD, avoiding the language issue, stripped it of the "happy rainbow theme" from Making It All Work, but still used some of that information it would be so much better in my opinion. A GTD For Dummies. Market potential exists only when you are able to speak to that market, with the way that they speak, most people are not working in Fortune 100 companies (I might be wrong though, still applicable analogy).

The other issue I think with GTD is the feeling of being caught up in it. From my own experience I got hooked on it and I wanted to bring everything in my life into it as much as I could. From a practical stand-point it was insanity and it failed, I read it again and did a few things differently and got a better system. Fell off the wagon, wrote lots of things and had my inboxes, never used them. I was running in the wild.

GTD isn't difficult, but I feel there is little room for practice. Yes, I have a tendency to be a perfectionist, but everything we learn in school is repeated over and over again so we gain confidence. If you start out with GTD as a newbie, constantly having to go back and for about "what do I do now?" it becomes a drudge and a mess. I've been doing a bit of programming for years, but I got myself a new book recently where I had questions after each chapter, both to trigger what I had learned and to make me think consciously about it. I learned so much more from that than other programming books. So it is about habits, learning the material, being confident with it and GTD (along with so much else), isn't written like that. Beginning GTD is like studying new habits and implementing them, if you aren't confident about them you will not have confidence in your system, hence interacting with it becomes difficult.

The lack of examples is also an issue, most people are visual and we can interpret and understand visuals much easier than written words (especially if the language is uncommon for us, as GTD is), making it even more difficult. Showing examples of a pure digital system, a pure paper system and a hybrid would be very nice. It would put the pieces together for many people, give them ideas, confidence about how it looks in daily life etc.

Something I have lately discovered with myself is how my feelings change about a certain goal after some time. Let's say I write "buy pants" on my list of errands. If I wait too long before doing something about it, it seems irrelevant to me (unless I needed it for a specific occasion). All the things I write on my lists that I have an emotional attachment to now have a tendency to fade away unless I am really passionate about them. It's the same thing where people say that they need to get something done during today or this week or it won't happen. Their connection and attachment to it becomes irrelevant.

You can look at it this way; You need/want something, the fight and flight part of our brain tells us it is important. You want to do something about it, it feels necessary right now. Days pass and you still want it, but the pressure is gone because your are still alive and the brain is sensing that you won't die over the lack of having that item. The longer you wait the more your brain say: this is not important. Until you review it and see you need it for tomorrow because of some party, then your brain gets a jolt and you run off to buy those pants.

This is intertwined with habits also, but the emotional connection to it changes and can do so rapidly. David does go into that when he talks about how important it can be to buy cat food, which is itself a habit (thinking through Horizons of Focus on the spot) that has to be learned and habitually practiced, and not even attainable until life is relatively at peace for some folks.

 

[bcmyers2112]

GTD in it's purest form isn't really that complicated. If you look at what DA actually recommends it's simple lists for day to day activity.

No, it's not complicated. It's difficult, though. As has been said by other forum members, practicing GTD makes explicit all of the external and internal commitments we've made, including those that were implicit. I think some people recoil from that and the choices they have to face if they are honest with themselves about all of their commitments. Some people blame the GTD methodology and abandon it as a result. But writing things down didn't create the commitments, and not writing them down won't make them go away.

Yes it's true that Any.do separates tasks by today/tomorrow/upcoming/someday rather than contexts, but in the digital format do you really need any more contexts than that?

Well, if I'm at the airport I can't grab marketing collateral at the office for a client. If I'm at the office I can't repair a broken toilet at home. If my boss is in all-day meetings I can't talk to him. Even though I have a phone with me all the time I'm highly unlikely to call anyone at eleven o'clock at night, but there are other things I might want to do at that hour. So are contexts still relevant? I think so.

 

[bcmyers2112]

The longer you wait the more your brain say: this is not important.

But within GTD there's an easy mechanism for dealing with that. Just move it over to your Someday/Maybe list.

 

[theilluminated]

But within GTD there's an easy mechanism for dealing with that. Just move it over to your Someday/Maybe list.

Absolutely, but I would probably not care about even putting it here. The larger issue at hand is how capable a person is about long-term planning and thinking. GTD is a system that certainly facilitates long term planning and thinking, which can be quite different to how usually go around their daily life. Making that change can be very difficult.

Willpower: Why Self-Control is the Secret of Success, one of the greatest books I probably will ever read (and I am only 1/4 in), writes about how willpower in a person is influenced in the body. Stress, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, bad diet (fluctuations in blood sugar), caffeine all keeps a person in almost a constant fight or flight more where their capability toward long-term planning is extremely reduced.

My point here is that even if a person implements GTD, write to their inboxes, processes them, make projects and assign next actions to contexts, their mind can be in a fight or flight mode where they look at long-term objectives and not feel compelled to do something about it. This isn't GTDs fault of course, but understanding that people are not aware or currently capable of long-term thinking (it would feel exhausting just thinking about the future) can make a system like GTD feel more like a threat than help.

 

[Oogiem]

Getting Things Done book is so ingrained with business language, making both books simply more difficult for me to read because I have to decipher the meaning too often. It is simply tiring and some times very irritating. If I were to pinpoint a large issue with GTD, it would not be GTD itself, but the language surrounding it. I've had a few friends look at the books, read a few paragraphs and they couldn't go on because it was filled with business-language back to back.

Interesting. Could part of the issue be different cultures?

I am FAR from a fortune 500, yet for me both books spoke to me in a way that no other system of managing my tasks, dreams, aspirations and commitments ever did. I'm a farmer, yet I depend on GTD to manage the farm. Business language is something that everyone in the US understands, almost no matter what business we are in. The only other nearly universal language would be football and baseball. Even folks who do not follow those sports, never watch them, have never played still have a basic understanding of the games and their specific language

 

[theilluminated]

It is probably a bit cultural, but even if people understand the language they might be less receptive because it is so laden with that type of language. It became difficult because English is my second language, but that has not stopped me from enjoying technical books. I thought more than once "cut the crap and get to the point". The information is great, how it is presented/written makes it just more challenging. A quick Google search will reveal that people have issue with exactly that, the way the book it is written.

 

[bcmyers2112]

I thought more than once "cut the crap and get to the point". The information is great, how it is presented/written makes it just more challenging. A quick Google search will reveal that people have issue with exactly that, the way the book it is written.

Yeah, I've heard that more than once. Although I'd be cautious about drawing any conclusions about just how many people overall feel that way based on some negative internet comments.

I appreciated how the book was written. I think it was necessary for Allen to spend a fair amount of the book explaining how the nature of work has changed from the industrial, "make-it-and-move-it" era to what we now call the age of "knowledge work" with its "amorphous, edgeless" nature. It helped explain to me where the concept of the daily to-do list and "time management" paradigms came from and why they were now inadequate.

I also found the numerous examples and metaphors helpful to me. These were concepts that challenged everything I had been taught about how to manage my activities, so looking at the ideas from multiple angles helped them to sink in.

For that same reason, I also think the repetition was necessary. Again, the ideas in GTD go against the grain of the still-dominant "time-management" paradigm and I needed the repetition to help those ideas get past the filters of my pre-conceptions.

I'm not saying you're wrong to feel otherwise, but I wouldn't assume that the majority of people feel a certain way because of comments on the internet. I would guess that most people don't register their opinions, pro or con, on the internet but just go about their business. It's those of us who are more passionate about a given subject who tend to do so -- and we're not always in the majority.

 

[theilluminated]

We certainly aren't the majority as you say

I read it with blank sheets. No system of my own to hang on to. I've used systems that were work-specific, but nothing that would really be applicable in my private life.

The different ways people read that book, based on knowledge and previous experience, would determine how they view the information. I see the books a bit difficult as pure reference material when I have had issues, because of reasons previously stated. It became obvious after a little time that I had to translate (mind-map with notes) the steps, with comments and annotations to really get a bit more into it.

I had to engage and take some time to realize how to work with it a bit more, while still doing some of the stuff on my lists or I would feel it had stagnated. Early on I would get the feeling that "I can't do anything now until the system is in order" when it came to GTD (again, perfectionism :/ ), so falling off the wagon became easy, only to revisit after a certain time.

I'd like to revisit habits. Simply learning a new habit can still be overwhelming even if you are eager. The same concept where people start going to the gym and stop after three visits. They stop at that fourth time because they might feel a bit tired today, they don't go and then go back to old habits. Changing the neural pathways to the brain to react differently with more ease takes time, after 25 it becomes even more difficult since myelin (wraps around pathways to make signals go faster) decline with age.

GTD is a systematic approach. If you have no system already and aren't used to thinking that way, it would be severely more difficult to obtain the habits unless you had a practice partner / teacher. Emotional engagement with the system would also help or make it difficult. I'm trying to condense a lot of information from the book "The Talent Code" (which is all about how we learn), but I'm not sure how well I am re-telling it.

 

[bcmyers2112]

It became obvious after a little time that I had to translate (mind-map with notes) the steps, with comments and annotations to really get a bit more into it.

It sounds like you have a really good handle on how you learn and how you needed the information structured, and engineered your own solution. Props to you. Not everyone is as attuned to their strengths and weaknesses, nor do they work as hard to make things work for them, as you apparently do.

Early on I would get the feeling that "I can't do anything now until the system is in order" when it came to GTD (again, perfectionism :/ ), so falling off the wagon became easy, only to revisit after a certain time.

That was totally me for the longest time. Trust me, I understand.

Simply learning a new habit can still be overwhelming even if you are eager. The same concept where people start going to the gym and stop after three visits.

I've learned that you can "trick" yourself into a good habit. Right now I'm rebooting GTD and have a staggering backlog to get through. What I was taught is to just commit to doing one small thing, like processing 10 emails. If you feel stressed after that (which is unlikely) you give yourself permission to stop and call it "mission accomplished." If you feel OK after 10 (which is more likely), give yourself permission to do another 10 and then stop if you wish. You keep repeating this for as long as you feel OK with it (or as time allows). Trust me, this works.

but I'm not sure how well I am re-telling it.

I don't know the source material but I think you're doing a good job of giving us the gist of it.

 

[cwoodgold]

This is my current peeve with Making It All Work, it tries to make everything sound rosy and fantastic with small puns and stuff here and there about the business of life and game of work (if I remember correctly). I'm simply in no way receptive for such language (nope, I'm not even grumpy now!

I think it's better for work to be fun. People can look for opportunities to switch to a different job that's more fun for them. Or, people can make a boring job more fun by adding things to it like keeping count of how many times something happens, like a kind of game, or trying to improve their skill on some aspect of the job even if it's not important to anyone else. Or, people can try to change their workplace or the whole society so that workers have more control over the details of their own work. When work is more fun, there's less need for leisure activities outside of work.

and Getting Things Done book is so ingrained with business language

It sounded like simple language to me as far as I remember, but maybe I just happen to have the vocabulary. Except for one or two words I had to look up, like "credenza" or something. But I can imagine if I had to look up a couple of words, some people might have had to look up lots of words, and maybe some words or phrases aren't easily found in dictionaries. So, yeah, that could be frustrating. The book's hard enough to understand and learn from even if you do understand all the words!

GTD isn't difficult, but I feel there is little room for practice.

Yes: also, it could have more about how to start, especially how to start gradually: how to make your life a little more GTD-ish for a while without changing a lot of things.

The lack of examples is also an issue

I agree: I'd like to see a lot more examples in the books. However, perhaps examples can be found in places such as this forum.

Something I have lately discovered with myself is how my feelings change about a certain goal after some time. Let's say I write "buy pants" on my list of errands. If I wait too long before doing something about it, it seems irrelevant to me (unless I needed it for a specific occasion).

I think that after using GTD-like systems over a significant time period, I've gradually learned so that to some extent at least, I can predict the priority level things will have over the long term. Some routine things like paying the electricity bill have a surprisingly high priority level if you think about what would happen if you never did it, and that isn't likely to change.

 

[TesTeq]

I incubated the "dusting my room" project, mom!

It sounded like simple language to me as far as I remember, but maybe I just happen to have the vocabulary. Except for one or two words I had to look up, like "credenza" or something. But I can imagine if I had to look up a couple of words, some people might have had to look up lots of words, and maybe some words or phrases aren't easily found in dictionaries. So, yeah, that could be frustrating. The book's hard enough to understand and learn from even if you do understand all the words!

It's not about understanding the words. It's about their specific usage. It may seem awkward to many non-business people to call "dusting the room" or "buying a new TV" a project. Or to incubate these projects... :-D

 

[Folke]

It may seem awkward to many non-business people to call "dusting the room" or "buying a new TV" a project. Or to incubate these projects... :-D

Yes, indeed

And even to business people etc it may seem awkward. The typical 10 k GTD projects would usually (in normal language) still be called just actions (or action points or tasks etc). A project (in normal language) is usually something much bigger, sometimes even as big as a 30 k objective.

I am not sure what the best terminology would have been. I believe David Allen, with his choice of the word project, is trying to emphasize the fact that the GTD 10 k projects are non-permanent, composite "things to get done" that will be fully completed one day - just like a project is (or as an action is); a project is not some kind of general "classification" of "types of things" (such as books to read, gardening etc), which seems to be a very common misunderstanding in various app forums. The distinction David is making is an important one. Maybe a word such as "composite action" or "stepped action" would have been the clearest, both for business and non-business people - but it would have been a bit long.

 

[AJS]

No, it's not complicated. It's difficult, though. As has been said by other forum members, practicing GTD makes explicit all of the external and internal commitments we've made, including those that were implicit. I think some people recoil from that and the choices they have to face if they are honest with themselves about all of their commitments. Some people blame the GTD methodology and abandon it as a result. But writing things down didn't create the commitments, and not writing them down won't make them go away.

Well, if I'm at the airport I can't grab marketing collateral at the office for a client. If I'm at the office I can't repair a broken toilet at home. If my boss is in all-day meetings I can't talk to him. Even though I have a phone with me all the time I'm highly unlikely to call anyone at eleven o'clock at night, but there are other things I might want to do at that hour. So are contexts still relevant? I think so.

I would say time is pretty relevant to all those examples. If you're at an airport you can't just turn up any time you feel like it. If you are at work then you still need to be able to contact the person who will fix your toilet at a certain time. Then depending on what time you call them, you might pay extra depending on whether it's a weekday or a weekend. Time is money as the saying goes. It is never a side issue.

 

[Folke]

@AJS and @bcmyers2112

I think the truth is that all kinds of aspects of the situation can have a decisive influence on our decisions.

This "total context" (i.e. the combined characteristics of the situation) is what I believe DA is trying to put his finger on when he splits it up into context, energy, time and priority. (DA is using the word context in a narrower sense than usual: mainly tools, locations etc.)

The main point is that it all matters to some extent, and it is often relatively easy to weigh and balance these in your gut. Where it becomes difficult is when we try to define - and agree - on exact principles and formulations for when and to what extent each such contextual factor should have what kind of influence on our decisions.

Time, people, energy (mental context), surroundings (physical context), relative importance of other tasks, etc are all relevant types of characteristics of the task and the situation - and they can have a different degree of relevance at different times.

For example, it would seem that for very short-term decisions (next few minutes or hours) the task's importance (priority) often matters relatively little compared with context etc, whereas for slightly longer-term decisions priority is often the dominant factor.

One of the trickier bits, apparently, and a source of much disagreement, seems to be how to balance importance against context etc in "medium-short" time perspectives (say 4-24 hours), where both aspects often need to be given full consideration at the same time.

This seems to have led people to invent interpretations along a very wide scale, from the "ultra-anti-priority" people at the one end, unrealistically denying virtually any practical relevance at all of priority in any form under any circumstances, or "GTD denouncers", who reject GTD as a whole just because they have perceived it as "ultra-anti-priority".

Personally, I do not have a problem with this. I mark my tasks by priority in a medium-term sense (to make them easy to spot in the list), and I weight this medium-term priority against the current contextual factors (also marked in the list) when selecting the next few tasks to do (using my gut).

 

[bcmyers2112]

@AJS and @bcmyers2112

I think the truth is that all kinds of aspects of the situation can have a decisive influence on our decisions.

I agree, and I understand that "context" as used in GTD parlance is only one of the four factors in the four-fold model for choosing actions in the moment. The only reason I focused on context was because AJS was suggesting the concept is no longer relevant, and I disagree. So I gave some examples to illustrate my thinking.

I agree with you that life presents us with a staggering number of variables to process. That's one of the reasons I've gravitated toward GTD. DA clearly searched for and discovered things we can do to cope with those variables and avoid being overwhelmed by them.

 

[bcmyers2112]

I would say time is pretty relevant to all those examples. If you're at an airport you can't just turn up any time you feel like it.

That's absolutely true. But once I'm at the airport, if my flight is running late (I know, I know -- whoever heard of an airline running behind?) I might want to use the time to get some work done. In that case I only want to see options that are available to me where I am. I can eliminate Home, Office, and Errands right off the bat -- but only if I have lists that are subdivided by context.

I never said context is the be-all and end-all. I'm simply arguing that the concept is still relevant. You seemed to be suggesting otherwise, and I have seen many people in many forums suggest the same thing. I disagree -- I think context is still a very useful way to sort my next actions lists.

If I'm wrong about what you meant, by the way, I apologize.

 

[Folke]

I never said context is the be-all and end-all. I'm simply arguing that the concept is still relevant.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I think the concept of context - both in the narrower GTD sense and the wider everyday sense - holds the key to powerful GTD practices and systems. Just because some of the original sample contexts are not relevant to everybody, the concept of context is still as valid as ever, just as you say.

And you said something else very well, too:

In that case I only want to see options that are available to me where I am. I can eliminate Home, Office, and Errands right off the bat

The key word here, IMO, is elimination. This is a very reliable process. I'd be inclined to say that GTD already uses a kind of "elimination" when creating the Next list in the first place (all maybes and yet-impossibles etc are "eliminated" - put on separate lists), and it is only natural to continue the selection process by using "elimination" to further narrow down the choices when you are in a given situation.

When using long paper lists I believe most of us probably use "elimination" without perhaps even thinking about it - "no, that would take too long", "no, wrong place"; "no, not important", "no, too tired" etc. With a paper system I am sure it would be possible to color code tasks with a pen to make this process quicker (filter ocularly by color rather than have to read the words). With a computer app, which normally have tags etc built in, all it would take to be able to use a process of elimination is a simple NOT filter, i.e. the option exclude certain types of tasks (contexts, tags, ...) rather than just being able to "positively" select one.

 

[AJS]

That's absolutely true. But once I'm at the airport, if my flight is running late (I know, I know -- whoever heard of an airline running behind?) I might want to use the time to get some work done. In that case I only want to see options that are available to me where I am. I can eliminate Home, Office, and Errands right off the bat -- but only if I have lists that are subdivided by context.

I never said context is the be-all and end-all. I'm simply arguing that the concept is still relevant. You seemed to be suggesting otherwise, and I have seen many people in many forums suggest the same thing. I disagree -- I think context is still a very useful way to sort my next actions lists.

If I'm wrong about what you meant, by the way, I apologize.

No, I think that's fair enough, I can see how context could be useful, and the concept as David Allen explains it is very logical. I still use four myself, one for my work location, one for home, one for my home office and one for errands. But I still like to see these on a Today list so I can see everything on my plate other than the work location which I keep separate.

That's probably where I deviate slightly from pure GTD, I don't find looking at long lists of task in separate contexts helpful, I prefer to focus on what I've already decided to do for the most part. Also when I experimented with Any.do I found it quite liberating not to have to think about contexts and it worked surprisingly well, although in the end I didn't stick with it.