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

[cwoodgold]

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.

Sure; but one of the big advantages for me when I switched to GTD was doing less of that. Looking at an action and thinking "no" for one reason or another attaches negative thoughts and feelings to the action and can become a habit, so that one automatically thinks "no" (and perhaps finds a way to rationalize that) even when there eventually is a real opportunity to do it. With GTD, there's a high proportion of doable actions on the lists you look at. For me, this made a huge difference. It feels freeing.

 

[Folke]

Looking at an action and thinking "no" for one reason or another attaches negative thoughts and feelings to the action and can become a habit, so that one automatically thinks "no" (and perhaps finds a way to rationalize that) even when there eventually is a real opportunity to do it.

Sure, there are risks with everything, even with good things. But wouldn't you agree that the selection process could be seen as consisting of two phases - first making a short list (elimination) and then making the final (positive) selection?

Suppose you have 50 items on your Next list. It would simply be too much mental effort to compare all of those carefully (and positively) from all the aspects of Context, Energy, Time required and Priority (every single time you need to pick a few more actions). You need to get the number of choices down to maybe 10 or whatever your brain can handle. Many tasks are simply out of the question for quite objective reasons, wouldn't you say?

 

[cwoodgold]

Sure, there are risks with everything, even with good things. But wouldn't you agree that the selection process could be seen as consisting of two phases - first making a short list (elimination) and then making the final (positive) selection?

Sorry. I'm not sure what you're getting at. Do you disagree with something I said? Are you asking me to clarify something I said?

Hmm, that's interesting: your idea that the GTD method of selecting an action involves two types of steps: elimination steps and a positive selection step.

The point I was making was that elimination steps (saying "no" to an action) involve a psychological cost, especially when done repeatedly for the same action. I think David Allen understands this and designed the GTD system to reduce elimination steps, though he may not have taken this as far as I have (see the "Comparison of systems" section on my page here http://web.ncf.ca/an588/abc.html ).

If you have things tagged or classified as "do when at work" or "do when I expect at least 10 minutes uninterrupted time" etc., then you can eliminate a lot of things at once without having to consider each one individually. In that case, there's little or no psychological cost. But if you have to read over a list and for each item think "no, I don't have time", "no, I can't do that here", etc., then I think there is significant psychological cost. For some people, this may not matter much. For me, I really like how GTD has enabled me to look at a list and be able to think "hey, I can actually do a lot of these things, right now."

I prefer this way: when I first think of an action, I figure out where and under what circumstances I want to do it. That feels like a positive type of thinking: when do I want to do this? Then, ideally, only when those circumstances occur, I read the action on a list and have the opportunity to decide to do it then (or to do something else instead). Once I've defined the parameters the first time, from then on the system takes care of that automatically. It can be as simple as having it on a piece of paper which is only read in a certain context. In this way, I avoid having to repeatedly think about that action and decide "no".

Your question brings up an interesting idea: Is there something different psychologically between looking at an action and deciding "no, I can't do that here/now" etc., or looking at a list of actions and skipping over an action while selecting a different one? I think there is. I think one can do the second without actually thinking "no" to any actions. (See this page, where I talk about saying yes to one task without saying no to other tasks: http://woodgold.pbworks.com/w/page/65767775/Tumbled Procrastination )

In my system, I have a lot of things written one per page, and I approach these with different purposes. Some piles of paper I go through with the intention of (usually) doing something with each page. Some are reminders, and the thing to do is just to read it: very easy. Others call for single actions which I'll usually do immediately before continuing to go through the pile (2-minute rule?).

But other piles contain actions which I don't normally expect myself to do at the time I go through them. The purpose of going through them is to remind myself that such actions will eventually need to get done, or to sort them or select some to be done soon. In that case, when I look at one and turn over the page, I don't have to think "no, I've decided I don't want to do this now", because the intention was just to read over the list, not to do every action immediately. I think there is nevertheless still a small psychological cost -- it still feels a bit like saying "no".

Suppose you have 50 items on your Next list. It would simply be too much mental effort to compare all of those carefully (and positively) from all the aspects of Context, Energy, Time required and Priority (every single time you need to pick a few more actions). You need to get the number of choices down to maybe 10 or whatever your brain can handle. Many tasks are simply out of the question for quite objective reasons, wouldn't you say?

I'm not sure whether you're talking about eliminating them with an automatic method (such as having them on a different piece of paper which you don't look at or tagging them electronically) or eliminating them by using your brain, reading each one and deciding it isn't appropriate to do at the moment. To me, these are very different things. To some people, it might not matter much. David Allen talks about people becoming numb to systems. If this doesn't happen to you, it might not be an important factor for you.

Certainly some tasks are out of the question for quite objective reasons. For these, it's usually feasible to eliminate them automatically (i.e. not even have them on the list you look at). Maybe what you mean is that even if they're on your list, there isn't much psychological cost or cost in time for eliminating them because your brain can eliminate them quickly and easily by thinking "no, I can't do that here" etc. That's fine if that works for you. For me, I like to try to maximize the doability of the actions on the lists I present myself with and minimize (preferably to zero) the number of times I say "no" to individual actions.

 

[Folke]

@cwoodgold - I get the impression we agree on everything

It seems we both like to do as much as possible of the initial "elimination" automatically (using tags, lists, whatever our apps can support). If the list is still to long (not enough detail in the tags, or poor filtering mechanisms), I think for me it is quicker to first rule out some more actions based on whichever one of the factors is objectively not a good match now, than it is to directly aim to select the best final match based on all four criteria combined. I totally agree with you that such elimination should be objective due to the risk of otherwise creating emotional barriers if tasks are rejected just because they sound boring etc.

Very interesting about the choosing of one without saying no to another. I'll have to give that some more thought. But I think out of habit I tend to tag my tasks with with they require, which means it is easy for me to rule tasks out quite unemotionally if that requirement objectively is not met in the present situation. Example: A certain task requires the assistance of Peter, and Peter is not here.

But you are indicating another interesting way of defining tags - as situations when you would like to do the task. This is a different angle than tagging for requirements. I'll need to give this some more thought, too.

Many thanks for your interesting thoughts.

 

[cwoodgold]

@cwoodgold - I get the impression we agree on everything

Possibly.

It seems we both like to do as much as possible of the initial "elimination" automatically (using tags, lists, whatever our apps can support).

OK.

If the list is still to long (not enough detail in the tags, or poor filtering mechanisms), I think for me it is quicker to first rule out some more actions based on whichever one of the factors is objectively not a good match now, than it is to directly aim to select the best final match based on all four criteria combined.

OK. I think the GTD way is to select one of them based only on Priority. In some of my systems, I simply do things in the order they come up: the priority levels are similar and it isn't worthwhile taking the time to sort them, or I've pre-sorted them by priority, or I'm following the 2-minute rule.

"best match based on all four criteria combined": maybe. What would be a best match? http://woodgold.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/sorting-actions-by-energy-level-required-etc/ Here I said that at work, I did the quicker actions first, while I at home, I did the actions requiring longer times first since long times seemed less often available. Both places I did the highest-energy task from among the tasks I had enough energy for.

I totally agree with you that such elimination should be objective due to the risk of otherwise creating emotional barriers if tasks are rejected just because they sound boring etc.

I don't think I said that, nor meant it.

Very interesting about the choosing of one without saying no to another. I'll have to give that some more thought. But I think out of habit I tend to tag my tasks with with they require, which means it is easy for me to rule tasks out quite unemotionally if that requirement objectively is not met in the present situation. Example: A certain task requires the assistance of Peter, and Peter is not here.

I believe that even that kind of elimination of a task has a psychological cost (though less than "because I don't feel like it" etc.) and tends to lead to a habit of rejecting that task and numbness to one's list. I believe David Allen understands this and set up GTD to reduce that.

But you are indicating another interesting way of defining tags - as situations when you would like to do the task.

I didn't realize I was doing that, but OK. That's part of GTD. For example, you're not supposed to put down an action like "Contact Lisa", but instead to decide on the details and then put more specifically "Phone Lisa" or "Email Lisa". I think I said "want", not "like": it's not quite the same thing. You don't have to enjoy the action; just intend to do it.

This is a different angle than tagging for requirements. I'll need to give this some more thought, too.

Many thanks for your interesting thoughts.

Likewise!

 

[Folke]

I think the GTD way is to select one of them based only on Priority.

I usually look at (High) Priority before I even look at context, energy etc - I just might have to get myself somewhere else and/or into another frame of mind in a big rush, regardless of how poor the "match" is ;-)

But later, after some simple elimination within the chosen range of contexts, I think I look at all four factors combined.

I do not have an app that lets me sort tasks the way you describe in your blog, so I have to assess them mentally after filtering as best I can using tags, but my filtering capabilities are not too great. I have recently reduced my energy and time tags into a single "effort" tag (High or Low; or Normal= no tag) to simplify the practical handling of it, but I am suffering heavily from the absence of a NOT filter. During the final, mental, active selection phase, I think I look at all aspects (all four factors) combined.

I don't think I said that, nor meant it.

Sorry, I did not mean to misrepresent anything you said. I need to ponder this mental rejection a bit more. I do not believe, off-hand, that I am accruing negativity by rejecting tasks for objective reasons, but I am acutely aware of the other kind of negativity you mention, which is caused by being too unspecific about what, how, when or under what circumstances etc - but the good part is that this negativity becomes a trigger for analyzing and specifying the task better.

 

[cwoodgold]

I usually look at (High) Priority before I even look at context, energy etc - I just might have to get myself somewhere else and/or into another frame of mind in a big rush, regardless of how poor the "match" is ;-)

Fair enough. David Allen doesn't seem to address how to decide when to move from one context to another. I think I handle that kind of thing like this: if something is very high-priority, then either it just came up so I'm already aware of it, or I've marked it on my calendar, set my watch to beep or put it elsewhere in my system where I'll become aware of it at an appropriate time. As I see it: people probably already had pretty good systems, before GTD, for doing the most urgent stuff. The advantage of GTD is getting some other stuff done at the same time -- for example, when going to a store for something needed urgently, also buying non-urgent stuff which therefore doesn't become urgent later on.

 

[Folke]

David Allen doesn't seem to address how to decide when to move from one context to another.

I agree. And I believe this is one major reason why Priority is such an "infected" word. All agree that we should definitely use it at higher horizons and to almost entirely ignore it when standing in the context of a particular shopping mall and considering what else to buy now that we are standing there, but there seems to be no generally accepted interpretation of the use of Priority in between those two extremes.

What I do is I mark as high priority those actions that I "objectively" regard as dangerously late (in a stable sense, with at least a full day advance perspective; if I am running late for an appointment I simply run for it), and I consider these actions seriously every single time I visit my Next list, regardless of where I am or what energy I have etc.

As I see it: people probably already had pretty good systems, before GTD, for doing the most urgent stuff.

I agree. And I'd take it a step further: People had such systems not only before GTD but even before the advent of "time management". The way I see it, GTD is "just" a wise and clever, and much needed, formalized terminology and narrative for the intuitive systems we have all used for ages, e.g. using separate lists for separate "contexts", or defining things as "actionable" (not just stating things as problems, purposes etc), or identifying what the first steps ("Next actions") must be in the activities ("projects") we embark on. Etc. Would you agree?

 

[cwoodgold]

I do not believe, off-hand, that I am accruing negativity by rejecting tasks for objective reasons, ...

Suppose you had to reject a particular task for objective reasons ten thousand times and then realize that it was time to do it. It seems to me almost inevitable that you would have an impulse to skip over the task again, out of habit, and have to catch yourself to realize it was actually time to do it this time. In more realistic scenarios, effects for you of rejecting a task may be small and insignificant, but I don't see how they could be nonexistent. In any case, the elimination process when using your brain rather than an automatic system takes some time and mental effort. If you have any trouble with tasks that stay on your lists not getting done, or not wanting to look at your list at all sometimes, or if you're fine now but start having those problems in the future, you might want to reconsider arranging your system not to require as much active, conscious elimination. But maybe for you that's not a problem and won't ever be.

The way I see it, GTD is "just" a wise and clever, and much needed, formalized terminology and narrative for the intuitive systems we have all used for ages, e.g. using separate lists for separate "contexts", or defining things as "actionable" (not just stating things as problems, purposes etc), or identifying what the first steps ("Next actions") must be in the activities ("projects") we embark on. Etc. Would you agree?

The way I see it, GTD teaches things that many of us were not already doing, such as sorting lists by context and making actions more doable by thinking out the details ahead of time, writing the phone number right on the action list for phone calls, etc. GTD's two-minute rule has been helping me a lot, for example. GTD adds clarity: that doesn't mean GTD describing what people do; it means GTD getting people to make decisions which clarify the classification of bits of their stuff (e.g. "is it actionable?").

 

[Folke]

... if you're fine now but start having those problems in the future, you might want to reconsider arranging your system not to require as much active, conscious elimination. But maybe for you that's not a problem and won't ever be.

Oh, I do suffer a lot from not having good enough tagging and filtering options. I even wrote a long post about it here: http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?15024-Desired-Feature-Elimination-Filters-AND-OR-NOT

And, I admit that if it almost becomes a habit to reject a certain task without thinking, then it is negative. In those cases I usually consider why. Is it not adequately tagged? Not defined clearly enough? Or simply not very urgent/important, and basically cool?

The way I see it, GTD teaches things that many of us were not already doing.

Yes, GTD really is an important creation and serves an important teaching purpose. I am thankful every day to David Allen for it. Whether it is all really new or not is not essential. What matters is that we now have a common system and terminology that we can refer to, and around which app developers can base their development, and around which teachers can teach sound principles.

 

[fwade]

Doing the most urgent stuff

As I see it: people probably already had pretty good systems, before GTD, for doing the most urgent stuff. The advantage of GTD is getting some other stuff done at the same time -- for example, when going to a store for something needed urgently, also buying non-urgent stuff which therefore doesn't become urgent later on.

Hmmm... I see this differently. Most clients/trainees I see don't have good systems for doing stuff that's either already urgent or about to become urgent.

For them, time is the scarcest resource they have to work with, in order to get stuff done each day. They are highly motivated and constantly set new targets for themselves that routinely put them in a scramble.

This makes me think that the most important context to use at any point in time is the one that is the scarcest - whether it's time, a tool, energy, a location, etc. There are a few threads that are popping up on the subject of context setting, and people are jumping in with their point of view about which method of tagging is THE best.

Maybe they are all right - from their point of view. The method they use (that presumably works for them) does so because it allows them to focus on what's important, using their scarcest resource.

It looks to me as if we need some intelligent method of choosing which resource is personally constrained, and how to convert that into a method of tagging/priorities/categories/contexts. The common understanding could be that we are all trying to do the same thing in different ways.

In this sense, the advantage of GTD that you mention above in emphasizing physical location (i.e. Context) is that while you're in a particular location, you have pre-decided all the stuff you can get done - and make the best use of your presence in/at the context.

This is useful is you travel a lot from one place to another and can only complete certain tasks in exact locations. However, as someone in another thread pointed out, this is becoming less likely to be the case as technology improves.

This brings me to another skill we need to develop - how do we intelligently switch from one system of tagging to another? That is, how do we tell when a method no longer works for us? How do we identify a new one?

In our changing times, these skills strike me as critical - the key to not getting stuck in any particular practice that offers no way forward.

Francis

 

[Folke]

I see this differently. Most clients/trainees I see don't have good systems.

This is probably true. Every new person born into this world needs to learn. Some useful stuff you can learn from GTD or from your grandmother or from common sense or your own ingenuity. Most of this common sense stuff (such as context awareness and redefining problems into concrete actions) has been in the public domain for centuries or millennia, but each person still needs to learn it - and many probably have not.

For them, time is the scarcest resource they have to work with, in order to get stuff done each day. They are highly motivated and constantly set new targets for themselves that routinely put them in a scramble.

Isn't that probably due to an unclear overall perspective (at the higher "horizons") rather than poor management of the concrete and specific requirements of the tasks as such (context, energy etc)?

This makes me think that the most important context to use at any point in time is the one that is the scarcest - whether it's time, a tool, energy, a location, etc.

Interesting thought. Tallies with economic thinking, too. Definitely worth considering, but I am not convinced that the scarcity aspect as such needs to be implemented in the basic tagging. If you tag each task with its main requirements (necessary prerequisites), then it would seem to me to be possible to use this tagging flexibly depending on what your scarcest resource is at any given moment, wouldn't you agree? For example, if you have only little time, then you simply "hide" (do not consider) tasks that require a long time.

This brings me to another skill we need to develop - how do we intelligently switch from one system of tagging to another? That is, how do we tell when a method no longer works for us? How do we identify a new one?

Isn't it possible that we simply discover gradually that some tags no longer are of much use, whereas we may spontaneously see a new need to be more detailed on other areas? For example, if suddenly you have an awful lot of errands you might see a need for having more precise errand tags (based on geography, or means of transportation, clothes, or whatever is relevant for you and the type of errands you do). And conversely if you no longer have more errands than you easily can cope with in one single view (say a dozen), then you get rid of some of the unnecessary tags. I am not sure if it would always really be necessary to change the whole "system" (the logic of it).

 

[Oogiem]

In this sense, the advantage of GTD that you mention above in emphasizing physical location (i.e. Context) is that while you're in a particular location, you have pre-decided all the stuff you can get done - and make the best use of your presence in/at the context.

This is useful is you travel a lot from one place to another and can only complete certain tasks in exact locations. However, as someone in another thread pointed out, this is becoming less likely to be the case as technology improves.

I don't see contexts as being only physical location at all. In fact I live and work at the same place. At any given time I can choose to go into nearly all of my contexts. SO while I do have physical contexts (particular pastures or buildings) I also have contexts that relate to what help I have available and to the time I can complete them (phone business hours vs just phone)

Just because you can do nearly every context at any given time doesn't negate the beneficial effects of working within one context until it's a natural break to move to another one.

BTW the GTD manager I use does not do tagging at all and I've never found that a problem. But I don't think in tags, I don't even use tags in any filing systems either other than the very tightly controlled tagging I do in LightRoom for my pictures. For me for tagging to be useful it must have a highly constrained vocabulary, and defining and setting up those vocabularies is more time consuming and more effort to maintain than using contexts appropriately.

 

[Folke]

For me for tagging to be useful it must have a highly constrained vocabulary.

Totally agree. I do not see any point at all in applying tags in some spontaneous fashion - which is what (I believe) many people probably do.

... and defining and setting up those vocabularies is more time consuming and more effort to maintain than using contexts appropriately.

Disagree. In my world tags and contexts are basically just two words for the same thing - task requirements (prerequisites); you may need a phone or a computer or be at the supermarket or need somebody's assistance or whatever to be able to do a task. But I certainly agree that it needs an amount of thought to set up these tags/contexts appropriately.

Many apps have two (or more) different features (with different names) to support such task characteristics (prerequisites). GTD itself uses the word context more narrowly than in ordinary language, where even your energy, time available etc likely would have been subsumed under the term context. Some apps have specially named features for some of these prerequisites, e.g. Contacts, Energy etc. All of this combined probably contributes to making the whole issue look a bit more complicated than it really is.

It is all basically "just" a matter of defining objectively the essential requirements for each task, and then have the appropriate software features (listing, sorting, filtering etc) for displaying what you need to see.

 

[Oogiem]

Disagree. In my world tags and contexts are basically just two words for the same thing

Not for me, they are significantly different. We should probably just agree to disagree on that point.

 

[Folke]

Not for me, they are significantly different. We should probably just agree to disagree on that point.

Yeah, sure

But out of genuine curiosity, what do you actually mean by tag? If you mean the kind of "random" words that you just happen to associate when entering the task, then I totally agree with you, as I already said.

But if you are referring to systematic task characterization, I'd be really curious to know what it is that we actually disagree about; I might have a chance to learn something important here.

Surely, if one app has something they call Context; another app has something they call Label; another one has something they call Tag; and another one has something the call Category; then I assume we would all use that feature no matter what they have decided to call it. And we would use it for things like Errand, Home and whatever we find useful for us.

In many of the apps that have both Contexts and Tags, you can only pick one Context but many Tags for each task, and each feature has different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to list grouping, filtering etc, which can give rise to certain challenges and possibilities when deciding on the best setup. (I do not know why developers make it so complicated - why don't they just allow you to put as many as you want, filter by any/all of them, and allow you to select whichever ones you want to use for the grouping of your list?)

 

[fwade]

Not enough time?

Isn't that probably due to an unclear overall perspective (at the higher "horizons") rather than poor management of the concrete and specific requirements of the tasks as such (context, energy etc)?

Tough question to answer! I would add that they "have the experience" of not having enough time. Where that comes from could be due to lots of factors.

But I think at the heart of it is that they simply make more commitments to themselves and others than they can possibly fulfill. They continue to do this over and over again, making me think that time is their scarcest resource - at least in their experience.

I believe that this can happen with the clearest of overall perspectives - the solution seems to me to lie in having good skills at estimating and scheduling activity at each horizon.

 

[fwade]

Tags based on scarcity

Interesting thought. Tallies with economic thinking, too. Definitely worth considering, but I am not convinced that the scarcity aspect as such needs to be implemented in the basic tagging. If you tag each task with its main requirements (necessary prerequisites), then it would seem to me to be possible to use this tagging flexibly depending on what your scarcest resource is at any given moment, wouldn't you agree? For example, if you have only little time, then you simply "hide" (do not consider) tasks that require a long time.

Hmm... I think you're right. I don't see someone changing their way of tagging repeatedly. Now I'm thinking that they'd change it occasionally. For example, when my mother retired, she no longer considered time as her biggest constraint. Let's say it changed to energy.

These kinds of changes don't happen too often in life.

Tagging each task with its "main" requirements sounds like a lot of decisions. I see what you say about hiding unnecessary tags... that would help us manage them once they are created, but wouldn't remove the need to do a lot of tagging initially.

Unfortunately, I do my scheduling in Outlook, which doesn't allow for multiple tags (at least not in my version.) I may have to switch to Gmail to see how much of this is practical.

Interesting comments!

 

[fwade]

Isn't it possible that we simply discover gradually that some tags no longer are of much use, whereas we may spontaneously see a new need to be more detailed on other areas? For example, if suddenly you have an awful lot of errands you might see a need for having more precise errand tags (based on geography, or means of transportation, clothes, or whatever is relevant for you and the type of errands you do). And conversely if you no longer have more errands than you easily can cope with in one single view (say a dozen), then you get rid of some of the unnecessary tags. I am not sure if it would always really be necessary to change the whole "system" (the logic of it).

We're in agreement here. Just for clarity's sake, there's a distinction between adding a particular tag, and a particular kind of tag.

For example, the task: "Walk the dog" could be tagged with two kinds of tags - a time tag and a place tag. The actual tags that would be added would be: "4-5 pm on Monday" and "@home."

I see the tagging structure as paramount - it's a strategy or tactic that the user employs to limit their focus. It's what I meant by using the phrase "whole system."

I think what you're saying is that one might be more fluid than that, and change the kind of tagging that's done on the fly...?

That's possible - I think. It would take some really good software, however!

 

[fwade]

I don't see contexts as being only physical location at all. In fact I live and work at the same place. At any given time I can choose to go into nearly all of my contexts. SO while I do have physical contexts (particular pastures or buildings) I also have contexts that relate to what help I have available and to the time I can complete them (phone business hours vs just phone).

Hi Oogiem - so far you have mentioned spatial and temporal contexts - do you use others that you can share with us with some examples maybe?