I have attended the class twice, once about 12 years ago, in the days of Time Design and once more recently when David was up on the Palm Tungsten. David was asked a lot of specific questions about how he implemented something in GTD on his palm. His answer was always “with just the native apps”. Project management was done externally, but all his actions and lists were implemented with just the native Palm apps. I’ve gone the route of expanded apps only to realize that the overhead they add outweighs the benefit they provide. GTD is a process, not a product, the simpler a process the easier it should be to follow it. So why do I continue to struggle with GTD using my Palm?
David repeatedly states in “Ready for Anything” that you must have everything in your system and have complete trust in it. That sounds great, but it presents a chicken and egg scenario for me. I need to experience the success of trusting the system, in order to trust the system. I don't have everything in my system, and I don’t fully rely on it. GTD on my Palm is just so many more “to do” lists.
I can see two reasons for this:
I’m not self employed so my time is divided between home and work. I struggle with list contexts. For example, there are several articles on the web that I need to read; some are technical but some are personal interests and I can’t spend work hours reading those. Where to I list those NAs? It's counter productive to maintain and review duplicate lists: "@Computer Work”, @Computer Home” and @Computer Anywhere”. I have started to maintain mixed context tasks on a single “@Work” list such as “Read Oracle book review”, “Call HR re: parking” and “Schedule CD meeting” on that same list, since I spend 80% of my day at my desk with a phone and computer. The “@Computer” NA list becomes my personal list.
Another issue is security privacy. One of the biggest benefits of using a hand held is leveraging your PC(s) as an input and communication device, and being able to sync my primary workstations (home and work). Unfortunately, the work PC is not my domain, and I don’t like uploading my life to the corporate Exchange server. Business is becoming increasingly invasive, adding new policies, enforced by snooping software, weekly. I appreciate that when I’m at work I’m on their time and resources, but if I can’t maintain all my lists and actions in GTD, it’s a waste of time to try.
Today I deleted Palm Desktop from my work PC; I’m going to try to dump more into the system, at the cost of complicating updating my Palm using graffiti during the work day. At the very least, I can trust that the data in my system will remain personal.
In conclusion, I fail with GTD because I can not simplify.
Any insight you can provide will be greatly appreciated.
David repeatedly states in “Ready for Anything” that you must have everything in your system and have complete trust in it. That sounds great, but it presents a chicken and egg scenario for me. I need to experience the success of trusting the system, in order to trust the system. I don't have everything in my system, and I don’t fully rely on it. GTD on my Palm is just so many more “to do” lists.
I can see two reasons for this:
I’m not self employed so my time is divided between home and work. I struggle with list contexts. For example, there are several articles on the web that I need to read; some are technical but some are personal interests and I can’t spend work hours reading those. Where to I list those NAs? It's counter productive to maintain and review duplicate lists: "@Computer Work”, @Computer Home” and @Computer Anywhere”. I have started to maintain mixed context tasks on a single “@Work” list such as “Read Oracle book review”, “Call HR re: parking” and “Schedule CD meeting” on that same list, since I spend 80% of my day at my desk with a phone and computer. The “@Computer” NA list becomes my personal list.
Another issue is security privacy. One of the biggest benefits of using a hand held is leveraging your PC(s) as an input and communication device, and being able to sync my primary workstations (home and work). Unfortunately, the work PC is not my domain, and I don’t like uploading my life to the corporate Exchange server. Business is becoming increasingly invasive, adding new policies, enforced by snooping software, weekly. I appreciate that when I’m at work I’m on their time and resources, but if I can’t maintain all my lists and actions in GTD, it’s a waste of time to try.
Today I deleted Palm Desktop from my work PC; I’m going to try to dump more into the system, at the cost of complicating updating my Palm using graffiti during the work day. At the very least, I can trust that the data in my system will remain personal.
In conclusion, I fail with GTD because I can not simplify.
Any insight you can provide will be greatly appreciated.
