Why Some People Struggle with GTD

Dave Edwards said:
When David Allen wrote, “Getting Things Done,” he thought the concepts were so easy to understand and follow that everyone would understand them and implement its principles. Many years later some people struggle with implementing GTD.
Click to expand...

I think David Allen would really like to get through to all people who want to learn GTD. whether or not they are struggling to learn GTD. What makes me think so? It looks to me like David Allen tries in every way to help people who want to learn GTD. For example:

He creates YouTube short and long videos to clarify the various aspects of GTD, and he works with you, Dave, to create videos for this same purpose, and his coaches create GTD Focus videos that clarify various aspects of GTD, and he offers a GTD Forum to support people in learning and sharing about GTD, and GTD Connect provides even more resources, such as podcasts, and he has written a number of books and articles that articulate his GTD methodology in detail, and he publishes start-up guides for various software that can be used to implement GTD, as well as a start-up guide for a paper-based system. There may even be more resources that I have not yet learned about.

As David Allen says in the updated 2015 edition of his original GTD book:

"Alas! As easy as it is to actually do what I suggest as best practices in this book, I have been rudely awakened to these two phenomena: (1) the amount of infomation and suggested activities here can easily be perceived as too overwhelming for someone to even begin to implement them; and (2) making some of the fundamental practices habitual can take quite awhile for most people."* " . . . It's really all about one step at a time."**

I think David Allen is behind us all the way in encouraging us to learn GTD, and in acknowledging that this can be daunting and can take quite awhile, and in helping us see that it is really all about one step at a time.

Thanks for your post and your videos, Dave. A great source of GTD wisdom.

Warmly,

Emily

* introduction, page xx
** introduction, page xxi
 
It's a very interesting point. I won't answer for others but just give here after my own experience. I struggled quiet a lot applying GTD and still sometime. About control I think each step is easy to understand. What is more complex is 1) All the little tips and tricks I discovered and I am still discovering and 2) the focus it needs to stick to my habits like reviewing and so on. About Perspective in this turbulent time (as says DA) I feel complex to know what I want and where I want to go. When I fall off the wagon I re launch my project of learning GTD step by step, eg reading the books again and again, noting what are my missing point, reviewing them regularly and optimize my system currently

I sincerely notice that the most difficult and turbulent my life is, the most I conscienciously and hardly focus and stick to GTD. GTD Gives me space and calm my spirit.

I am still learning it. I discovers my own tips and tricks (I collect them in my inbox, clarify and organize them in my reference material). Each time I feel irresolute GTD is my compass. I do the same and take what I learned to make my system better.

I think GTD is like a sport for example skiing. It is a question of will. You can be gifted at the beginning or not. You can learn quickly how to ski because you understood the main principle. But what make the difference is training. The most I train, the best I become. But it can take a certain time. I think it is like a lot of things. It is a kind of quest. A never ending quest.
 
Last edited:
TesTeq said:
"Why Some People Struggle with GTD?" Because they cannot clearly answer the first question of the GTD workflow: "What is it?"

GTD exposes this problem, but its solution lies somewhere on the higher horizons of focus. Unfortunately they can't take off from a runway cluttered with an unclear stuff. The chicken or the egg problem.

@DavidAllen @Dave Edwards @John Forrister
Click to expand...
@TesTeq

Your astute observation reminds one of what Aristotle said 'On the Heavens': . . . a small error in the beginning is a big error in the end . . .
 
TesTeq said:
"Why Some People Struggle with GTD?" Because they cannot clearly answer the first question of the GTD workflow: "What is it?
Click to expand...
... and cannot decide, what they have to do with it. I observe this again and again. It's like a kind of dyslexia: you check the - sometimes banal - input. For me, its meaning and the appropriate action is obvious and immediately clear. But for them, "the penny just won't drop" (is that how you say it in English?) or they simply can't decide.
 
RomanS said:
... and cannot decide, what they have to do with it. I observe this again and again. It's like a kind of dyslexia: you check the - sometimes banal - input. For me, its meaning and the appropriate action is obvious and immediately clear. But for them, "the penny just won't drop" (is that how you say it in English?) or they simply can't decide.
Click to expand...
@RomanS

As a follow GTDer . . . what you kindly express is so essential: What is it?

What does this really, really, really, really mean . . . and how is it to show up when-&-where necessary as easily/readily as possible ?

Thank you sir
 
RomanS said:
... and cannot decide, what they have to do with it. I observe this again and again. It's like a kind of dyslexia: you check the - sometimes banal - input. For me, its meaning and the appropriate action is obvious and immediately clear. But for them, "the penny just won't drop" (is that how you say it in English?) or they simply can't decide.
Click to expand...
I think it's choice stress mostly. Having a clear mind on what to do during clarification is not a given for everyone. Specially if what is captured is unclear to begin with. Even worse if it needs to be a project with a clear outcome, trying to answer the question what does success look like. I see that around me as well. Mind you, it can take years to master GTD. It took me 12 years and still learning. It is because it's a life changing habit. Same counts for someone who is overweight and goes on a diet. Most do not succeed because they don't accept that you can only be successful of you change your habits permanently.
 
Dave Edwards said:
When David Allen wrote, “Getting Things Done,” he thought the concepts were so easy to understand and follow that everyone would understand them and implement its principles. Many years later some people struggle with implementing GTD.

https://youtu.be/tOiWFeS3NFE
Click to expand...
Hi Dave, in love your videos with David Allen! Specially this episode is very entertaining and funny. Keep them coming.

I don't struggle with GTD anymore because I finally accepted it to be a life changer, I started with TSW and Evernote 12 years ago so that gave me a good head start. But as I said here earlier, it did take me years to fully except it because what many people don't realize that GTD is a life changing methodology.
 
TesTeq said:
"Why Some People Struggle with GTD?" Because they cannot clearly answer the first question of the GTD workflow: "What is it?"
Click to expand...
I think the ability to focus long enough to figure out "what is it" and also practice enough to figure out "what is it" clearly and easily is a learned skill.

When you have spent a lifetime not determining what is it, there is a lot of stuff laying around that is waiting to blow up or is irrelevant and it takes time to figure out what is it enmasse. This is the cluttered runway of which you speak.

One key method for my intermittent success with my system is to clearly delineate what is backlog and what is incoming. The incoming is where my focus must be to stop the bleeding. Decide on the mail delivered today.

Another key method for me was this: once you take the time to decide, you don’t have to do that again. Everything else will wait while you decide on this one thing.

So the combination of these two: 1) decide once and take the time to actually decide so you aren’t revisiting it and 2) park all the undecided stuff in a backlog that you have no obligation to address now, until you feel like allocating time to clear some of it.

As Arnold says, you’ve got to do the reps to get there. The reps are repetitions and you are what you repeatedly do.

Clayton
 
TesTeq said:
@bobusa Great insight! GTD is about changing life! But unfortunately people want GTD to solve their problems without their involvement.
Click to expand...
Yes, agree! There needs to be a form of positive commitment to succeed. One should also realize that GTD is very flexible but if there is low commitment (or understanding!) then it seems the fault of the methodology. And no involvement is presently impossible unless AI makes a giant leap and you just throw everything in the AI bucket, give it the desired outcomes and there you have it all fully clarified and reviewed. Dream on (for now).
 
Some folks simply lack a surplus of grace, for whatever reason. Without the slack to fail forward, they get things wound up and the process winds to stop. The suggested structure (ie. weekly reviews), if not conformed to, becomes a screaming failure in the persons mind, note realizing that like an annual review (or on irregular schedule) is a good start as long as you're getting it outta your head into a trusted system. Chances are that you'll have cobbled something together anyways, so giving oneself the grace to have it be a little "lumpy" is just fine.
 
dtj said:
Some folks simply lack a surplus of grace, for whatever reason. Without the slack to fail forward, they get things wound up and the process winds to stop. The suggested structure (ie. weekly reviews), if not conformed to, becomes a screaming failure in the persons mind, note realizing that like an annual review (or on irregular schedule) is a good start as long as you're getting it outta your head into a trusted system. Chances are that you'll have cobbled something together anyways, so giving oneself the grace to have it be a little "lumpy" is just fine.
Click to expand...
@dtj

Agree: "lumpy" GTD is much better than no GTD

Thank you very much sir
 
Dave Edwards said:
When David Allen wrote, “Getting Things Done,” he thought the concepts were so easy to understand and follow that everyone would understand them and implement its principles. Many years later some people struggle with implementing GTD.

https://youtu.be/tOiWFeS3NFE
Click to expand...
I could be wrong but it seems like every other step is action oriented or thinking oriented. Is that right?

Capture - action
Clarify - thinking
Organize - action
Reflect - thinking
Engage - action

Would you agree? I wonder of thinking of it like this might help with implementation?
 
Tasha said:
I could be wrong but it seems like every other step is action oriented or thinking oriented. Is that right?

Capture - action
Clarify - thinking
Organize - action
Reflect - thinking
Engage - action

Would you agree? I wonder of thinking of it like this might help with implementation?
Click to expand...
@Tasha

Very nice synthesis of GTD's five stages

Unable to dispute and thus agree with your observed oscillating action (volitional) / thinking (reasoning) as a helpful binary GTD rhythm without futile 'oversimplification'

To humbly and respectfully add to your very astute GTD synthesis

Your appreciated GTD post prompt a very good opportunity look again at GTD's five stages, thank you:

Capture - action [execution without deliberation; just Capture with the easiest and most readily available capturing tool(s)]

Clarify - thinking [deliberation in order to flow Captions into a prepared adaptable/'Life Absorbing'' Organized GTD system; including trash]

Organize - action [Organized as Clarifications' termination without any further thinking due to being able to Organize the Clarified into a trust-worthy GTD system]

Reflect - thinking [includes Weekly Review]

Engage - action [as appropriately as possible supported by a very personal 'best friend' GTD system]


Ps.

Always find reflecting on GTD basics very worthwhile to perhaps seemingly the minutia point of referring to GTD's book title:

Getting Things Done; the art of stress-free productivity

On this end, nothing facilitates "Stress-Free Productivity" like 'Advanced Preparation' and thus far; GTD best facilitates "Advanced Preparation"

Further on this end, "Advanced Preparation" means addressing reality when reality "shows up not when it [reality] blows up" ?

Likewise, all of life's unforeseeable pesky mosquitoes [from intrinsic, extrinsic, internal, and external sources], which were much dreaded prior to making a GTD commitment, are currently more welcomed as appreciated opportunities to improve one or all of GTD's five skill requirements: when unanticipated 'garbage happens' which of the five stage(s) are requiring additional GTD TLC going forward ?

Thank you very much

As you see GTD fit. . . .
 
Last edited:
Tasha said:
I could be wrong but it seems like every other step is action oriented or thinking oriented. Is that right?

Capture - action
Clarify - thinking
Organize - action
Reflect - thinking
Engage - action

Would you agree? I wonder of thinking of it like this might help with implementation?
Click to expand...
Well, yes. But all of them requires thinking (more or less). Only less if you clarify it all 100%. I agree, Capture can be thought free, just dump everything so your mind is "empty". Clarify is important thinking indeed. Organizing, yes, it's action but also thinking as it (action or support material) should be put in a location where is't most useful. And when you organize, stuf comes up in your mind (one can't help it), new actions and even projects. Reflect, yes very much thinking based, newly appearing actions then go in your inbox again. And Engage is both action and thinking mostly unless the action is 100% clear and one can just do it! In reality (3-fold nature of work) new stuff emerges during the day, and actions could get changed, and so that could end up in lots of thinking! In the end do what fits your brain best. That's what is great about GTD.
 
I'm not an expert on anyone other than myself. I can tell you why I struggled with it mightily for so long. I fooled myself into thinking there were "cheat codes" to GTD. I fooled myself into thinking that searching for the perfect software tools was the same as being productive. I fooled myself into thinking that by over-complicating things I was doing anything other than self-sabotaging. I fooled myself into thinking that theorizing about GTD was the key to doing GTD.

The key to doing GTD is... doing. At least for me. David Allen wrote in Getting Things Done that the book was full of things best experienced as experiences. When I started getting the hang of that, GTD became an ally rather than an obstacle.

This is why I keep enthusing about The Getting Things Done Workbook. It was a game changer for me. It's simplicity helped me get out of my head and to start doing GTD. It's a great tool and I'd recommend it to anyone whether you're a GTD black belt, a beginner, or a longtime GTDer who is struggling (like I've been).
 
bcmyers2112 said:
I'm not an expert on anyone other than myself. I can tell you why I struggled with it mightily for so long. I fooled myself into thinking there were "cheat codes" to GTD. I fooled myself into thinking that searching for the perfect software tools was the same as being productive. I fooled myself into thinking that by over-complicating things I was doing anything other than self-sabotaging. I fooled myself into thinking that theorizing about GTD was the key to doing GTD.

The key to doing GTD is... doing. At least for me. David Allen wrote in Getting Things Done that the book was full of things best experienced as experiences. When I started getting the hang of that, GTD became an ally rather than an obstacle.

This is why I keep enthusing about The Getting Things Done Workbook. It was a game changer for me. It's simplicity helped me get out of my head and to start doing GTD. It's a great tool and I'd recommend it to anyone whether you're a GTD black belt, a beginner, or a longtime GTDer who is struggling (like I've been).
Click to expand...
@bcmyers2112

For this egotistical fool, GTD has been a very humbling experience/journey; GTD has been berry, berry good to me
 
Mrs-Polifax said:
I think David Allen would really like to get through to all people who want to learn GTD. whether or not they are struggling to learn GTD. What makes me think so? It looks to me like David Allen tries in every way to help people who want to learn GTD. For example:

He creates YouTube short and long videos to clarify the various aspects of GTD, and he works with you, Dave, to create videos for this same purpose, and his coaches create GTD Focus videos that clarify various aspects of GTD, and he offers a GTD Forum to support people in learning and sharing about GTD, and GTD Connect provides even more resources, such as podcasts, and he has written a number of books and articles that articulate his GTD methodology in detail, and he publishes start-up guides for various software that can be used to implement GTD, as well as a start-up guide for a paper-based system. There may even be more resources that I have not yet learned about.

As David Allen says in the updated 2015 edition of his original GTD book:

"Alas! As easy as it is to actually do what I suggest as best practices in this book, I have been rudely awakened to these two phenomena: (1) the amount of infomation and suggested activities here can easily be perceived as too overwhelming for someone to even begin to implement them; and (2) making some of the fundamental practices habitual can take quite awhile for most people."* " . . . It's really all about one step at a time."**

I think David Allen is behind us all the way in encouraging us to learn GTD, and in acknowledging that this can be daunting and can take quite awhile, and in helping us see that it is really all about one step at a time.

Thanks for your post and your videos, Dave. A great source of GTD wisdom.

Warmly,

Emily

* introduction, page xx
** introduction, page xxi
Click to expand...
I tried search key words "family who are not GTD oriented"

from some post saw in my memory I never looked at but saw the title

im not sure this was it
,it doesn't look active "
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top