LifeHacker describes a simplified method of following David Allen’s GTD methodology. Wow! If you’re like me and find the full GTD system a bit much to fully implement into your lifestyle, Gina Trapani offers a streamlined approach that may just be the answer you’re looking for. Implementing GTD should not become a project in and of itself, it should be an invisible tool that stays behind the scenes until the precise moment that it’s needed.
Practicing Simplified GTD [Feature]: “
I’ve read David Allen’s productivity bible a few times, and The David is onto something with his methodology. But as far as I’m concerned, full-on GTD is too complicated and slippery for simple-minded civilians like myself. That’s why I’ve whittled GTD down to its barest bones: picked away the jargon, acronyms, and extras and installed one single habit into my work life that’s made all the difference. In short, I can describe my GTD system in eight words.
Make three lists. Revise them daily and weekly.
Those eight words are what I got out of three years of reading and writing about Getting Things Done. In addition to my usual email inbox and calendar, which I used pre-GTD, I added three lists to my work life, that I look at, edit and re-edit every day and every week.
There’s no perfect productivity system. This is a fact one must accept before taking on any new habits. Even when I stick to it like glue, this method only works about 95% of the time. There are still holes, and I’ll make small adjustments to patch them when I can. You should do the same.
David Allen’s complete GTD methodology, as he writes it, is still an elusive ideal for me. I regard it kind of like I do Buddhism: a big, mysterious, and wondrous way of living and thinking that you really want to get, because the people that have seem so bright and fulfilled. But you keep falling on your ass no matter how many inboxes you set up or mind dumps you do. The perfect is the enemy of the good, as the saying goes, so instead of giving up on GTD completely, take the parts that work for you and work them.
Tags: book:isbn=0142000280, GTD, productivity