Tools for Thought

Projects are focus tools. Actively designating something as a project is the first step in containing it, in reducing its scope to something that’s nearly actionable.
It’s nearly actionable because a project can be completed, but not “done” strictly speaking. Putting “Purchase Prius” on a to-do list is only doable if the intention is to go […]

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Consider the initial steps in the GTD in-basket processing:

Pick up item from In
Ask, “What is it?”
Ask, “Is it actionable?”
[If yes] Ask, “What’s the successful outcome?”
Ask, “What’s the next action?”

In my opinion, there’s a glaring ommission in the algorithm, one that leads to overpopulated project and action lists. After asking, “What’s the next action?”, we should […]

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David Allen’s Getting Things Done was one of the first productivity books to openly discuss the use of PDAs and software, so it’s no surprise that many technology enthusiasts latched onto GTD with uncommon zeal. It suddenly became easy to dignify a gadget fetish by invoking work as the rationale.
Newcomers to GTD often purchase new […]

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In a reply to my Pattern Language entry on General Reference Files, David Goodger recently commented:
I have never understood the rule to use hangerless file folders. I don’t see how using Pendaflex adds any overhead. The rule seems completely arbitrary, and Allen’s GTD book doesn’t back it up with any arguments or evidence.
Do you agree […]

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For any task management system to be trustworthy, it has to be realistic. It needs to have as few placeholders as possible, but no fewer. It needs to hold as many projects and actions as we’re genuinely committed to, but no more.
The discipline of rapidly capturing new inputs and processing them into a list or […]

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Like work, information has its own Parkinson’s Law. As one example, Google Reader will fill whatever time we have available. Without a strategic approach to processing RSS feeds, the tendency is to keep adding new feeds until we stop just short of overwhelm. This “Thanksgiving dinner” method of managing information intake is not sustaintable.
Notice I […]

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As the public fascination with productivity keeps increasing, the backlash against it grows in proportion. The continual focus with getting more done in a day is suspect. Is it even a healthy or worthwhile endeavor?
It depends on what people mean by “more,” and how productivity and accomplishment are measured. A to-do list with many as […]

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A key concept in the Getting Things Done method is maintaining a strict separation between actionable and non-actionable items. “Anytime you blend actionable and non-actionable things into one area,” David Allen notes in his Getting Things Done…Fast seminar recordings, “you go numb to the area.” This is why GTD refers to “Next Action” lists rather […]

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You’ve read David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity. You’ve got religion. You’ve even got a Palm organizer. You’ve put “Set up GTD system on Palm” on your Project list. So what’s your Next Action?
While there are many excellent aftermarket list management and datebook solutions available for the Palm (any Palm […]

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