GTD reflections

Posted by Hugh
Apr 3, 2008 at 09:51 AM

A really excellent post by Jack Crawford, which sums up most of what I’d want to say.

Three small additional thoughts:

- the spread of GTD isn’t just due to Allen’s work, but also the efforts of many others, top of the list of whom I’d put Daly and his Yahoo group

- there’s a risk for software firms in trying to produce the prefect piece of GTD software that plans your tasks to the nth degree, and for users in demanding it. That way lies bloatware and potential user dissatisfaction. I’d put forward Omnifocus as a possible manifestation of this. Personally I prefer simplicity and control over the ranking of my tasks. (I’m another fan of Things.)

- when GTD doesn’t work, it may not be merely a matter of personal taste, or of culture, as I think Chris Thompson has implied, but also of occupation. GTD is very occupation-specific - the sorts of occupations which, as I think Allen himself mentions, frequently leave you filling in time in airport-departure lounges (or somesuch) with a need for a list of appropriate to-dos. But I bet Stephen King doesn’t need or want GTD (except, maybe, at the fringes of his life, when doing his errands). He and others like him have great slabby tasks that may take many months to accomplish, and GTD is going to be of little or no help with them. Unfortunately the book on Getting Things Written hasn’t been published yet…

Overall my advice to anyone contemplating adopting GTD, is first examine your needs. Don’t be beguiled by the promises of the system, or of interesting pieces of software that may be totally inappropriate. Define the requirements of your life and your job first.