The "Getting Things Done" Effect on Me
/Specifically, I mean the book Getting Things Done by David Allen. This is a book about organizing your life and achieving your goals that’s been recommended either directly or indirectly to me by lots of people. And I finally got around to reading it. So this is going to be part book review, part life review/journal entry, part promise to myself, part discussion.
Firstly, I should say, as I read, I discovered that I was already following several of the GTD steps—okay, not a ton of them, but some of the big ones. I mentioned before that I’ve heard a lot of recommendations for this book.
CGP Grey of the same-named YouTube channel and the podcast Hello Internet
Kevin Sonney of the podcast Productivity Alchemy
My therapist
I think maybe Gail Carriger in one of her Facebook Live chats, though don’t quote me on that
Among others
So I’d picked up bits and pieces of the system itself from these different places, but what I didn’t get was some of the mindset ideas. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start with…
What I Was Already Doing
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Building an “External Brain” ~ Mostly. I’ll get to how I’m not doing this below, but I have already begun to do this at least as far as writing down the stuff I need to get done. I realized long ago (possibly with the help of GTD-related commentary from the above-mentioned sources) that keeping everything in my brain absolutely, unequivocally does not work. The more stuff I can give to my planner to remember the better off I am. So all my to-do’s and book writing notes and stuff were already living in various places (more on that later) on my computer. We as human beings are highly distractible, and stuff will fly out of our brains faster than we can realize it’s happening, and then it’s gone and you don’t even recall that you need to remember something in the first place.
Work That Calendar! ~ Again, related to the whole brains-are-bad-at-remembering-things thing, I’d already learned long ago that if it doesn’t go on my calendar, it’s not gonna happen. So I already had date-based events and tasks go on there.
“I suggest using your mind to think about things rather than of things.”
There Is No One “Right” Way ~ This one might be the thing that I’m most pleased I was already doing, or in this case, thinking. David Allen says in several places that there are myriad ways to implement his system, that each person will have to figure out the way that works best for them. I was pleased to hear this 1) because I’ve had to read a lot of business books in my life (the old corporate job required it 😒), and they tended to have the attitude of “this is the only way or your efforts will be inferior/you will fail!” And reason number 2) I think having a system that “requires” unique individuals (that is to say everyone) to follow one regimented system with no flexibility is both doomed to fail and a surefire recipe for stress.
New Ideas for Me
Yeah, I know, that list of things I was already doing was pretty short, but that’s why it was good for me to read this book. So here’s all the interesting new stuff I learned.
The 2-Minute Rule ~ This is the basic idea of if something, whatever it is, will take less than two minutes, then go ahead and do it. That way, you’ll clear out a bunch of little things that were cluttering up your mindspace^ with their undoneness^^.
^Full disclosure, I am massively paraphrasing here. I recommend if what I’ve written here interests you, that you go buy and read the book. I’ve provided the link above and here if you want to go do that thing.
^^David Allen talks a lot about the mental weight of uncaptured and, to a lesser degree, undone work. Basically, the theory (which he points out in great, great detail in an entirely new chapter in the new edition has been now backed up by a bunch of science) goes that unorganized tasks and other life stuff will clutter up your mind because your brain keeps going, “Hey! Hey! There’s a thing you need to do/remember/think about. Hey! Hey…”
Building a Reference Library ~ This… had never occurred to me, despite the fact that, well, it’s a pretty dang easy solution. This looks like a lot of different things for different people, but one of the main things I can get out of it is to control my tabs.
Confession time: I have a tab problem. As of this writing, I have fifty-six tabs open in this browser window. My original thought process with them was that keeping them open will remind me to handle whatever is on them.
Except it doesn’t.
They just sit there, all the time, being a mess of open tabs. So I need to build a reference library. I could just bookmark everything, but I can’t search multiple bookmarks at once, whereas I can search multiple PDFs, so that’s what I’ve started to do. I’m sure I’ll find flaws in this system eventually, but it’s where I’m starting. And all the PDFs have the website from whence they came on them.
Streamline Your Buckets ~ While I did already have an idea of writing stuff down, I had all my stuff in various places. And that can be just as mentally taxing as not having stuff written down at all because then you’re spending energy trying to find things. Case in point, book notes.
There’s a book I’ve toodled around with off and on for a long time. I had notes on when bits of it got critiqued in my writing group, notes on ideas I’ve had for it, problems with the plot—this book has been a real challenge for me, and the notes were everywhere! I think in the end they were scattered across about three or four different apps, so I’ve since consolidated them into into my planner, which leads me to…
Treating Projects Like Projects ~ This is just something that’s never really come together in my life, and it goes hand-in-hand with the whole streamlined buckets thing. Not only did I need to and since have gathered all my various bits and pieces under one roof, so to speak, but I need to group it together.
I’ve never really had my book projects organized before, which is nuts because you can’t see what’s on the horizon if your horizon is scattered to the four winds. This metaphor has all kinds of problems, but you get what I’m saying! So I’ve since gathered my book ideas and notes and whatnot under a new section in my planner dedicated to books-to-be-written. And I’ve got breakdowns for the process—first draft^^^, editing steps (there are a lot of them), querying stuff for the books I plan on querying and publication lists for those I plan on indie publishing. I suddenly feel so pulled together! And I can drag and drop project cards as I need to^^^^.
^^^First draft writing is just it’s own step. I don’t know how else to do it, y’all. I’m a pantser at my heart, and I think, even if you do outline, at some point you just have to get the first draft written. It’s as simple as that.
^^^^Someday soon I’ll do a blog entry on using Trello, which over the last year has become my lifeline to organization.
Break Everything Down into Individual Steps ~ This is kind of a cornerstone of the GTD method. And I’ve used it for big projects in the past (like releasing new books), but I’d never considered it for small stuff, like getting my car’s renewal done. It’s more of that external brain theory, though. Breaking everything down into the individual tasks/steps unloads your brain and then you have a better grasp of all the things required. It also makes things easier to get done because if your next step is something like, “Pay for cruise online,” then you know about how long that should take and you can knock stuff out quicker and with more confidence instead of seeing “Fake my own death,” which could be any number of steps.
Struggles
There are some pieces of the GTD system that still kind of escape me too, so I’ll have to go back and re-review those chapters, or maybe have someone explain them to me like I’m five. We’ll try it all and see what works.
The Weekly Review ~ Honestly, I’ve never really understood how people sit down and “consider” things. Like, I think to myself about stuff, of course. Rather, I talk out loud to myself, most often when I’m trying to work through an issue in a book I’m writing. But like, how does one sit down and just… consider? Do you have a plan? Yes. Okay, is the plan on track? If yes, great. If not, what needs to happen to get it on track? So write down that thing (and then the next thing, and so on, and so on) and do them.
Also, there was mention in the book that the weekly review is there to help you make sure everything is running smoothly, but isn’t that why you have the system in the first place? To make sure things continue to run smoothly? Why do you have a system to keep up with the bits and pieces and then a weekly review to make sure you haven’t forgotten any of the bits and pieces? I dunno, maybe I’m just not getting it.
Goal Views Instead of Task Views ~ Basically, the idea behind this is that your mindset should be less about checking off tasks (smaller) and more about achieving goals (bigger). I really like this idea, but it really feels like I’m sometimes just getting tasks done. And in a way I am—chores will always be there. Chores are tasks that we just do over and over again toward a larger goal of not having a stinky house or not being forced to fashion a bedsheet into a toga because you haven’t done laundry. And, yes, I get that the bigger goal there is something along the lines of “have a nice life,” but that’s a bit more broad and abstract, so it’s harder for me to get the same kind of gratification from it… not that that’s gonna make me stop; I don’t look good in togas.
The Instant Gratification Issue ~ David Allen mentions in the book that it may take up to two years to fully implement and integrate this system into your life and change your habits and thinking. Cool. Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool… but can I do that faster? Look, I know this is just normal growing/changing pains. I’ll deal. I just want to see what’s at the end of the road. I guess I just need to look at this from a goal point of view and, I don’t know, consider each week how I’m doing? Yeah, still confused about that part.
Anyway, that’s where I’m at. If you’ve got any commentary for me, feel free to share in the comments below 👇.
Thanks for reading!
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