Getting Things Done
I’m currently reading a book called ‘Getting Things Done’ by David Allen.
There’s a bit of psycho-babble in there, but I think that’s a bit inevitable: when dealing with something that’s essentially new (like our modern, internet-fueled lifestyles) you’ve got to develop the language to deal with it, and it’s often going to sound pretentious. Having said that, there’s a lot in there that strikes me as distinctly pragmatic and down-to-earth.
The book tends to focus on ‘next-actions’ - I like that. You don’t ‘do’ projects, you ‘do’ little steps. And as long as you’re doing them, and that they contribute to the project, you don’t have the ‘open loop’ - what I would call that feeling of something hanging over your head - that you get when you know that there’s something you’ve decided you should be doing.
Some people don’t like the idea of having a rigid framework governing your work. I understand that, because I was one of them. But then again, maybe rigid is the wrong word here. Established, ingrained… whatever. The point is that some of us need something to work within. I’m hoping that this will fulfill that need.
There are a lot of different ways GTD can be implemented: a simple paper system fulfills all of the criteria, for example. Sounds a bit cluttered to me, but my brother would love that. That level of flexibility is good; it means that there’s a lot of freedom to choose something that will fit in well with my career, my hobbies and my lifestyle (yeah, this is a whole-life kind of system). It’s also bad, because it means that before I can hit the ground running, I’m going to need to complete the sort of task I’m hoping for help with.
I want something that I can access anywhere, online or offline. But I also want it to store information from me that I can retrieve. Ideally I want something I can run for myself between work and home. I envisage this as a web-based application that performs some form of synching. That’s about as far as I’ve got, and here are the candidates so far:
43 Folders isn’t technically a candidate, but as a site it looks useful enough that I’ll link to it straight away.
Tracks is a ruby-on-rails implementation. It’s designed specifically for GTD. It’s available as a hosted solution (I think free, so there’s your demo 
), and has RSS capabilities (which is always a bonus for me).
MonkeyGTD is an adaption of a Tiddlywiki. Tiddlywikis are based on single flat files, so the advantage here is that you can carry it with you, work on it offline, and upload to carry on working online. It also looks a lot more sophisticated than you would expect from a wiki.
iCommit is another bespoke GTD solution. I haven’t tried it yet, as you have to register to use it on the author’s site in the first instance to see anything. That put me off, but many people sounding off about how perfect a solution it is made me look some more. 43folders has an article and some screenshots here.
Thinking Rock looks pretty cool, but isn’t an online service. Having said that, it’s java, and based on a single file that I could either USB around with me and/or stick on a webDAV server somewhere… I’m a little concerned by the lack of a ‘tickler file’ or weekly review views, but maybe it’s unnecessary - I’ll find out when I get to that chapter I guess
GTD-PHP is a php based implementation I haven’t had much chance to look at yet - there’s a demo, too.
More to follow? Please feel free to make any suggestions in the comments.
March 21st, 2007 at 11:36 pm
It’s an interesting idea, and I’m fascinated to see how you get on with it.
I’m worried that just like other things to help one “organize” one’s life, I worry that this might end up involving more time to set up and actually use than it would recover through improved productivity.
March 21st, 2007 at 11:55 pm
One of the things he says is that you can’t manage time, you manage actions: that makes a lot of sense to me. Whatever you put in place will take up extra resources. That doesn’t mean you can’t do more, or do things in a better way.
It all comes down to whether it’s still worth it. And you hear good things about it…
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:32 am
//One of the things he says is that you can’t manage time, you manage actions//
Sounds a lot like the mandatory training course I was on yesterday.
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Added Thinking Rock and GTD-PHP
March 24th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Maybe MS Project for the big things? There is a danger with using any tool that it will suck up time and resources to admin, but I guess really it all comes down to self discipline. Do a small bit every day without fail and you don’t get a huge lump to do all at once.
I am being trained on MSP because you can do a heck of a lot with it. Stick all your tasks in to achieve an objective, stick the timelines in, link via the dependencies, add in some risk management and MSP will tell you the critical path, calculate the risks of delay and detail the resources you need. Takes w while to learn, but once cracked, it is really effective. Happy to demo for you.
March 24th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Thanks, fab, but I’m looking at something that implements this GTD system in particular - MSP doesn’t do that, I believe. I want something I can work with day-to-day, not something for co-ordinating one big project.