Oh, David Allen, Could it be I'm falling in looove witcha baaabaay?

Dammit. Move over Johnny Depp. I think I've fallen in love with David Allen. 

I'll admit it, I am a convert to the whole Getting Things Done thing despite ragging on it earlier.

Top Ten Reasons I am impressed with GTD:

1. My on-site collaborative client who had NO place for me to sit 7 weeks ago (literally) when I went to his warehouse to help him implement this system has MAINTAINED every single clear space we have created for him and is using the system daily.  He has NINE years of unfiled detritus that will take a LONG time to organize still ahead of us so it's still a rather overwhelming situation.  That's what is so impressive. Do you know how tempting a clean counter space or desktop, floor or chair is to a chronic stacker with ADD?  And yet for weeks he had not slipped back at all and the existing piles yet to be sorted have not grown.

2. From a purely practical standpoint, David Allen is masterful at identifying every reason that you have almost been on the right track with all previous attempts to get control of your life. He identifies much of what you have been doing right so you can grow on your intuitive strengths. 

3. From a purely practical standpoint, he tells you why your past attempts to organize ultimately

failed, pointing out where you went left when you should have gone right.  It's just course correction and that is far less overwhelming than having to reinvent the wheel.

4. It won't make you buy lots of expensive stuff. It's so elegant and logical.  I'm super low tech so I have files, a labeller and paper.  Yes, I bought a labeller.  I am a convert.  I thought that was the dumbest thing I ever heard and was sure it was a waste of time and money.  I don't know if it was the Kool-Aid I drank before going to Office Depot or that fact that it really is much nicer to see clean, uniform, easily readable file headings instead of the chicken scratched headings scribbled over mulitple layers of White-Out on tattered file tabs when one is trying to locate something in a file drawer.

5. You will understand why even the most mundane things can throw you off track.  Here I am speaking of cuticles, my friend.  My files have not been purged like this in a while. They've been purged, but not this deeply.  I have a small office and my files were overstuffed.  Try jamming a single sheet of paper into an overstuffed file.  Pages start to fray, along with ill-seated file folders (hence the tattered tabs) and you get paper cuts or hang nails from the process.  Pain is a negative reinforcer.  Easier to wait until you have a stack of paper that can be jammed in more like a wedge. So, in the meantime, little half scraps of paper sit and wait until you are ready for more punishment.  I have so many hang nails right now from my clean and purge process this week it isn't even funny.  The psychology of filing is a strange and fascinating study.

6. If you are serious about getting control of your life, you can't find a more comprehensive set of guidelines to look at every single bit of it along with prompts to look in a few places you may have missed giving you a TRULY big picture perspective. 

THIS IS THE REASON I WAS RAGGING ON THIS BEFORE: Systems come and go and I confess that I have an inherent mistrust of and disgust with anything that achieves celebrity status because so much of that is due to marketing genius rather than actual value given.  A system is only as good as your commitment to it and I've kicked the tires on this one very aggressively and I'm impressed.

That being said, THIS IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR A MEANINGFUL LIFE.  It is a way to help you live effectively but YOU HAVE TO EXERCISE DISCRETION OVER WHAT YOU ORGANIZE.  If you are co-dependent, have poor boundaries or are simply afraid of living your own life, for example, you could be organizing a whole lot of stuff that has nothing to do with you and that you have no business making your personal projects, such as other people's lives.  Getting Things Done is a MEANS to an end. This system is not the end.  You want to have both.  A lot of people are likely diving into GTD right now up to their elbows in organizing meaningless and empty lives.  This could EASILY become more busy work to distract you from the fact that you have no clue of why you are here and what you want out of life.  Organizing a life is NOT the same as living it. But organzing and focusing a meaningful life so that you can really immerse yourself in your passions?   Ohhhh yeahhhh.  And if you are fuzzy on meaning, purpose and passion and commit to combining GTD with life coaching...you could rule the world, baby.  Life changing, powerful work in that combination.

7. You will draw lines between now and the future.  This is particularly useful for creatives and entrepreneurial folks who have such a bizarre relationship with time. We like to think that ideas are actions and that enthusiasm for something makes time easily handled. Snap out of it!  You have 24 hours in a day and more ideas in a week than you could pull off AND KEEP RUNNING in 3 years.  You have to choose which of your projects are current and which are "Someday/Maybe".  And you will have an organized place for all of them.  Less anxiety about what you aren't doing and more appreciation for what you are. How you choose may be a process that is difficult for some because it relates to your overall life goals, sense of purpose and having boundaries and perspective on what is actually YOUR life and not someone else's or someone else's ideas about who you should be, so again, you could run into trouble implementing this effectively without some mental clarity.  Meditation, journalling, doing the Artist's Way or similar program, working with a coach...there are many ways to tackle the setting of priorities challenges.  The GTD system assumes you are able to do this. One should never assume.

8. The sheer mass of what you expect yourself to do, once you see it all together, makes saying no a whole lot easier.  You will be a better gate keeper so the factors that made you get out of control or unconsciously accumulate stuff "just in case" will start to correct themselves and may even get cured (you have to commit yourself to using the system).  In psychology, we call this "implosion therapy". You immerse yourself in the full experience of your overwhelming life and there will be a point that you just can't scream anymore. And finding yourself still alive and no longer screaming, you may start to actually work to make it better since the anxiety will have burned itself out.  Now, remember, GTD assumes you want to change your life. Some people get more out of chaos than they are willing to give up.  A therapist or coach can help with that if you find yourself self-sabotaging.

9. You finally will admit to yourself that there IS a difference between having a theory of breathing and actually breathing.  You can't do a project, you can only do actions.  This system will make you say what those are and do them OR admit that you really have no intention of doing them, you just like the thought of the project and it goes into "Someday/Maybe" or the trash can. It's about personal honesty and discipline here.  Tough subjects for some of you. Goes back to assuming you have the courage to actually do this work in more than just a superficial way. 

10. If you really do this, it's fun!  It is so nice to have a handle on life and to see that you really can create a life worth living and breathe life into all those lingering half-commited to dreams.  This just may be the year I actually plant that asparagus garden.

Okay, off to clean a certain warehouse lunch room...

Catch you on the flipside, Moondoggies!

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Comments

[Jay Perry]

Great post. Those are all the reasons I love Getting Things Done. I've just never expressed it so well.

It's not complicated. Not expensive. It's Fun. And it works.

Thanks for the post.

J

[Peter]

OK, I’m officially intrigued and I’m off to the book store to check out David Allen’s "Getting Things Done." If my favorite anti-coach (Ooops! Can I say that on your blog site? Better make that, “my favorite there-are-no-ten-easy-steps-to-anything type coach") is hooked on a system it has to be worth at least a look.

I’ve gone on an organizing binge since starting to work on my basement a few weeks ago. I liked it so much that I want to keep it going. But even more important than how much I liked it, is how many more things are getting done around the house now that I can easily find my tools and don’t have to be grossed-out by cob webs and crumbling plaster while looking for them. I really think there is something to the idea of freeing-up energy by removing the actual physical impediments to getting things done and dumping negative reinforcement from the psyche.

Now if only I could get my office to work that way…

[Stephen]

I think his ideas and system is great, but his book is really badly written and it takes a lot of concentration to figure out the details of his system. Too much filler. Definitely take notes while you're reading. His second book is worse, a thrown-together bunch of newsletter columns. But the appendix in the second book is perhaps the best thing in all his writings. In general, though, there are better descriptions of his systen on the internet than in his own books.

[Dave Schoof]

Great post - I am a boomerang fan of GTD. I always am suspicious of "systems-only" solutions that promise a better life. It takes more than that. But a system is a necessary part of the solution and Allen's is good.

What is tricky though is you must FULLY adopt the system. You cannot do it halfway or you will have a bigger mess than before. My first time through, I never really bothered to learn the philosophy of his process and just focused on some of the techniques. I then found myself more disorganized than before. I am back with the system and really like it.

[Laura Young]

Thanks for the comments, everyone. While I didn't find it to be as confusing a read as you did, Stephen, I do agree with your point that gleaning the nuggets is useful and as Dave says, they have to be integrated to work. Some of the graphics depicting the flow charts at his site are poorly done and confusing so you do have to go step by step.
For folks following this conversation, I can say that I am finding it is a process to step into this system and really utilize it. It really is a commitment to doing things in a new way and it takes time to break old bad habits.
I find some of the value in the book is the way he highlights why some habits are bad and how to break them. For example, I'm the queen of using my calendar as another place to write to do lists, which then get lifted from day to day and rewritten in new places. Now I'm catching all those little inefficiencies and it is making a surprising difference in how even the busiest of days feels to me.

[Peter]

Nobody asked, but I’d like to give my take on David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Well… actually Laura did ask, so here goes.

As far as organizational systems go, I think his is probably at the top of the heap. It’s simple, intuitive and best of all, pretty much cost-free. (After you’ve bought the book, of course!)

That being said, I still don’t think I’ll be implementing the system. As simple and intuitive as it is, it’s still too intricate and demanding for my purposes. It would be like using a sledge hammer to swat a fly.

Of course, if you had a warehouse full of nine years worth of “stuff” I can see how you might need a sledge hammer. Maybe two. I imagine that the system would work best for corporate manager-types. (I would have been happier with less biz-speak in the text.) But life is a little different for us creative types. There are so many things that don’t seem to fit neatly into any category.

That’s just my personal preference but, beyond that, I think Allen’s quasi-philosophical underpinnings of the system are based on false premises. Those being:

1. Minds can’t be emptied and “you’ll never be able to enjoy a walk in the woods” unless “absolutely 100-percent of everything” is captured and put in the correct “bucket,” and that;
2. Having everything captured and closing all the open loops will result in a peaceful mind.

In fact, there are plenty of people who can put their minds at ease and enjoy being in the moment no matter how many loops are left open and with their “stuff” scattered all across the landscape. (I know. I’ve been one of them.)

And even if everything is totally buttoned-up and as much under control as it could possibly be, there are plenty of people who will still worry and fret about what they might have missed and what might be the next thing to jump up and bite them. (I know. I’ve been one of them.)

Also, it’s not hard to imagine how a GTD true-believer could become a slave to the system and end up serving it instead of the other way around.

None of which is to say that Allen doesn’t have good and useful ideas. I think that just about anyone could take something useful from this book. Here’s what I got:

1. “Capture” everything possible – I’ve actually done a pretty good job of this. My computer holds a lot that would otherwise be in piles of random papers around my office or simply floating somewhere out there in the ozone.
2. Eliminate hidden disincentives that may be unseen, but which are perfectly predictable if you think about them. This is a biggie for me. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the reason my living room wasn’t getting painted had nothing to do with the living room, with painting or with me being lazy. It was because of the disincentive of having to descend into my dungeon-like basement and root around to find everything I would need to start the job. Clean up the basement and – voila! – the painting begins.
3. Make a file system that really works. Hoo boy, this is where I need a lot of work! I even drank the Kool-Aid and bought a labeler for this purpose.
4. Have a good tickler file. I don’t think I need a paper one. The features of Outlook on my computer are very good for this.

So no, Laura, I’m not falling in loooove with David Allen, but I have started a few things that are making life better and easier. Thanks for the tip!

[Laura Young]

Great points of the caveats, P. You haven't lost your touch, baby.
And yeah, you are right about the system potentially becoming master rather than tool. I had all kinds of cool next actions I was going to do this week but then I had to rant, which meant I had to learn how to make mp3s and then the satellite kept dinking out on me and there went the day.
BUT, the interesting thing was that even then I broke things up. I went to the bank, the post office, made a lasagne. That wouldn't have happened before. I would have been in front of the computer for 12 hours straight until I had conquered getting that post up. I have this "One day to mastery" mindset that this helped me uncover.
That I started to break it up even though I didn't release myself from completing the post was significant and recognizing the mindset was something that I never quite got to before.
Like you and the basement leading to the painting. Suddenly the speedbumps are getting more clear and it's easier to let go of frustration when you aren't trying to solve the wrong problem.

[kkdai]

I wasn’t sure where to make this post, and I am sorry, if I posted in the wrong place