I've tried to implement GTD a couple of times before but I always fail when I end up with organised but huge lists of things to do, along with things that become irrelevant over time (time-contextual "could-do's") and getting snowed under by day-to-day maintenance chores. Has anyone had success implementing it, and if so, was there any trick or technique that helped it "click" for you? I also realise I might just be doing it wrong, but I was following the capture loop as I understood it.
For one, there's a giant "Homework" list with all of my assignments for the semester and due dates. This helps me make sure that on any given day, I know whether an assignment is coming up. I sync this Trello list with my Google calendar, which sends me an email reminder the day before something is due.
I have a "Now" list that keeps track of my current task and my next few immediate tasks (so like, "fix this bug," "do flashcards," and "call Doc to make apt.") Sometimes I couple this with Pomello (http://www.pomelloapp.com/) which helps prevent me avoid going down various rabbit holes when working on a specific task.
There's also a "Dragons" list which is where I put important big tasks that I've been procrastinating.
I removed the project lists. My GTD board is strictly a sophisticated to-do list. Projects get their own separate trello boards.
Nice! Thanks for sharing. I really liked your background. Funny, I've been using the NYC landscape as my bg for years, but didn't realize until now it makes me feel a bit anxious, while yours conveys calmness and organization. The power of subliminal messages, uh?
+1 to getting rid of project-specific lists. I now create a separate Trello board for anything that requires more than 3-4 tasks.
I also think Trello is a great solution for GTD. But I've always felt the need to have a clear overview of all projects (boards) so I've made this little tool https://workflow.pm
Basically it brings all your cards from all boards in a single dashboard.
thanks for posting this - it's always useful to see how other people adapt these systems as I believe they can be too constrained in their proscription of how to use them. I think that's one of the main things that caused me headaches in GTD - it's such a systemic process that it's hard to adopt gradually or partially.
Have you read the book? I just finished for the second time and couldn't recommend it more. It helps to not only understand the whole system, but David Allen's reasoning behind it. Ultimately, like many others have noted on threads like this one, GTD may fall short of a comprehensive personal organisation system that adequately keeps creative juices flowing; however, it's a hell of a starting point. I am starting to deviate from the system after more than a year of pretty religious practice, but I only feel comfortable doing so after getting my head around the methodology and its motivating philosophy.
The secret, IMO, is just taking the bits of it which address an actual need you have. The full system can indeed be a maintenance nightmare, but if you can pull out a few bits and work them into your daily habits, you'll get more out of it.
I use a wiki page (in my personal Gitlab space of our company Gitlab instance):
- one wiki page per week
- every Monday, I copy over the wiki page to a new one
- I split sections between time-based, and "priority backlog" vs "low-priority backlog" (stuff that might get done in 2 months).
- I also keep a short list of general reminders at the bottom completely.
- I like using [x] to mark things done. Easy to review at the end of the week. Even sometimes ~~ to strike-trough, for extra satisfaction.
- If I had something not planned, I add it to the list, so that I don't despair at the end of the week, if I didn't do half of the things I should have.
- I pin the tab at the top of my tab list in Firefox, for quick access.
I like using Gitlab's wiki for this, since I can copy-paste the URL to an issue or specific project, and it automatically converts to something nicer. And while I could use the wiki history, instead of a new page, I find it easier to go back in time this way.
Each day, you have to copy our yesterday's list, and copy our the list afresh. While doing that, you can reorder, just do so you don't have to copy, or dump if it isn't going to get done (either into a long term text file, or just the bin).
I found that actively having to copy stopped my list accumulating things I know I should do, but probably never will.
I've been doing something similar to this, with my own version of a Bullet Journal - it's working well for short-term task management but for long term things that I might not notice day-to-day but know I need to get done (the drain needs unblocking, for example) I tend to forget or not make time for in amongst the mountain of day-to-days.
Bullet Journal solves this pretty well for my purposes. After bumping the same task still undone day after day = move it to “future log” pg. And I try not to migrate much from month to month.
I have been honing in on my own personal adaptation of GTD with Evernote for about four years. It has absolutely made a positive difference in my life, productivity, and stress levels. I tried two or three times before this and it never stuck.
I think the system works well for people who are already inclined to the general mindset and other systems likely work better for different types of people. For me, it is a slow process to reach a perfection of the system.
I am currently going through my fourth major overhaul of my system and I think when I come out the other side I will be about 80% of the way to where I want to be. I think I am about 60% now, but even when I was only 20% in the beginning it was an improvement over zero.
The last large overhaul I did shifted me from David Allen's notion of contextual based lists to lists based on criticality. Contextual was largely irrelevant to me since nearly everything I do can be done on my phone and otherwise computer, which is where I spend most of my working day.
I have 4 next action lists for the tasks in my personal life.
Critical - Nothing sits in here for more than a day or two. The struggle for me is being honest about only putting items in here that I truly cannot let go past a day or two, not items that I wish I would do in a day or two.
Priority - This holds items that absolutely need to be completed at some point in the near future (within a week or two), but not necessarily today. It is reviewed every few days and actions are taken care of, shuffled up to critical, or shuffled down to Important, or elsewhere.
Important - This exists so that I don't fill up Priority with junk, but still feel like I have place I will review regularly so that these items don't fall through the cracks and end up as last minute fires to be put out.
Remember - Along the same lines, this exists so that Important isn't full of junk that I am just temporarily attached to. Most of 'remember' ends up being filed to a project, deleted, or placed into incubate. This folder was a key addition to remove the stress of what to do with ideas I felt were important in the moment, but knew they couldn't possibly take precedence over anything that had a real timeline.
I am returning to running my own business at the first of the year and so the new overhaul is all about managing separate clients and the related projects/tasks. From previous experience, I know how hard it is for me to comfortably step in and out of work, especially at home. I am developing a series of forms, note tags, and procedures to dump my mental operating RAM into Evernote at the end of a work session and then reload that project/task specific data into my mind whenever I return.
Like GTD in general, so much of the value for me is in having the confidence to say, "you can forget completely about that for now, it has been documented and filed in such a way that you need have no fear of not remembering and accessing it later in the moment when it is needed."
