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A Beginner´s Guide to Getting Things Done

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Re: A Beginner´s Guide to Getting Things Done

#131

Post by bachmeier »

PeOe wrote: post #84
GrumpyNl wrote: post #27

To all the people with the little and big todo lists, live a little. Let life surprise you.

I guess that´s why many people don´t even start with trying to implement GTD into their lives. They fear being "too organized". What many people don´t get is that after "clearing your head" and really using GTD you have more space in your mind to actually live and be creative.

Wish I could upvote this twice. The problem people have is all the stuff that needs to be done - a mountain of email, Christmas shopping, personal projects, and such. Ignoring it won't make it go away.

If you can't work because a dog is biting you in the leg, one response is "I'm too busy to fight with a dog right now, and fighting with a dog isn't much fun, so I'll just ignore it and focus on my work instead." Not sure that's the best path to productivity.

Re: A Beginner´s Guide to Getting Things Done

#132

Post by submeta »

bachmeier wrote: post #128
submeta wrote: post #37

I read David Allen's book in 2002 and immediately started implementing it. At first it felt like godsend. Capturing every "open loop" (everything that is not the way it should be = everything with a delta between current and desired state) and deciding for each of them if there is any action that I need to take and if so, what the very next step was - that practice alone released a ton of energy and gave me a sense o…

I actually disagree. By being explicit about all of your decisions to do things, and how much time it will take, you learn over time about the tradeoffs and stop doing worthless things. If you capture, review, plan, and think about where you're going long-term, you will stop doing things that have no value to you. (At least it worked for me.) Whether it works for everyone, I don't know, but the first step is to get c…

Try to review all your lists (or one list in a given context) every time you sit down to do work and choose the one that is the right one at a given time, energy level, context.

Personally, I find that overwhelming. Also I don't wait to be in a context (at phone, at computer, ...) Rather, I define my context, sit down and focus on one project single mindedly for hours and days to get this project done.

Of course I have my groceries list, my errands list, my "talk to dev team" list, Trello and JIRA and whatnot: all sorts of lists. But when I want to get work done, I ignore all these lists, get in tunnel-view-mode and forget about everything else.

When I have the time or when all the C-Prio tasks can't wait no more, I will turn to them and batch process them to get as many of them done das possible.

Re: A Beginner´s Guide to Getting Things Done

#133

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

A trick I used to use while in college was that if I ever dreaded the magnitude of the task that was in front of me (preparing for an exam, or working on my thesis or whatever), I'd spend half an hour making a very systematic time-table for it. So if it was preparing for an exam, I'd nicely spread all the chapters of the book I had to read into whatever time I had left. Even if the plan was a little unrealistic, the fact that I had made it made me feel in control of the situation and worked wonders for my mental state.

Re: A Beginner´s Guide to Getting Things Done

#134

Post by arlindohall »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #31

This was mercifully shorter than the Cal Newport book. That's about all I can say for it. Ivan Sutherland had the secret, and it only took one paragraph to share it: ' I used to hate washing dishes. I would delay as long as possible. Eyeing the daunting pile of dishes, I would say to myself, “I'll be here forever at this dumb task.” The enormity of the task deterred me from starting. I still dislike washing dishes, b…

Thanks for sharing - this is a wonderfully succinct way to say something I've been trying to model my "to-do" process around for years now. I have spend more time than it's worth switching between to-do apps and processes; I've used calendars, notepads, all sorts of things. Finally, and recently, I've come to the conclusion that at the end of the day, you've got to just do the thing that is bothering you the most, and keep a record of the things that are also bothering you. Beyond that, it doesn't really matter how you keep track of what needs be done, just so long as you take the first step on something.

Re: A Beginner´s Guide to Getting Things Done

#135

Post by d0mine »

tudelo wrote: post #66
d0mine wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a side note: diet doesn't work long term: > After about five years, 41 percent of dieters gain back more weight than they lost. Long-term studies show dieters are more likely than non-dieters to become obese over the next one to 15 years. > ... The study found that a single diet increased the odds of becoming overweight by a factor of two in men and three in women. Women who had gone on two or more diets during th…

I don't really get what you are trying to say. Those who are obese are more likely to be obese again? That seems intuitive. It's also equally as true that not all obese people stay obese. What is your solution to weight loss? I think it depends on the definition of diet is used. Fads don't work, but something has to. In my experience, it's just a lack of commitment and the availability of delicious high caloric food.

> Those who are obese are more likely to be obese again?

Read the link. It answers your question explicitly (twin studies).

Re: A Beginner´s Guide to Getting Things Done

#136

Post by Tempest1981 »

BeetleB wrote: post #122

I first encountered GTD in 2007. After about 8 years of trying, I finally accepted that GTD didn't work for me. I think any workflow management has to be tailored to your personality. I digged that from the start and did not fall into the trap of being 100% David Allen compliant. Some of my issues: - My lists grow long. Way too long. I recall he suggests looking at the Someday/Maybe during the weekly review. That jus…

What's a good tool for managing the various lists/projects? I've tried Google Docs, Apple Notes, and Txt files.

I'm good at making giant "inboxes". From there I move them into 20-30 separate files, but it's tedious -- trying to find the right GDocs tab in Chrome.

Then it's hard to pick out the top must-do items from the 20-30 lists.

Re: A Beginner´s Guide to Getting Things Done

#137

Post by [deleted] »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #31

This was mercifully shorter than the Cal Newport book. That's about all I can say for it. Ivan Sutherland had the secret, and it only took one paragraph to share it: ' I used to hate washing dishes. I would delay as long as possible. Eyeing the daunting pile of dishes, I would say to myself, “I'll be here forever at this dumb task.” The enormity of the task deterred me from starting. I still dislike washing dishes, b…

[deleted]

Re: A Beginner´s Guide to Getting Things Done

#139

Post by vog »

ryangittins wrote: post #130
swah wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar trick works for avoiding sugary treats: don't strongly oppose this desire - instead say to yourself you can eat it at a later time and move your mind to something else. (When you finally eat whatever it was you so much desired, you didn't really fail, because you are only consuming 1 unit for those 3/5/whatever days, instead of one every day...)

I use this trick when I want to buy something online which I don't absolutely need. I'll add it to a wish list on Amazon (or even put it in my cart) and then leave the site. When I come back a few days or weeks later, I often find myself asking why I ever wanted that thing in the first place and remove it.

The same approach works for unimportant tasks/ideas as well. Put them on a list, and if after a few days you don't care about them anymore, just delete them and be happy that you didn't waste your time on that.

Re: A Beginner´s Guide to Getting Things Done

#140

Post by mmierz »

d0mine wrote: post #52
dogruck wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make the bizarre claim that nobody successfully follows GTD because you’ve never done so, and you know many others who have also failed to do so. That’s like a fat dude looking around at the donut shop and saying “nobody ever sticks to their diets, haha!” I’ve used GTD for years. I just shattered your claim.

As a side note: diet doesn't work long term: > After about five years, 41 percent of dieters gain back more weight than they lost. Long-term studies show dieters are more likely than non-dieters to become obese over the next one to 15 years. > ... The study found that a single diet increased the odds of becoming overweight by a factor of two in men and three in women. Women who had gone on two or more diets during th…

>men with severe obesity have only one chance in 1,290 of reaching the normal weight range within a year

Based on my personal experiences, a pool of anecdotes from friends, and the generally accepted advice of the medical community: sustained weight loss of more than 1 lb per week is incredibly difficult and not realistic for most dieters.

Since, by definition, most "severely obese" people are more than 52lb from a "healthy" weight, statistics like this seem inevitable even if the person does everything perfectly and achieves results that they're satisfied with.

Example: I've totally transformed my body with diet and exercise. But I've failed by this metric, because it took longer than a year, and I'm significantly heavier now than at my lowest weight (albeit much more muscular)

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