My todo system is to have one directory per project and one TODO.rst file in each of them.
GTD sucks for creative work. Here’s an alternative system.
31–38 of 38 posts
Re: GTD sucks for creative work. Here’s an alternative system.
#32My favorite GTD method is still sit down. get shit done. Firing up a pomodoro timer helps to keep me on task.
SD;GSD
Re: GTD sucks for creative work. Here’s an alternative system.
#33Want a non-system that's good enough for most of us? 1. Sit down and work on one thing, and nothing else, for two hours. 2. Repeat. Prioritization is such a tiny part of success, creation, or work. Just do something, and keep doing something.
I have ADHD, so maybe this is one of the ways ADHD folks are different from attention surplus folks, but I gotta say prioritization is a big factor of success for me.
It's common and easy for me to sit down and work on one thing for two hours (or more), but if I'm not careful about what that thing is suddenly six hours have gone by and I've done a lot of (or learned a lot about) something, but I'm not much closer to getting anything that needs doing done.
E.g., a few examples of the kind of rabbit hole that I've run down, or at least started to run down, recently:
- exploring speedwords-style typewritten shorthand systems, and developing custom concordance/frequency analysis scripts to analyze samples of both my prose and my code
- hacking emacs org-mode to allow markdown style syntax, and to allow org-babel syntax within markdown-mode
- creating a JavaScript semi-DSL for a declarative-syntax layout of impress.js "slides"
These are fun to do and I learn a bit and they are even semi-productive in the "sharpening the saw" sense, but literally "just keep doing something" doesn't necessarily lead to "success" anymore than "just keep swimming" necessarily leads you to 42 Wallaby Way.
Focused effort, in and of itself, isn't so much the problem from me. From where I sit, it matters which shit is being done. Does that just happen automatically for you/others?
Re: GTD sucks for creative work. Here’s an alternative system.
#34The tendency is to fill up your task software with dozens of projects and tasks under each project. But the more you look at your projects and tasks every day for the next few weeks, it gets discouraging. It feels like a never-ending river of stress. Two points on GTD that deal with this: - Part of writing everything to down is to get it out of your head so you don't worry about it. If you have a bunch of big detaile…
But how do you know what's on your plate today with GTD? Usually the prescribed approach is to go into a context (ie, @email or @phone) and start plugging away at the next actions from various projects that require you to be in that context. Great if you're in a straitforward task job like sales but not good for creativity and getting creative work done. It's too rigid and the focus is on the granular next actionable…
I'm a GTD adherant, but the idea of just plugging away at next actions never clicked with me either. I do two things that seem to help:
1. I pick a couple of things each week that I need to focus on each week, and put them in a list I review every day. Generally, these are projects that I have on my project list, but that need some attention in a given week.
2. I maintain a daily todo list that is culled each morning from my master todo list. Each day I pre-pick a handful of things to do and put them on my list of tasks for the day. This act of preselecting my work isn't canonical GTD, but it works for me.
IMO GTD is a great starting point, but most people need to adapt it to their personal circumstances and working style.
Re: GTD sucks for creative work. Here’s an alternative system.
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds good if you can really do the brain dump and then not worry about it. Some people make their massive lists and then spend half their day, every day, reviewing and reorganizing it.
Excessive reviewing can be from lack of trust in the system, or pure procrastination while appearing productive. Nobody starts out trusting. You have to see it work before you can stop worrying. The busywork aspect can be mitigated by allocating the daily review time and then refusing to fiddle with it. You might still procrastinate in other ways, but one less way is still good.
"To no longer worry about something requires worrying about it a lot first."
Re: GTD sucks for creative work. Here’s an alternative system.
#36I find that instead of working on how to accomplish what I should be working on, just working on it "gets things done"
Re: GTD sucks for creative work. Here’s an alternative system.
#37I made a not to serious attempt to implement GTD, but I got stuck on the granularity of "next action." I don't remember quite why this was, but as I was attempting to write my lists I would get stuck on something like this. (I'm a music producer). I need to mix a song on the next day. This tends to be a complex task that takes at least a few hours or many more. I would ponder: is the next action "go to the studio",or is it "turn on the computer", or is it "mix the song" or is it "organize the drum tracks." In my understanding (which was probably wrong) one idea of GTD was to break complex tasks down and represent them with a next step. I never found this helpful, as I always new what the next step was. What was hard was actually doing the work. It often takes longer than I want, and is sometimes hard to do when I'm not inspired. After a while I gave up, but I did get in the habit of keeping my email in box more organized.
Re: GTD sucks for creative work. Here’s an alternative system.
#38Want a non-system that's good enough for most of us? 1. Sit down and work on one thing, and nothing else, for two hours. 2. Repeat. Prioritization is such a tiny part of success, creation, or work. Just do something, and keep doing something.
I have ADHD, so maybe this is one of the ways ADHD folks are different from attention surplus folks, but I gotta say prioritization is a big factor of success for me. It's common and easy for me to sit down and work on one thing for two hours (or more), but if I'm not careful about what that thing is suddenly six hours have gone by and I've done a lot of (or learned a lot about) something , but I'm not much closer to…
I'm ADHD too, actually, and my biggest problem is being paralyzed by worrying about which task to choose. Once I get past the first five minutes of HEY HEY GO LOOK IN THE FRIDGE AND HEY CHECK EMAIL ONE MORE TIME, it's pretty easy to get in the zone. If I sit down and just do something, I'll probably waste an hour or two here and there on fun-but-unimportant projects, but it at least keeps the wheel greased. There's a momentum that builds up.