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GTD in 15 Minutes – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done

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Re: GTD in 15 Minutes – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done

#51

Post by bitexploder »

snowwrestler wrote: post #40
agentgt wrote: post #4

GTD does work but to be almost any system that is used with habit like fervor will work. General productivity of contacting people and writing up things is pretty easy to manage and in large part most of it is just getting it out of your head so that you can focus on other perhaps cerebral things. But that is the problem. Systems like these aren't at the surface terribly helpful with creativity. However I do believe…

Creativity rarely happens on a schedule. Therefore, to plan for optimal creativity means to plan for the ability to engage it whenever it happens. Practically speaking, this means a few things: - You need enough slack in your to-do list to allow you to delay or put off tasks if you suddenly get an idea that you want to explore. - You need a way to capture and explore ideas at any time. This is why a lot of people car…

I know some people simply need spontaneity to be creative, but I think most people are fine being creative on a schedule. One of the most powerful quotes from Stephen King's book "On Writing":

"There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer. He lives in the ground. He’s a basement kind of guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you. Do you think it’s fair? I think it’s fair. He may not be much to look at, that muse-guy, and he may not be much of a conversationalist, but he’s got inspiration. It’s right that you should do all the work and burn all the mid-night oil, because the guy with the cigar and the little wings has got a bag of magic. There’s stuff in there that can change your life. Believe me, I know."

I think most on Hacker News would agree with this sentiment. If you aren't putting in the work how can you expect the muse to give you inspiration? You must lay the framework of creativity in your mind in order for it to strike. It is like the medium of an agar plate you use to grow critters in a lab, only in your mind you must create this medium by hard work and laying the framework. Sure inspiration strikes at times with or without this work, but (for me) it reliably strikes when I put in the work.

GTD is almost meta to this. It is just a system to keep your plate free to do your important work and prioritize your important work. It eliminates the mental clutter so you can focus on what is important. Many other productivity and self help systems all go down that same path. But it doesn't get at the core discipline of being regular and scheduled that is almost a requirement as a professional.

Re: GTD in 15 Minutes – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done

#52

Post by ashark »

throwawaytodo wrote: post #43
Foxboron wrote: post #41

I have been attempting to create a todo tracker for myself, but my problem have been finding a suitable interface. Currently i combine vimwikis diary function and taskwiki to integrate todo filtering and have taskwarrior as the backend. The way it works is that i have a template with a list of viewports from taskwiki. These gets initialized everyday and clears out any done todos. I can still retrieve todos, and i can…

Here’s a todo app idea: 1. Take a standard notebook and a regular pen (or pencil, if you prefer). 2. Write down things you have to do. You can even organize them by date: 3. Actually do the things instead of yak-shaving solutions to making basic lists. 4. Cross each thing off after you do it.

> 1. Take a standard notebook and a regular pen (or pencil, if you prefer).

Good call. But... I mean... if I'm gonna have these with me all the time I'd better make sure they're good ones. You know, durable, pleasant to use. burns 400 hours researching and buying notebooks and pens, never gets around to actually using them.

> 2. Write down things you have to do. You can even organize them by date

Sweet. But you know, I bet this could be more efficient if I color-coded. I wonder if I could mix a calendar in, too? What about things that aren't exactly things to do, but I want to record? What about appointments? Hm, I wonder if someone else has figure this out. wastes 400 hours looking at instagrams of other people's bullet journals, never actually bullet journals for more than a day or two

> 3. Actually do the things instead of yak-shaving solutions to making basic lists.

Oh man, I'm on it, I've been so productive! Crossing off researching-task-management-tools tasks all day long!

Re: GTD in 15 Minutes – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done

#53

Post by chrisweekly »

beaconstudios wrote: post #13

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…

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.

Re: GTD in 15 Minutes – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done

#54

Post by JamesBarney »

agentgt wrote: post #4

GTD does work but to be almost any system that is used with habit like fervor will work. General productivity of contacting people and writing up things is pretty easy to manage and in large part most of it is just getting it out of your head so that you can focus on other perhaps cerebral things. But that is the problem. Systems like these aren't at the surface terribly helpful with creativity. However I do believe…

Look into Cal Newport @ calnewport.com

Basically he says the trick is something called deep work. Where you set aside as big a contiguous block of time as possible to sitting around and thinking about something. Make sure you have no distractions, don't have a phone or computer. Just maybe a pen paper and white board. If you need to do any research try to do as much as possible before and after these session of "deep work".

Basically the fountain of creativity is long stretches of boredom.

Re: GTD in 15 Minutes – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done

#55

Post by uberstuber »

developuh wrote: post #27

This is a great summary. I have always liked the idea of GTD, it is just that it can be a bit overwhelming at times :( Is there a GTD lite or something for beginners ?

I usually point people at Zen to Done, it takes an incremental approach to setting up the system instead of throwing the whole thing at you.

https://zenhabits.net/zen-to-done-ztd-the-ultimate-simple-pr...

Re: GTD in 15 Minutes – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done

#56

Post by sleazy_b »

binaryapparatus wrote: post #32
zamazingo wrote: post #3

Emacs Org-Mode, along with its org-capture mode and the ability to clock in/out, is a perfect tool to implement this, btw. https://emacs.cafe/emacs/orgmode/gtd/2017/06/30/orgmode-gtd.... http://orgmode.org/worg/org-gtd-etc.html

I love org-mode but I don't use Emacs. Here is (almost complete) vim equivalent: https://github.com/jceb/vim-orgmode With vim-orgmode I can quickly edit stuff in familiar editor. I have tried various other formats, including taskpaper and various to-do lists but org-mode stands out by far.

Another great vim option is vimwiki: https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki

At a glance it supports all of the features provided by vim-orgmode, but it will probably never be as fully featured as emacs' orgmode

Re: GTD in 15 Minutes – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done

#57

Post by agumonkey »

bkanber wrote: post #48

Similar to GTD, I use a technique called "Bullet Journaling" [1] and it's been transformative. It's less opinionated than GTD and I find it flows a bit more readily. I find it ironic that as a tech CTO I'm connected to my phone and computer probably 80% of my day and love playing with productivity and organizational tools -- yet I've still never found anything better than putting pen to paper! I keep a small pocket-s…

The tiny amount of syntax is lovely. I could see this added to org-mode

Re: GTD in 15 Minutes – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done

#60

Post by Jtsummers »

developuh wrote: post #27

This is a great summary. I have always liked the idea of GTD, it is just that it can be a bit overwhelming at times :( Is there a GTD lite or something for beginners ?

http://gettingthingsdone.com/fivesteps/

Capture everything in your head. Who you need to contact and about what, upcoming trips, list the projects you're working on.

Clarify what all this means. Why am I trying to juggle this information in my head when I can put it into a proper notes app or notebook (it's information, record it, reference it later). If it's a project, add more detail (actions). If it's action, you're good.

Organize it. Put things with deadlines into your calendar. Determine the context of actions (I have to do this on the way home, I have to do this in the lab at facility X on my next trip there). Put things into lists [0] that make sense. Make a shopping list. Have an agenda for your meeting with Bob. Have a plan for your next weekly sprint.

Review everything. We canceled this project, or we shipped that one. Actions that are left open are put on hold or discarded. I missed a deadline, or I finished this but forgot to mark it finished and so those are removed. This is actually dependent on this other thing that I haven't written down yet, so I write it down.

Engage. This is the purpose, this is your life (personal and professional). This is you getting things done and where most of your time should be spent.

[0] Lists is a broad concept. My grocery list is a list, I should fill it out and put it in my car or have it in my pocket notebook so it's accessible when I'm near the grocery store. My projects' plans are a list, but it may be in a MS Project file or an emacs org file, or even both. I have "Fix PR-123" in the main project calendar. But once I get to it, it's in emacs for me and looks more like "figure out this module and that module; update them; update documentation and tests; get it peer reviewed".

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