The irony isn’t lost on me here. David Allen’s Getting Things Done (paperback) has been on my “to blog” list for several weeks. Finishing the book took several months, too, because I didn’t want to race through it, and I didn’t want to pretend to absorb it, or why read it? I’ve hardly studied it, but I have read the entire book, and even tried to put a few methods into place to change the way I organize my “to do” items. The Internet is full of resources and tools for applying GTD techniques, and I’ve chased after a few.
I will say that I like the simplicity of the framework, and I’ve become more and more a keeper of lists, because I cherish the idea of avoiding “open loops,” where the mind cycles over something again and again because you don’t write it down and give yourself a break about where it really fits. Urgent? Important? Do you have all the prerequisites handled? For simply sanity, those reminders are welcome, and (literally) a load off my mind.
The “next action” bit, though, doesn’t advance my work tremendously. I can spend a lot of time planning instead of doing. No matter how much I believe in the value of thinking before acting, sometimes acting helps your thinking. I have a piece of paper somewhere with a favorite quote of my friend Courtney, and it’s a reminder that when you come to a crossroads, you must keep moving. It’s more eloquent in its original formulation, but it boils down to the more popular “When you see a fork in the road, take it.” The discipline of “next action” imagines that you really can scout ahead and consider all avenues. It probably helps to do what planning you can, even knowing you’ll be surprised and change course, but it’s hard to do something like this halfway.
If you feel like you’re in a rut, GTD does give you some ideas and a sense of tangible accomplishments, however small — and that’s not bad. I am keeping my inboxes cleaner, and several to do lists, some of which are life lists. Writing it down somewhere does help, even if it’s acknowledging the unlikelihood of the effort.
At least this post is one more thing to cross off the list. 😉