Dave Slusher writes of his struggles with GTD. He provides pointage to a David Allen/Merlin Mann podcast that said:
it takes two years to really get the GTD system internalized.
After reading Dave’s post, I see that he and I are in approximately the same GTD status: we both have Hipster PAA cards out the wazoo, an we’ve both been dutifully adding more day by day. In both our cases, we’ve not progressed steadily on the processing of that information.
I’m using the PAA as input into my Palm PDA, and to do information has been flowing smoothly. I look through the balance of my cards, and find that what needs to be handled is the reference type information (the command to initiate a Linux kickstart from an Open Firmware prompt, stuff like that). The plan is to transfer this info from cards, to properly categorized Palm memos. The Missing Synch for Palm OS does a wonderful job in synching everything from the Palm to a Mac-based desktop. Contact info goes to the Mac’s address book, calendar info to the calendar, etc. Plus, and this is a big plus, categories are created on the fly; for example, if you see a need for another to-do category, create it on the Palm, add the to-do, and Missing Sync will create the item and the category on the desktop at the next sync. Prior versions had a catchall category to lump items, and it was a real pain to have to edit items after a sync, just to get them properly categorized.
So, I’ve got all the tools, I know what needs to be done, and like Dave, I just need to do it. Once caught up, I think the daily portion will be easily maintained. And Dave has it right; pick a time for daily review (with the AM java is a great time), and weekly review (weekends are a great time), and then just do it, dammit.
If it takes two years to get this process internalized, there’s no time like the present to start.
-k-
1 – GID = Get It Done, not the gid in the Unix sense. And not GED, in the Larry the Cable Guy Sense.
Technorati Tags: GTD, markspace