Classical GTD systems −2: High overhead, I don’t do a lot of work in front of a desk/computer, when I do it’s for fun, and I’ve frequently done more than 40 hours a week of the kind of work that GTD systems (as usually described) don’t help with at all. In nursing, you show up on time, tasks appear, and you do them. Organization is extremely important, and a far from solved problem for me, but by necessity you plan things and do them in the short term, and procrastination isn’t a factor. (Also, plans almost never actually end up being executed because shit goes down, so flexibility is more important.) I would come home exhausted from work and start doing projects for fun off a written to-do list, and it made them un-fun.
I think classical GTD systems are likely a good thing in general, and I was applying them to the wrong problem.
Written to-do lists of long term goals +5: Don’t have the high overhead, avoid most of the fun-sucking aspects, and keep me accountable/remind me when there’s something I actually want to do but haven’t booked time for in a while. Probably the most effective change I’ve made in the past year.
My giant iPhone Note document of random information capture +3: I don’t think this is actually a good system, but it’s easy, and fairly low-overhead–I just have to read through the list once in a while and delete stuff I’ve dealt with/has become irrelevant. I recently split my giant Note into about 10 appropriately titled Notes for capturing thoughts when I’m out and about.
RTM +4: It’s a clever program, but slightly less flexible than I’d like, and I probably don’t use it properly. I have a few large multi-step tasks, like “Apply for California Board of Nursing registration”, which will take forever, and thus sit forever in my inbox, as well as quick self-reminders like “renew library books” or “email person X”. I literally just figured out how to make separate lists. The list “Home/Computer” is the most helpful, because I frequently have minor tasks, like emailing someone or finding a particular object in my house, that I remember when I’m not at a computer/not at home, and then forget by the time I get home. RTM works excellently for these. It’s probably inappropriate for large multi-step goals, but I’m still looking for another iPhone-portable software option. RTM doesn’t particularly make me feel like doing things unless they’re really easy things like “go to the bank”, in which case the little dopamine hit of marking the task as ‘done’ compensates for the annoyance of getting home 10 minutes later.
Social commitment +2: It works when I do it. It’s time-consuming, and you have to have a community of people around you who’ll actually hold you accountable and care, and I don’t end up getting around to making social commitments a lot of the time.
Rescuetime (site) +1: Keeps track of how much time you spend on different programs or sites, and then gives productivity ratings. It doesn’t make a huge difference, and I don’t look at it often, but it provides a bit of an incentive to “win” and get good productivity scores.
Physical activity +4: Doesn’t fit into any of the categories, but I use it like some people use modafinil. It’s not just for productivity–I will literally get depressed if I don’t get enough cardio, and it feels like a physiological/neurotransmitter balance thing. But it’s also productivity. I can always justify taking an hour or two off working on something to go work out, because I will get much more done in the same period of time, even accounting for the hours I take off.
Just a caution: using the Notes program on iphone (the default program that the iphone and ipad come with, with the little yellow and brown icon) can be dangerous. Mine seems to randomly delete notes for no known reason. I stopped using this program entirely after it happened to me once. (In my case, it may have been due to taking too many large-ish videos that were sent to my ‘photostream’ and overloaded it, but I’m not certain of that.)
Obviously if that’s not the program you’re using then disregard.
Classical GTD systems −2: High overhead, I don’t do a lot of work in front of a desk/computer, when I do it’s for fun, and I’ve frequently done more than 40 hours a week of the kind of work that GTD systems (as usually described) don’t help with at all. In nursing, you show up on time, tasks appear, and you do them. Organization is extremely important, and a far from solved problem for me, but by necessity you plan things and do them in the short term, and procrastination isn’t a factor. (Also, plans almost never actually end up being executed because shit goes down, so flexibility is more important.) I would come home exhausted from work and start doing projects for fun off a written to-do list, and it made them un-fun.
I think classical GTD systems are likely a good thing in general, and I was applying them to the wrong problem.
Written to-do lists of long term goals +5: Don’t have the high overhead, avoid most of the fun-sucking aspects, and keep me accountable/remind me when there’s something I actually want to do but haven’t booked time for in a while. Probably the most effective change I’ve made in the past year.
My giant iPhone Note document of random information capture +3: I don’t think this is actually a good system, but it’s easy, and fairly low-overhead–I just have to read through the list once in a while and delete stuff I’ve dealt with/has become irrelevant. I recently split my giant Note into about 10 appropriately titled Notes for capturing thoughts when I’m out and about.
RTM +4: It’s a clever program, but slightly less flexible than I’d like, and I probably don’t use it properly. I have a few large multi-step tasks, like “Apply for California Board of Nursing registration”, which will take forever, and thus sit forever in my inbox, as well as quick self-reminders like “renew library books” or “email person X”. I literally just figured out how to make separate lists. The list “Home/Computer” is the most helpful, because I frequently have minor tasks, like emailing someone or finding a particular object in my house, that I remember when I’m not at a computer/not at home, and then forget by the time I get home. RTM works excellently for these. It’s probably inappropriate for large multi-step goals, but I’m still looking for another iPhone-portable software option. RTM doesn’t particularly make me feel like doing things unless they’re really easy things like “go to the bank”, in which case the little dopamine hit of marking the task as ‘done’ compensates for the annoyance of getting home 10 minutes later.
Social commitment +2: It works when I do it. It’s time-consuming, and you have to have a community of people around you who’ll actually hold you accountable and care, and I don’t end up getting around to making social commitments a lot of the time.
Rescuetime (site) +1: Keeps track of how much time you spend on different programs or sites, and then gives productivity ratings. It doesn’t make a huge difference, and I don’t look at it often, but it provides a bit of an incentive to “win” and get good productivity scores.
Physical activity +4: Doesn’t fit into any of the categories, but I use it like some people use modafinil. It’s not just for productivity–I will literally get depressed if I don’t get enough cardio, and it feels like a physiological/neurotransmitter balance thing. But it’s also productivity. I can always justify taking an hour or two off working on something to go work out, because I will get much more done in the same period of time, even accounting for the hours I take off.
Just a caution: using the Notes program on iphone (the default program that the iphone and ipad come with, with the little yellow and brown icon) can be dangerous. Mine seems to randomly delete notes for no known reason. I stopped using this program entirely after it happened to me once. (In my case, it may have been due to taking too many large-ish videos that were sent to my ‘photostream’ and overloaded it, but I’m not certain of that.)
Obviously if that’s not the program you’re using then disregard.
Yes, that’s the program I use. It’s never deleted anything for me. I’ve been using it for about a year.