Chapter 1: No Rest for the Weary
Getting to know GTD
The first time I read David Allen’s book was more skimming, and as a result I only really got part of what was going on. Because of that I decided to jump back in and read it again, this time in detail and without hurrying through to make sure I absorbed everything. I also decided not to move on to the next chapter without giving what I had learned from the previous one a shot to see how it worked in practice. I took to writing in the margins, highlighting, and making notes in a variety of colors, all of which helped me grasp the main thoughts behind each topic.
My work station was gradually transformed: I bought a label printer, metal filing cabinet, desktop sorters, borders for the GTD diagram, and all kinds of folders, stickers, notepads, and other office accessories.
I also started looking for a program to help keep track of to-do lists, something that turned into an endless dig through everything you could think of: online, for computers, cross-platform, and many more. In the end I bought an iPhone, though I was the first among my friends to do so, given that they had not yet been popularized. Many people just did not know what they were, but I needed one for GTD. It was an expensive but important purchase that allowed me to have my to-do lists with me at all times. I was ready for “stress-free productivity” and thought I was on the doorstep of getting everything where it needed to be and understanding the methodology. In fact, it was that hope that drove me forward, not allowing me to stop until I grasped the system and could relax into the inner tranquility about which David Allen talked.
Crisis
At long last I finished my second time through the book, though there was no “peace” or “stress-free productivity” to be found. I had learned beautifully how to sort everything into folders, but I was actually accomplishing much less than before. I was less productive and more stressed to boot, concluding in the end that I had not quite understood the entire concept. The book was packed with information, and I had the sneaky suspicion that I had missed or overlooked something. Regardless of my disappointment, I was not ready to throw in the towel, deciding instead to read the book a third time.
This time I decided to summarize each chapter, so after reading a section I would write out my conclusions and compare them to what I had read. I needed to look at the big picture to see what I was doing wrong and pick out the biggest problem areas.
Two problems
There was a time when I thought the problems I was having with the GTD system had something to do with me personally. Perhaps I did not quite get something completely, or maybe even my lifestyle just did not fit the system. However, I had a friend who had also gone through the book, though he differed from me in that he was not able to read through it multiple times cover to cover. Where I had been able to implement some of the book’s ideas, he had not gone farther than setting up some desktop sorters. Still, Kostya is an irrational kind of person as it is, and so I thought if we had been more thorough, responsible, and disciplined, everything would have worked out.
The last straw was a conversation I had with a friend from Germany. Andreas was an airline captain who sometimes flew to Israel. Once, while sitting on the beach eating breakfast, during the course of our conversation I mentioned what I had been up to lately, and it turned out Andreas had also read the same book. He said he had not been able to apply it to his everyday life either, which really shook me. One could accuse Kostya or me of being inattentive or undisciplined, but that could hardly be said of an airline captain.
My inspiration led me to an internet search for “GTD criticism,” and what I learned was a huge step forward in my quest. Many people wrote about how the system helped them neatly sort their life, but that was where it stopped. Much was written criticizing doing things “in context.” I sensed I had found what I wanted to understand and headed back to the book, in the end reading it two more times. After the fourth time it started falling apart, so I used binder clips to hold it together. In the end I was able to figure out the problem, with the criticism I had read online to confirm what I had found to be true in my personal life. There were two issues: first, vagueness about how to prioritize, and second, what to do next. Let’s dig into those a bit further.
Prioritizing in GTD
In my opinion, being unable to quickly and clearly prioritize is a major problem, given that everyone one of us, no matter what we do, has a to-do list. The main thing is to figure out what to do and when to do it. Using GTD I was able to neatly sort everything into ever-growing lists, but the items on those lists generally did nothing more than stare right back at me. So how does prioritizing work in GTD?
The author offers his readers a wide array of tools. Chapter nine, “Doing: Making the Best Action Choices,” features both “the four-criteria model for choosing actions in the moment” and “the six-level model for reviewing your own work.” I cannot believe how much time I spent on chapter nine to be sure of my conclusion that it is impractical and tough to implement in everyday life—I could write an entire book on the subject. Here it is worth spending time talking about intuition, the most important secret of time management. Later we will come back to this topic a number of times, given its foundational value for modern TM. Regardless, I do not want to spend your time on a detailed review of these models, as they are not among the goals of this book. With that in mind I will simply bring up a few real life examples.
Let’s take the four criteria model for choosing actions in the moment, the filter through which the author would like us to run our to-do lists:
1. Context
2. Time available
3. Energy available
4. Priority
I took my to-do list (at the time it included 328 items) and started asking those questions for every line. That is crazy in and of itself, because getting to the end (if, in fact, by some robotic tendency you do get to the end) takes an enormous amount of time.
So let’s take one goal, for example buy sneakers for the whole family, and think about which context it best fits: calls, or maybe computer, or perhaps even store? Say you choose internet and decide that you will just go ahead and look around for good prices. Now you need to think of the time expenditure: how much time are you willing to spend to find the sneakers? You do not know? I do not either. Regardless, say we can spend 30 minutes. Next we try to understand the energy we need for this. We could do it in the evening when we are tired—but perhaps it would be better to do it bright and early in the morning? We can say we do not care and just pick any time.
Now we get to the most interesting part: priority. That is a bit of circular reasoning, no? You ask how to prioritize and are told, of course: by order of importance. This is where the author tries to get the idea of intuition through to us. In other words, he wants us to prioritize goals in keeping with our responsibilities, objectives, and ideals. Let’s say you decide that this is a more urgent task—what next? Next you continue working your way through your list until you get to the end.
However, even that is not good enough, because tomorrow or the day after half the list will already be obsolete thanks to changing circumstances like a broken computer. You might also realize that you are not up for anything in the evening, or something else changed and now you do not need what you previously wanted. So why spend so much energy sorting what you have to do later? I understood for myself that it simply is not worthwhile, especially given that sorting everything the way I did still did not help me prioritize. I came out the other end with more stress and less productivity.
Context
All right, let’s say we have boundless energy, productivity, and a desire to filter our list every day through the “four-criteria model for choosing actions in the moment.” Still, how do we take care of buy sneakers for the whole family? How does that work? David Allen suggests working in context, meaning that as soon as we find ourselves in the right context we can get to work on taking care of that item: the next time we are sitting at the computer we need to find those sneakers.
However, in my practice and that of my friend Kostya this was simply impossible. At first I was often angry when I found myself in one context or another, but I did not understand why. In an attempt to solve that problem I forced myself to wind up in a context, but that often did not yield the results I was looking for. For example, I figured out that I had a few minutes to call my internet provider and clarify a few issues, but my call ended up a disaster. I had to spend an entire hour on the phone and still came away empty-handed. I needed to make another call, but according to the system I was already in another context, so the call was not made.
When you live in context you do what is next on the list instead of what is most important, but that does not work. I had a few context folders:
• Reading/watching
• Computer
• Calling
• Errands
• Office
• Home
This did not work, and many were always empty! For example, I might not make it to the office in a given week, or while at home I would forget that I was in the home context.
In addition, there were times when I would go to a shopping center, open my to-do list with the buy tag just to realize that I had forgotten something I needed to make the next purchase. It seemed to me that the system would work better for some sort of manufacturing featuring clear working zones, timetables, and procedures. David Allen’s claim that a to-do list should never be written for a particular day, but instead should be taken care of “in context” did not fit with my personal experience. I was much more productive when I wrote a daily to-do list and did my best to work my way through as much as possible. Of course, I had the idea to set an alarm on my phone to go off every 5-10 minutes asking me what context I was in, but I quickly understood that I would only gain productivity like that at the expense of my sanity.