Just do it! (Do what?)
Shelley directs our attention to Anne Zelenka's SXSW-prompted rant, which includes this:
4. Too many to do list applications. As a Web Worker
Daily writer, of course I’m interested in to do lists and applications implementing them. But just because you can build one with whatever web framework you’re trying to learn doesn’t mean you should release it as a beta and expect me to write about it....
8. Getting Things Done. The productivity virus so many of us have been infected with in 2006 and 2007. Let’s move on. Getting lots of stuff done is not the way to achieve something important. You could be so busy planning next actions that you miss out on what your real contribution should be.
It’s the weekend. I’m quite focused on getting little or nothing done. And finding a different sort of appreciation for tools like Twitter that allow my to note what friends, colleagues, and strangers are doing
in passing. Send a little chirp of input if I like, yet still step back and recharge batteries, and in what would be an anathema to David Allen acolytes everywhere - get nothing done.
To me, GTD is “a solution to finally be able to enjoy free time without feeling bogged down by a constant feeling of guilt over everything I should already have done.”Maybe not everyone has issues doing things. If you don’t have trouble getting stuff out of the way, then throw GTD out of the window and continue enjoying life. You don’t need it.
But for many people, procrastination, administrivia piling up, not-enough-time-for-stuff-I-enjoy-doing and commitments you know you’re not going to be able to honour are a reality, and a reality that is a source of stress.
To me, it seems like blogging is getting done on the topic, but the real topic is being missed by all. (Either that or we're all debating over the nature of an elephant.)
The real issue, I feel, is what Peter F. Drucker put so well:
Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.
These eleven words are part of premise of Franklin-Covey, the gold standard when it comes to productivity management systems.
--And no, it's not "time management": you can't manage time, it happens no matter what you do; all you can do is manage what you do with the time.
"Getting Things Done" suffers from an inept title -- and I confess haven't allocated much of my own attention towards trying to figure out its merits or lack thereof -- so I'll leave off on further commentary there.
But Franklin-Covey suffers even more by keeping their system paper-based, with the only (proprietary) software available able to run only on Windows machines or on hard-coded Palms or in a new online system where even a demo is hidden behind required registration. (Hint to Franklin-Covey: Establish value before picking our privacy pockets.) On the other hand, Kinkless has made "Getting Things Done" relevant for people who live and work primarily on computers (but not me, as it does strike me as rather focused on the doing rather than the what-to-do).
Meanwhile, on my office shelf sits my Franklin-Covey planner in its gorgeous red leather cover, rarely used because when it comes to something dynamic like planning, turning away from the computer to a paper notebook seems neither efficient nor effective.
