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Knocking Down Walls Thread
Sat, 2005/12/03 - 9:07am — Ethan
Comments on the “Knocking Down Walls: GTD Owernship vs Orthodoxy” post.
Comments on the “Knocking Down Walls: GTD Owernship vs Orthodoxy” post.
Well put
When I initially installed kGTD I did indeed use it like I owned it, and honestly, it has only been since I took the ‘rental’ path that it has begun to work for me.
In the process it has taught me a lot about how I tackle projects and contexts and I am now really enjoying the discipline it imposes on my working habits.
Partly it comes from trusting the inputs, the remainder from the more regular reviews I now undertake.
Well done Ethan.
www.leatherwoodonline.com
Superb post and one I am
Superb post and one I am very much in tune with. I personally began using KGTD as it came, out of the box. But for me it did not become a truly useful tool until one or two of those walls were not broken down, but just shifted a little.
Sadly I fear a vast majority of users are of the push-a-button-to-sort-out-my-life mentality and if that button does not present the absolute required results at the first attempt, it is the button-maker’s responsibility to make it right. Many times I have read comments to releases which demonstrate the user clearly has not understood the nature of GTD, how KGTD can help in integrating it into day to day life, and perhaps the most frustrating of all, that KGTD is still in early development (let alone that it consists of scripts manipulating an existing application and not a proprietary application in itself).
I hope everyone gives “Knocking Down Walls: GTD Owernship vs Orthodoxy” some careful consideration as it describes how, with the right attitude to finding a solution, that solution can be a few steps closer even if one must peek under the surface to find it.
Couldn't have said it better
Any tool we use to get our “stuff” together has to be modified to work within our own personal space and time. If we follow any philosophy slavishly, we become robots.
Principle vrs Rule
This post was a great illustration of the idea of knowing the principles behind something vrs just knowing the rules. If you know the principle, you have flexibility, (you know which walls you can knock down,) if you just know the rules, you don’t know what you can vary.
Cool, thanks.
Do the system, and "be yourself" somewhere else
Sadly, the post is from the viewpoint of a software developer, whose typical job is to make a program fit the ideas and passions of the program’s users, rather then sticking with a proven system that will actually help people improve their lives. Adding features that delight customers certainly gains popularity and more sales, but does it really help people in the long run?
That lement being said, to those of you out there that “gotta make GTD your own”, let me give you a different perspective. If you bothered to read GTD at all, then my guess is, you recognized that your current system isn’t working. Technically speaking, GTD is David Allen’s system. He thought it up, he liked it, he thought others would like it, and so he wrote a book about it. Nobody says you have to use his system- all of his system, part of his system, or any of it at all. If you do your own thing, then that’s perfectly fine. Just realize the truth: you are no longer doing GTD, but something else. kGTD and almost pretty much every GTD implimentation out there are in reality “GTD-derived”, because if you read David’s book, you will find that he tends to either use paper or a Palm with no 3rd party apps. Those are the methods he calls GTD.
Am I saying that you can’t “tweak” things the way you want? Sure, you can do that. It’s your life, after all. Just realize that the reason you use a system is so you can take yourself out of it and make sure things get done, no matter what your mood is, the weather, the time of day, etc. For example, “yourself” may be in the mood to eat some ice cream. But before you pick up that spoon, you look down at your meal planner, which reminds you what you intended to eat- thing that will help you reach your weight goal. The meal planner is in place to stop you from just “doing whatever”. You follow the system because you see the value in the system keeping you on track to do what you want to do, long term.
People are creatures of habit, and it takes a lot of effort to learn a new habit. You don’t typically trust ANYTHING when you first start it. That’s because your mind, which is conditioned to like doing things a certain way, will tell you that the new way is wrong. Almost every time. That’s the difficulty with implimenting anything that someone calls a “trusted system”. It’s not trusted because it’s not yours. But if you are going to do it, then you are going to have to trust it, otherwise you will find a way to stop yourself.
My suggestion- do someone’s system for a set amount of time, like a month. If problems arise, make it work by tweaking. If after a month, you still can’t make it work, then move on to something else. The important thing is not what program you use, the important thing is that you USE THE PROGRAM. What you actually do is more important then how you do it. I mean, the purpose of any GTD system is to GET THINGS DONE. Whatever makes you do what you want to do is the thing you should use.
Read Organizing for Dummies. A lot of people think a system makes them “like robots”, but actually, the system frees you up to have time for doing the things you care most about.
Knocking down the walls...
Some very interesting and helpful viewpoints here. Thanks Ethan for kickstarting the train of thought. (Thanks also for a great tool for getting my stuff off of my mind!)
The metaphor of “knocking down walls” is of particular interest to me as I have performed the task on my own home and the homes of others as a remodeling contractor. (But never in a rental situation…).
No one in their right mind knocks down walls as an end in itself. It is always as a means of enhancing and improving the quality of the environment they live in. I extensively renovated my own home (even removing or reshaping some load-bearing walls in the process) in order to accommodate specific desires and needs for myself and my family.
I didn’t “blow up the house” thinking that a large tent in the yard or sleeping bags in the open air would be better. I bought the house because I perceived a sound, well-built basic structure that would allow for me to improve it. Neither do I think anyone that sees a need for the principles and framework of GTD wants to “blow it up”. Like me, the proponents of GTD perceive a sound basic stucture. One of the attributes of a truly useful, high-quality system is it’s adaptability and pliability. To me, that’s as true of well-built homes as of personal productivity systems.
I’ve discovered some non-negotiable (load-bearing) aspects of GTD for my own needs (I don’t know if these are universal or just because I’ve recognized corresponding weaknesses in my own personality), but other ideas may not be nearly as helpful/needful to achieve the real goal of stress-free productivity. They are more like partition walls that may be easily removed or modified to “create a more personalized space.”
boy, I really like this
boy, I really like this load-bearing walls idea. came in handy the other day when a house-painter/musician friend of mine called up to say Garage Band was not working anymore. last thing he said he did was to install some drumset loops. i said i would be right over. he usually pays me with glasses of wine so he said he’d pop the cork on the red. If it’s not fixed by the end of the 2nd glass I usually come back another day because the 3rd glass tends to make the work more difficult :)
the instructions for the package he bought told him to drop his new loops files into “/Library/Applications Support/GarageBand/Other Loops”. turns out that when he added the files for the loops he decided to all-cap and slightly rename the folder name so he could find it more easily. he then renamed some of the loop files so that they would group together more nicely. this all actually worked the first time as he left GarageBand up and running whilst he did it. once he shut down the mac for the night and turned it on again in the morning things were broke.
thanks to Ethan I was able to explain to him that all of the folders inside /Library were load-bearing walls and he needed to ask an expert before he did anything to them. but (i told him) Garage band loop filenames were not load-bearing and he could rename them as his heart desired — his initial instincts for grouping files was actually a good idea.
he got the idea immediately, it was fun to explain it to him, he didn’t feel stupid, and it only required one glass of wine.
hmmmm, perhaps Ethan’s load-bearing wall idea isn’t so great afterall.
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