{ Thursday, April 21, 2005 }
I first heard of Getting Things Done from 43 Folders, and pretty soon I heard about it everywhere. Having read it, I understand why it has become a cult. Cults make you feel as if you have some secret, some understanding, some special something, that is not available to the uninitiated, and certainly Getting Things Done makes me feel this way. I only finished reading it two days ago, but find myself talking about it all the time, inviting people to come and admire my file cabinet, and pitying the poor lost souls who have not yet found The Way. Because the other thing that cults do to create zealots is solve some hitherto insurmountable problem that causes great anguish, and the problem that GTD solves is the problem of stress.
GTD solves this problem in an interesting and ingenious way, that seems obvious only in retrospect. The reason you are stressed is because you have too much to do. And you can't fall asleep because you feel as if there is something you forgot, or should be doing, or are trying to decide or solve. And when you get to work sometimes you are in a blind panic because you have so much to do you are paralyzed by the sheer volume of it all. And you are worrying about it all because you've got all these projects, things like Develop the Marketing Strategy or Clean Out The Garage or Plan the Trip to France or Land the Johnson Account and you worry about them all the time because none of these projects are actionable. You write them down on your To Do list, but your worrybrain isn't fooled -- none of these things are things you can do. Because, in an example given in the book, you can't Clean Out The Garage because to even get started first you have to get rid of the fridge. How are you going to get rid of the fridge? You have to rent a truck to take it to Goodwill. Or call your cousin David to see if he wants to fridge. So that is the only thing that will calm your worrybrain. Put that on your list: Call David re: fridge. You can actually do that. It's really quite simple and quite amazing. Stress? Adios! So read it. And also read Merlin's guide to getting started with GTD, which is a great summary.
Getting Things Done was written by this fellow David Allen, a complete square, who actually wrote the phrase "when the stuff hits the fan....", a Ned Flanders, like Mr. Lagatutta, my grade school music teacher, who made us sing "I get by with a little help from my friends, I get by with a little help from my friends..." at the school choir performance, when geez, was there anyone who didn't know that the second "by" should have been "high"? I digress, but digression is sometimes where all the fruit and fun is, and no lie.
LINK | 10:19 PM | TB