Getting GTD Done
Yesterday I wrote about giving into my obsession with task managers under the guise of planning to write my own.
Previously, I’ve mentioned that I’m specifically interested in where task management meets time management. Suddenly, the elephant in the room politely coughed and directed me to David Allen’s now famous Getting Things Done (GTD).
The folks at You Need A Budget (YNAB) taught me about the importance of process over tool, David Allen’s GTD is similar in spirit. In fact, both YNAB and GTD are more than a process, they are a practice. The benefits come from performing the simple processes on an ongoing basis. The more you practice them, the greater the benefit.
I know this is true for YNAB, and I suspect it is the case with GTD. So, particular applications and tools aside, I’m going pause my mad consumption of task management apps and delve into the process of GTD. In fact, I started earlier this week.
Of course, I am too wired to go to paper, so I will have to use some app. I tried ZenDone until Thursday, and just couldn’t take the old fashioned UI (though, they do have a 2.0 in closed beta, which probably addresses that!). Then I switched over to NirvanaHQ which has a snappish UI and a decent iOS application. However, testing these apps is a mere sideshow to trying out GTD in general. By the way, ZenDone has a beautiful integration with Evernote. And their help section is a fantastic starting point for learning GTD.