Thinking about your stuff
August 20th, 2012 GTD Times Team - Staff ContributorsCategories | David Allen | Getting Things Done | Implementation | Inspiration | Psychology of GTD
David Allen describes the profound operational principle of knowledge work as:
You have to think about your stuff more than you realize but not as much as you’re afraid you might.
Asked to expand on that, here is David’s reply:
It actually comes from my experience that most people are avoiding thinking about their “stuff” appropriately – i.e. clarifying what it means to them and what they intend to do about it. It only takes a few seconds to decide if something is actionable, and if so, what the next action is. But people avoid that decision like the plague. They think if they think at all about it, there’s way too much to think about…so they don’t think at all! And then it’s hung up like a psychic albatross around their neck.
Hope that helps,
David
David,
you are absolutely right. This is the point. However I think it’s more easy understand this when you achieve a global vision of yourself.
at the beginning your “pupils” are concerned abou the contexts ( which is the more appropriate, how should I describe the task?, where I should write the task…and so on. Or at least it’s my case.
Claudio, it sounds somewhat as if you are trying to organize or process before you write it down. Just do a brain dump on a piece of paper, and resist every attempt at asking organizing questions, just ask, what is it, and every thought related to it. Then ask yourself why do you want to do it, several times, until there are no more answers.
Then and only then do you attempt to process it, ideally after you have also dumped everything else that is swirling on your brain into paper or similar.
Just my understanding of GTD.
What about getting hung up in one mode or another? What are effective strategies for shifting between modes? The weekly review is supposed to help, but here is is Tuesday, and I am still in some sort of perpetual review / capturing process that began on Friday….
Yes, but that’s why I need a guy like you. The ressources that oroginally go me this mess, cannot be the same ressources that get me out, unless there is a benign intervention. Like a post like this.
I have taken the trouble to figure out – on paper so I didn’t move in circles – what is important to me. Then it’s really simple: On a practical and even emotional level everything is meassured against this quartz crystal: Does it resonate? If not, it’s out.
Oh, the bliss of brutality. I recommend it highly.
Hey guys… I think it’s funny that people get mad at us for their lists! It’s not our lists! It’s simply about What do you need to do, to get this/that off your mind? GTD figured out how to do that. It’s simple, it’s easy. But it’s not. But don’t get distracted by trying to get some system that will relieve your stress. The best systems are just designed to get you to make the decisions you need, appropriately, and dispatch the results w/minimal effort.
David
Don,
thank you for your acute and appropriate observation! I alwasys found good friend around gtd. I cannot forget the big helps and supports I found in the forum.
Thank you David to build such environment!