I can hardly believe it. Six months have already whizzed by since we launched GTDtimes. It seems like only yesterday we were figuring out which CMS to use and deciding what the header should look like for the site. Now, after hundreds of articles, thousands of reader comments, dozens of video clips and many, many visitors GTDtimes has established itself as one of the most useful and credible GTD resources available for anyone interested in learning more about GTD, for anyone interested in sharing their own GTD experiences or tips or tricks with the rest of the world, and for getting the word out about what is happening in the Getting Things Done community.
None of this would be possible if it weren’t for the readers, like you, who take the time to pay us a visit, add us to your RSS feed reader, or send us a contribution from time to time. As a long time blog editor I never take the readers of a publication for granted. I always do my best to identify the kinds of content that I believe people will find valuable, interesting, engaging, funny, inspiring or even, on occassion annoying (after all we all need a little controversy from time to time, right?)
I’ve heard it said that the job of the journalist is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable and while I don’t believe that phrase does justice to the whole range of emotions that a good journalist can touch I do believe that the maxim offers some bookends between which the journalist can ply his trade. That, however, is only part of the equation and with the new forms of media such as this website, where readers have the opportunity to voice an opinion in nearly real time and to put that opinion right up there alongside the original article the medium has become much less a pulpit and much more a conversation where everyone is invited.
In an age where big media seems less and less democratic and more and more a mouthpiece for a small and select group of companies and corporate ideologies, it is important that those of us working in the new media arena not forget that which differentiates us most significantly - you!
To that end, we’re planning on making some changes at GTDtimes and we hope that those changes will be as a direct result of your feedback and will help to make GTDtimes even more interesting, more useful, more educational, more enjoyable and more valuable (though perhaps not any more controversial :-P ). To do this what we need above all else is your feedback. If you could be so kind as to comment on this post with changes that you’d like to see we will do our best to implement them in the near future.
To get you started and give you an idea of what sort of changes are in the works, here’s what we’re planning:
To make GTDtimes more convenient we are going to try to implement a more regular schedule of publishing on specific topics. In other words we’ll be establishing topic specific columns published on specific days. More like a newspaper where you know that the “Food” section is on Wednesdays and that Sunday always has the big classified advertising section, we plan on breaking out specific topic areas that we believe are of the greatest interest and utility based upon what you, the reader, tells us are most important to you.
Of course some of these topic sections are obvious: Getting Started, Software, the Cognitive Science of GTD, anything written by David Allen, Book Reviews, Software and Gadgets, etc. That’s not to so that we we won’t continue to cover breaking news related to GTD - of course we will - or that we won’t be accepting submissions (we want more of those than ever) or that we won’t be pointing to other posts on other sites (after all, discovering new GTD content and new people writing about GTD is one of the primary missions for this site), but beyond this, we want to hear from you.
What topic areas do you find most useful? Is there some area that we’ve overlooked? Is there some topic that we should be covering but aren’t? Are their contributors that you especially liked whom you’d like to see more often? In short, what can we do at GTDtimes to make this publication more exciting, educational and valuable to you and your family or friends? We want to earn your continued attention and the best way we know to do that is to provide the information that you want in a way that works for you.
Please let us know how we can improve in the comments below. If you would prefer to let us know anonymously that’s okay too: you can email your suggestions directly to me at editor at GTDtimes dot com. As an added incentive to get you to provide suggestions on how we can improve, GTDtimes will be giving a gift to everyone that offers a constructive suggestion. If you comment or email, please also send me your mailing address. Then, be sure to keep an eye on your mailbox for a special thank you gift from GTDtimes for helping us to make our publication a better resource for the GTD community. Thanks!
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It’s not just the little guys that appreciate all that David Allen and GTD has to offer. Some of the biggest corporations on the planet have implemented GTD to improve workplace productivity and personal life/work satisfaction of their work forces.
