Comments on: Making It All Work – The GTD Phenomenon

By: Liz

Liz — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 00:34:03 +0000

I just added “Pick up David Allen’s books” to my list of things to get done. Thanks for these posts, Trent.

By: Smythe

Smythe — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 23:17:33 +0000

I read GTD two years ago. I truly struggle with implementing fully, especially keeping up-to-date on filing information. But I am miles ahead of where I was before. I use my Blackberry and voice-enabled software MyCaption to capture all the thoughts and to-dos in my head, which great start. I recently started using Evernote to make my own reference library for my own “best practices”. After reading your review of Allen’s latest book I will take a look at it. Thanks!

By: Deborah

Deborah — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 22:42:26 +0000

Great post! Looking forward to the next one. Not all of us have it all together yet and need all the help we can get. Thanks, Trent!

By: valleycat1

valleycat1 — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 14:14:15 +0000

Thanks, Christy. Maybe that’s why this series isn’t adding much value to my life – I decided about 30 years ago that I didn’t want to rely on remembering everything I had to do, & developed my own system for dealing with the minutia & the big things by, as you say, getting the info out of my head & into a reminder system. So this all seems to just be, for me, revisiting something I’ve already worked through but giving a different solution than what has been working for me.

By: GayleRN

GayleRN — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 13:14:35 +0000

Economic sots run the economy into the ground and are whoever is currently in power. They reach across all party lines. They are drunk on power and are trolls who eat innocent taxpayers for breakfast. They no longer live under bridges because they find it too crowded with homeless and they long ago moved into better neighborhoods. They still own the bridge concession and charge tolls though.

By: Christy

Christy — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 05:54:34 +0000

I have read both of David Allen’s books and I found Making It All Work a better fit for me that Getting Things Done. The main concept I took from Getting Things Done was that any one time an individual has 50-60 to do items stored in the mind. In order to relieve stress, GTD provides a system for moving those stored items out of the mind. After reading Making It All Work I clarified my systems. The chapter summaries of GTD that Trent wrote were also very practical and useful for me.

I enjoyed the blogs that Trent wrote for GTD and I look forward to reading the rest of this series.

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 20:28:29 +0000

You might want to look at the quoted boxes for the typos: my favorite is “economic sots” where I kept trying to figure our why you were dealing with economists who were drunks.

I like the idea of this series although I didn’t find this installment as useful as I had hoped (although it does remind me that GTD attracts me, but I’ve never been able to use it effectively yet)

By: valleycat1

valleycat1 — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 20:09:56 +0000

I don’t quite see how your example of working upstairs with a sick child downstairs with mom fits into the point of this post, but I’d have to say that if your child’s well-being is overriding your focus on the writing, you have it easy & take a moment to walk downstairs & check. Although it seems if he were to take a turn for the worst your wife would let you know.

This post also seems to randomly switch back & forth between the immediate GTD and the long-term MIAW concepts, with neither making much sense to me at this point. Maybe you should have gone down to check on the family!

I haven’t found either of these related series all that interesting or containing new info as yet either, & they haven’t enticed me in to reading either book, as the author seems to be indulging himself in overthinking things – if the gist is to focus on the task at hand within the overall context of having an idea where you want your life headed.

I keep reading Trent’s posts on the books, though, in hopes of finding something of use or at least see how it ties together.

By: Shannon

Shannon — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 19:24:03 +0000

This series is INCREDIBLY BORING.

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:58:45 +0000

The way I prefer to “GTD,” get things done, is by writing out a to-do list every week or so. By the end of the week, I MUST get those things done or it bothers the heck out of me. Also, when my list gets past 5 lines or so, I finish a few more so it doesn’t explode into a second page.

By: Piggy Bank

Piggy Bank — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:32:49 +0000

I have already added this book to my wish list. I can’t wait to read it. Something that helps me GTD, is making a small list of the most important things to get done. Then I spend 30 minutes on each or work until its finished. (sometimes it takes longer than 30 minutes) I know this sounds simple but sometimes multi tasking is not the best thing to do. In fact I find it much easier to get a lot more done without doing any multi tasking. Focused concentrated effort GTD.