[Tb] David Allen Getting Things Done

Sounds an awful lot like a plain old sales pitch.
-
"When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is
practicing, and when you meet him he will win." - Ed Macauley

http://www.mpwilson.com/uccu/

On Dec 30, 2003, at 9:30 PM, Stephen Chakwin wrote:

> One of the interesting things in the TB wiki was the outline of using
> TB as
> a tool to implement a David Allen "Getting Things Done" way of
> organizing
> your life.
>
> David's system is simple, elegant, and powerful. I recommend his book
> to
> anyone who hasn't read it. TB seems to have the power to make this
> kind of
> organization happen, but the user who tried to put them together was
> more
> technically sophisticated and less articulate in English than was
> ideal for
> me. His implementation is found on a link in the wiki or you can go
> to the
> web and see it directly:
> http://www.fridgedoor.net/prototyping/protophot/19html and the links
> from
> there.
>
> For those of you who aren't familiar with the David Allen system, let
> me sum
> it up for you in a few words -- this isn't a substitute for David's
> book or
> his workshop -- you can get details on these at www.davidco.com .
>
> David's aims are to reduce mental and physical clutter and therefore
> emotional stress in our lives.
>
> His main tools in this project are conceptual/physical. He believes
> (correctly in my view) that a major energy sink in our lives is
> worrying
> about things we have undertaken to do but have no way of tracking. The
> result is that we spend a great deal of time not doing things we have
> committed to doing, not being sure of what our commitments are, and
> worrying
> that we are doing the wrong things.
>
> His solution is simple, elegant, and powerful. You must create a list
> that
> is accurate, reliable, and easy to access at all times of everything
> you
> have committed or been committed to do. This list is divided into two
> major
> categories: Projects (which consist of everything that takes more than
> one
> step to accomplish). These live on a list of their own which must be
> reviewed at least once a week. Tasks or To-Dos (actions), which
> consist of
> single-step things to do and are derived from the project list. The
> process
> is that you look at your projects and ask what the next step or action
> is to
> move the project to completion. The tasks are organized, not by
> priority
> (since this can change depending on a lot of variables) but by
> context. All
> tasks requiring a telephone are grouped, as are those requiring a
> computer,
> etc. the result is that if you have a few minutes and a telephone,
> you can
> work through a mini list of things to do, ditto a computer, some quiet
> time
> in the office, a chance to go to a local hardware store, etc.
>
> He also has great ideas on how to file and how to classify things that
> you
> file into sensible categories that will leave you with a clean
> workspace and
> automatic reminders of things that need to be responded to on or by
> specific
> dates. We don't need to go into those here and now.
>
> The TB wiki contributor passed along his iteration of the DA system
> with
> projects and actions and some use of agents and color coding and who
> knows
> what else to make it all work. It seems to me that his system is
> complex,
> unlike the DA system which is the opposite of complex, or that he
> doesn't
> have the verbal skills to explain what he did in simple language.
>
> And yet, it also seems to me that TB ought to be able to support a
> system
> like David's and might be able to do it well and simply.
>
> So here's my question: can anyone take a look at the link I've
> included and
> see if it makes sense in terms of the system I've explained and, if
> so, pass
> an explanation along?
>
> TB seems to me to be an incredibly powerful tool that's hard to learn
> to use
> but capable of doing amazing things if only you can get it under
> control.
> This forum is a potentially great resource in bringing this
> application to
> the point at which it can be controlled and used to accomplish things
> that
> no other software can.
>
> Stephen
>
>
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Received on Wed Dec 31 13:18:10 2003