[Tb] Re: "a plain old sales pitch?"

Hey Stephen,

I was as nonplussed by Michael's response as you seem to have been. For
my part, I was grateful for (and not a little bit impressed by!) your
very concise summation of Allen's method. I purchased the book a while
ago and have been slowly implementing the method, and I have to say
that, not only did you add to my understanding of the book, but you may
have explained the fundamental philosophy even better than Allen
himself!

So, thanks again! I'll be looking forward to hear of any progress you
have made in leveraging Tinderbox in this regard.

Stefan
On Jan 1, 2004, at 8:35 PM, Stephen Chakwin wrote:

> Sounds an awful lot like an offensive brush-off. I wrote what I did
> to this
> forum to get help from anyone willing and able to offer it on how to
> adapt
> our complex and powerful application (TB) to a very useful way of
> organizing
> one's life (the DA Getting Things Done system).
>
> Leaving aside the absence of indicators of plain old sales pitch such
> as I
> get something out of people doing what I suggest, more is at stake
> than the
> price of an $11 paperback on Amazon, you somehow become subject to my
> will
> by either helping me figure out how to plot the system of projects and
> to-dos against the TB grid of higher and lower headlines or notes (to
> the
> benefit of anyone interested in organizing his or her life more
> effectively), all of which point in the opposite direction from what
> you
> wrote, what makes you think I'm selling or pitching anything?
>
> If there is some such indication, will you please tell me what it is
> (on or
> off forum) that I'm pitching and how it is that I'm pitching it so
> that I
> can figure out how to earn some money from it?
>
> Stephen
>
>> From: "Michael P. Wilson" <mpwilson1969__AT__optonline.net>
>> Subject: Re: [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 Thu Jan 1 21:59:17 2004