A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done
Some notes from someone who&#x27;s attempted GTD for 15 years. My trouble with it is that it really hasn&#x27;t worked when your lists become large.<p>&gt; When you first start to use GTD you should take an hour to write down all things you want to—or have to—do.<p>An hour is not even close to being enough. A whole weekend may get you to 50%.<p>&gt; If it’s something that you want to remind yourself about later (“I really didn’t understand this article, I should have a look at it again in two weeks”) it should go into your calendar or your tickler file<p>The problem is that my tickler files become bloated with these, and it becomes a daily burden to open that day&#x27;s file and try to decide. If I deferred something till later &quot;because I couldn&#x27;t decide what to do with it&quot;, there&#x27;s a 90% chance I&#x27;ll defer it again. These are items I want to work on actively, and not put in the Someday&#x2F;Maybe list.<p>&gt; This is where the some day&#x2F;maybe list comes it. ... This list should be reviewed weekly along with the rest of the system as described in the weekly review section below.<p>Perhaps many people don&#x27;t have as much aspiration (or imagination), but my Someday&#x2F;Maybe list is huge - hundreds of potential TODOs&#x2F;projects. Reviewing that every week is a huge burden, so it&#x27;s not done. I treat Someday&#x2F;Maybe almost as a garbage dump - I don&#x27;t look at it, but my brain takes comfort that I&#x27;ve captured it <i>somewhere</i>.<p>It&#x27;s got to the point that I now have an &quot;intermediate&quot; list in between my active and someday&#x2F;maybe. This list contains items I <i>must</i> do, but I&#x27;ve placed them there because I lack the bandwidth. Whenever I finish a project, I move items from this list to the &quot;Active&quot; list. I need this intermediate list because I know once something goes to Someday&#x2F;Maybe, it&#x27;s practically lost in all the noise.<p>One of the problems with GTD is it doesn&#x27;t address how to focus or prioritize, nor what to ask yourself during the review. I&#x27;ve found making a Do Not Do list to be far more effective (as in, at the beginning of the year, I list projects that I commit to <i>not</i> doing until I&#x27;m done with the ones I <i>do</i> want to do). Listing goals for the year and asking myself weekly&#x2F;monthly what work I did <i>not</i> tied to those goals is helpful during the review.