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To-Done: Scheduling tasks
Merlin Mann | Aug 18 2005
How I learned to stop worrying and love my schedule This is an intriguing idea. Peter converts his to-dos into scheduled blocks of work.
If you’re reading this and thinking “so freakin’ what?” you’re probably not alone, but some of the GTD acolytes in the house might be hollering “Blasphemer!” since David Allen often suggests using your calendar only for “hard landscape” items, such as appointments with others, while leaving to-dos as “when you can” items that get knocked off as time, energy, and context allows. But, the idea is really quite sound for someone like me (and most of the people I know). If you handle all your own work and scheduling (a/k/a “don’t have a ‘real’ job”), it’s entirely up to you to choose and do all the tasks on your theoretically unlimited lists. Giving yourself timed assignments like these seems like a potentially smart way to ensure that your stuff is getting done when you think it should. Since you put the tasks in there, you’re certainly entitled to remove them as well, right? You’re just making some modest paper walls to give a shape to something that’s often frustratingly formless. Neat idea. I continue to admire and enjoy how people are adapting the patterns of GTD without hewing slavishly to every syllable of the book. This is a terrific example of how one pattern (“get it all down”) might seemingly contradict another (“calendar is hard landscape only”). Of course, they’re not really contradictory at all unless you choose to treat Allen’s suggestions as an operator’s manual or fundamentalist Productivity Bible. While that approach is useful for getting started with a system like GTD, it does seem valuable to let the ideas evolve and adapt into something that better comports with your own needs. Edit 2005-08-18 09:35:25 - The referenced To-Done post was by Peter Flaschner not Keith Robinson. Sorry for the error (and thanks, Jay). Technorati Tags: calendars, GTD, productivity, todos 27 Comments
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 Interesting... There was a program I...Submitted by Anthony Baker (not verified) on August 19, 2005 - 8:47am.
Interesting... There was a program I did a few years ago called Mission Control that has definite similarities to GTD that this take reminds me of -- their chief difference to GTD is that everything is in the calendar. Essentially, "If it's not in the calendar, it doesn't exist." The idea is the same -- get stuff out of your head. Have a capture tool you use throughout the day, review stuff at the end of the day. Stuff that's not in your calendar goes into lists: "Not Doing Now" and "Never Doing Now" are two of them. "Not Doing Now" items eventually either make it into your calendar or into the "Never Doing Now" list. The program I did -- and I actually managed an event for them -- was developmental at the time, and they've since probably made changes to some of the specifics, but it was damn good. I suppose the biggest benefit GTD has got going for it is that it's more "open source" in nature, with the kind of community that we've got going on 43 Folders and the Google Group. Here's their site: http://www.missioncontrol.com/index.php If anyone's interested, I know some of the management team members and could interview them to find out what they think of GTD, a community like ours, etc. Hell, might just do that for my own interests. Anyone else heard of them, btw? » POSTED IN:
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