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Starting out with GTD
Pat Armstrong | Oct 26 2007
Hi everyone. I bought a paperback copy of GTD some time ago, flicked through it idly, and have only just got around to sitting down and reading it properly. I'm about halfway through, and have a question about fitting it to my situation. Some background: I'm a graphic design student, currently finishing my second-last year. I live with friends in a sharehouse, and will for the forseeable future. This means my bedroom is my main workspace for my coursework and odd freelance gig, and that I'm liable to move house once every year or two. I use the machines at uni quite a bit, but they're shared (so neither the space nor software setup is really customisable), and all my books/notes/reference stuff is at home. With my final year of uni starting in a few months, after the summer break (southern hemisphere!), I'm in dire need of a good, functioning organisational system: I'm easily distracted by all the other projects I have going at any one time, and deadlines often creep up on me. GTD seems like a good fit with a great community built around it. The thing that seems to be stopping me from getting through GTD, though, is the very corporate/business-y angle DA seems to be coming from. No-one I know my age has a filing cabinet, and the idea of a physical "inbox" on my desk makes me imagine fluorescent lights and beige cubicles. What do I need an automatic labelmaker for? I'd take less time writing out labels by hand, and prefer the look of my own handwriting to low-res thermal printer type. Anyway, you get the idea. Reading through the posts here, it seems you're all from quite varied backgrounds. So, my question is: How can I adapt the GTD system to my situation? Or do I just need to adapt to it? Thanks for reading! Love to hear your thoughts (or pointers to similar questions or issues that have been raised in the past). 6 Comments
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 A basket, a binder, a box: Oh My!Submitted by Rapprich on November 3, 2007 - 9:55pm.
First of all, congrats on finishing up your degree. While your education is what it's about in the end, a framed piece of paper serves as a great reminder, both for you and your potential clients. When you start out, I know how difficult getting GTD done (or at least starting to implement it) can be. Being a faithful GTDer for a while now, I have to say that the label maker, the inbasket and the filing cabinet have all become integral parts of my work-flow management experience. However, it wasn't always like that. I think that starting GTD is like flying on a tornado to Oz (not the tv show though that might be fitting as well). You arrive at this mysterious place once your life is flip-turned upside down and you realize that the need for a system is exactly that: a need. GTD can give you the brains, Ready for Anything can give you the heart and 43folders and sites like it can give you the courage to keep at it but you have to be ready to keep following the yellow brick road. (i think i smell a very stinky-blue-cheesy blog post coming on). Anyway, to my point: only you know what works for your so take the plunge and commit to a system but keep at it. For one of my first GTD implementations all I had was a desk (with my computer on it), a basket next to the desk, a shelf with a bunch of binders (by project, topic, person or company) and a box by the door. When anything came in the room, into the basket it went. When I had to bring something out of the room, I tossed it in the box. If it had to stay in the room (and not be put in a closet or the trash), off into the binders it . Other than a bunch of index cards and a pen, that was my system. My suggestion: Read the book a few times, listen to the audio version and then figure out what you need RIGHT NOW in your life. Figure out what seems like feature creep and what seems like necessary parts. Create a system, make checklists, whatever it takes to test it out...but makesure you commit to it wholly. In time, whatever you are missing will become evident and whatever you're not will as well. GTD helps get a jump start on that realization. » POSTED IN:
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