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43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Starting out with GTD

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).

sinisterspark's picture

it depends on the volume of work you have

I'm very curious about the GTD system myself and have been looking around the net the past month and checking out how people apply it.

Personally, I just make do with a categorized to-do list (Calls and Follow-ups, Work, Homestuff). I also try to clear my email inbox everyday. My mail folders are organized by company and by topic. Because I work in a small finance firm and we deal with a lot of companies, I found that this was the best system for me.

I am trying to apply the concept of GTD in the way I process my work but I have not really adopted the recommended physical system of GTD (maintaining 43 folders, or the other GTD software or methods floating around). For a person like me with only 5 major work tasks to accomplish per day, it would be overkill. I will have a lot of folders full of nothing. So, I suggest you apply the overall essence of GTD but adapt the actual folder/organizational system to fit the volume of work you handle. This can only be accomplished by trial and error and seeing what works for you.

Despite my lazy-ass day I own a labeller and label all work folders, kitchen appliances, pens, etc. This is how I spend most of my spare time :D

 
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