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Great link! I found it very possible to read; I read it at least 2.5 times across multiple physical and digital copies of two editions. Turning the words into a

Great link! I found it very possible to read; I read it at least 2.5 times across multiple physical and digital copies of two editions. Turning the words into actions is the hard part for me. Surely this is the format that's going to work :)

TeMPOraL 9y ago
For me, turning the words into actions was the easy part. The hard part was sticking to the habit of doing weekly reviews. I always fail at this after few weeks, and if you don't do weekly reviews, suddenly the whole GTD methodology falls apart on you and you have to start over...
- terminalcommand 9y ago
  Same here. The only thing I apply from GTD is that if the task can be done under 5 minutes do it. Making todo lists and sticking to them require too much discipline. In my professional life I keep todo lists, reminders etc. But in my personal life I'm a lazy lazy person. I can't seem to find a solution to this.
  - mattmanser 9y ago
    I write daily to-do lists either in the morning or the night before, on a small post-it note sized stack of paper. Throw it away at the end of the day, whether or not I finished everything. I try and be realistic and still usually end up with 1 or 2 tasks not done. It's nice crossing things off, it also never gets out of control. Of all the things I tried in my personal life to get more things done, this is the one that's generally worked. I still go through phases of not doing it but it's really easy to start doing it again as the stack is always on my desk. The other thing that works very effectively for me, much like this article says, is occasionally when feeling overwhelmed I write down everything that's stressing me out in a temporary text editor (an unsaved notepad++ note, which remains between computer restarts). I include things like "I'm pissed off with Bob because he did X" or "I'm worried about client Y not being able to pay their bill" or "I feel like I'm not putting enough time into doing Z". I almost immediately stop stressing about it, and generally end up closing the unsaved note after a week or two, usually without reading it again. When I do, most of the stuff I was worrying about turned out fine.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

For me, turning the words into actions was the easy part. The hard part was sticking to the habit of doing weekly reviews. I always fail at this after few weeks, and if you don't do weekly reviews, suddenly the whole GTD methodology falls apart on you and you have to start over...

terminalcommand 9y ago
Same here. The only thing I apply from GTD is that if the task can be done under 5 minutes do it. Making todo lists and sticking to them require too much discipline. In my professional life I keep todo lists, reminders etc. But in my personal life I'm a lazy lazy person. I can't seem to find a solution to this.
- mattmanser 9y ago
  I write daily to-do lists either in the morning or the night before, on a small post-it note sized stack of paper. Throw it away at the end of the day, whether or not I finished everything. I try and be realistic and still usually end up with 1 or 2 tasks not done. It's nice crossing things off, it also never gets out of control. Of all the things I tried in my personal life to get more things done, this is the one that's generally worked. I still go through phases of not doing it but it's really easy to start doing it again as the stack is always on my desk. The other thing that works very effectively for me, much like this article says, is occasionally when feeling overwhelmed I write down everything that's stressing me out in a temporary text editor (an unsaved notepad++ note, which remains between computer restarts). I include things like "I'm pissed off with Bob because he did X" or "I'm worried about client Y not being able to pay their bill" or "I feel like I'm not putting enough time into doing Z". I almost immediately stop stressing about it, and generally end up closing the unsaved note after a week or two, usually without reading it again. When I do, most of the stuff I was worrying about turned out fine.