3 ms·

Well written & no-BS GTD summary. Thanks for sharing. I just stopped using GTD after 5 years on the system, including 3 years on OmniFocus. I respect David Al

by thejerz 15y ago

Well written & no-BS GTD summary. Thanks for sharing. I just stopped using GTD after 5 years on the system, including 3 years on OmniFocus. I respect David Allen and GTD a lot. But I found a better solution: daily outcomes. Say you are building a social network startup called FaceSpace. Here's what your daily outcome list may look like: Help people communicate more quickly -> Launch beta of FaceSpace -> Call Jason for programmer recommendations We're going after the "why" -- instead of just doing tasks. You'll have maybe 5-8 of these for the day. How is this different than GTD? 1) No long queues of things to do. Start fresh every day. What persists is the outcomes we're after 2) Aware of the "why" behind a task gives you feelings of motivation and purpose 3) Focusing on the "why" forces you to do 100% necessary tasks 4) If life throws you a curve ball and you change the task, it's okay... We're focused on achieving outcomes, not tasks I think GTD is great but I feel it focuses on tasks at the expense of focusing on the big picture. You shouldn't be waiting for a weekly review to see the big picture -- that's just way too long. For me, staying focused on realizing my outcomes all day has led to more directed and forward-driving tasks. As many great men have said, it's not about which tasks you do it's about which tasks you don't do. Focusing on the outcome helps you choose the best tasks. Outcome lists FTW.

dfreire 15y ago
Would you care to elaborate on this a bit? In your example the daily outcome is: Help people communicate more quickly -> Launch beta of FaceSpace -> Call Jason for programmer recommendations But the actual outcome (task) for that day would be "Call Jason for programmer recommendations", right? I mean the "Launch beta of FaceSpace" seems more of a long term or strategic goal, and the "Help people communicate more quickly" more of a purpose, or like they say nowadays, a mantra. So if you repeat this every day, isn't this overwhelming? And there are a lot of intermediate steps between the "Call Jason" and the "Launch website", so how do you keep track of these? Finally, how do you see this as a substitute for GTD? (Since GTD is a practical approach to keep track of everyday's bits of todos, that appear from everywhere.)

by thejerz 15y ago

dfreire 15y ago

Would you care to elaborate on this a bit? In your example the daily outcome is: Help people communicate more quickly -> Launch beta of FaceSpace -> Call Jason for programmer recommendations But the actual outcome (task) for that day would be "Call Jason for programmer recommendations", right? I mean the "Launch beta of FaceSpace" seems more of a long term or strategic goal, and the "Help people communicate more quickly" more of a purpose, or like they say nowadays, a mantra. So if you repeat this every day, isn't this overwhelming? And there are a lot of intermediate steps between the "Call Jason" and the "Launch website", so how do you keep track of these? Finally, how do you see this as a substitute for GTD? (Since GTD is a practical approach to keep track of everyday's bits of todos, that appear from everywhere.)