Comments on: 5 Things GTD Won’t Fix

By: Fredro

Fredro — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 09:53:11 +0000

Nice post!

By: Royvia

Royvia — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 15:02:13 +0000

Great post.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:40:41 +0000

GTD will/can not _cure_ AD/HD, but it can help you getting along by providing a way to organise things/stuff in an intuitive manner.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:37:02 +0000

Wellington–I’ve never seen a decent list manager that does not allow due dates. Outlook, Lotus Notes, OmniFocus, Entourage, Excel–any of them should have a due date field.

By: Wellington Grey

Wellington Grey — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:28:27 +0000

For me, the biggest hole in GTD is deadlines. There isn’t really an adequate way to associate due dates with actions.

By: Michael Gorsline

Michael Gorsline — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 05:01:52 +0000

Five solid points. It is easy to start to see a very solid system as a panacea. Knowing the constraints is important. As a therapist the addiction and adhd constraints are two that have particular relevance. As strong an adherent to GTD as I am those are two, depending on how you define them, that usually require outside assistance. Aside from these five though GTD is an ace in the hole.

By: Melanie

Melanie — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:26:09 +0000

I’m a psychologist and wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. I am not an expert on ADD, but have treated patients with it. In the process, I realized that I have many of the same ADD traits. I just never considered it a problem. I now believe that most ADD is really just personality. In our productivity-crazed institutionalized-learning culture, we expect everyone to sit in their chair until a task in completed. That’s probably why some of the most innovative thinkers in history did poorly in school.

It would be nice if I could stick with my GTD system and would always finish what I started, but most likely if that were the case, I wouldn’t have the creativity that I cherish. Some of the most “organized” people I know have never suggested a new idea. They help others execute their new ideas. It’s a good thing, too! A team of all innovators would get nothing done.

The bottom line for me is valuing my natural bent while trying to manage my weaknesses. What I love about GTD is that when I’m back from one of my creative jaunts, I don’t have to reinvent the wheel to be productive again. I have the system in place. I just have to use it.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:08:22 +0000

Hi Scott,

Step 4/Organize of the Natural Planning Model is where things like Microsoft Project, Gantt charts, PERT charts, mindmaps etc. come into play. Or, could be just a simple outline in a bullet point format. Depends entirely on the scope of the project and needs of planning.

I find lots of people trying to work only off plans, forgetting the purpose. If for nothing else, the NPM is so useful to bring teams into alignment on purpose. WHY are we building the house? For shelter or for a place we love to entertain friends and family? Good to know that on the front end, especially for the complex ones that have so many opportunities to get tangled along the way.

Cheers,
Kelly

By: Andrew M Whaley

Andrew M Whaley — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:42:32 +0000

Great article Scott. It’s nice to hear someone say concisely and openly what I’ve come to understand about myself over the years. I am a great GTD hypocrite and when my commitment to GTD breaks down it is in these exact areas. There is one little bone which requires a bit of picking. I have ADD. Not 80% ADD, but the “diagnosed as the Poster Boy for Adult ADD” kind of ADD. I would argue that, though it is not the silver bullet or a stand-alone solution, GTD is arguably a sort of cure, or at least a corrective for ADD. I’ll leave aside the scrap I desire to have with you over whether it is true or useful to view ADD primarily through the lens of “problem” vs. the lens of “opportunity” or “strength” and simply move to the core of the issue at hand. ADD is primarily a problem stemming from a lack of control of the “executive function” which resides in the pre- frontal cortex of the brain. It is this function that allows us to image a bunch of possible ends, scan over the possible means for each one, choose one set, place the actions within this particular means into a schema based on priority, context, and sequence, and then act- to completion, that is until the thing in our head is in the world. To put it simply, this is the process that goes from ideation to incarnation, or imagination to execution, if you will. ADDers can get stuck in an infinite loop of possibilities, relations, ideas, etc. With GTD, one can do with system what others might be able to do with grey matter and neurotransmitters. We ADDers can throw out possible scenarios like nobody else, identify interesting relations and likenesses as a clue to meaning and possible action, and even develop strategic approaches to these interesting ideas that would never occur to the blessed bean counter types, but execution can be a bit sticky for us. In other words, we can “make it up.” but we need GTD to “make it happen.” Clearly, one must use the will to act and GTD can not give you that, but it can remove the barriers and set you up for success. This is a huge topic and I beg someone with more expertise than I to write on it.

By: Scott Allen

Scott Allen — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:40:18 +0000

Kelly:

On the one hand, I agree that one could make the case that the Natural Planning Model works even for robust, complex projects. However, that’s again a matter of scope, because there’s an entire body of knowledge that goes into just step 4 of NPM.

I agree that a lot of smaller projects are overplanned, and a lot of them could do with a simpler approach, but I think to say that NPM can plan even the most complex projects kind of relies on a magical black box for step 4. There are some specific methodologies for estimating, task breakdown, sequence identification, identifying deliverables, etc., that, in my experience, are more complex and need a more systemic approach than just saying “organize it”.