Productivity advice often focuses on optimisation.
We are encouraged to find the fastest tool, the most efficient workflow, or the perfect morning routine. There is always another app to install, another system to refine, another technique to master.
But the deeper purpose of productivity is not efficiency.
It is self-trust.
Continue reading Why trust matters more than optimisationA lot of people approach Getting Things Done as a tool problem.
They look for a better app.
A cleaner list.
A smarter workflow.
A more perfect setup.
But GTD does not really begin with tools.
It begins with identity.
Continue reading How to make GTD stick by changing identity firstMany people try Getting Things Done (GTD) as if it were a set of tools.
They make lists.
They create folders.
They sort tasks by context.
They build a beautiful system.
And for a little while, it feels promising.
But then life gets busy. The lists grow. The habits slip. The system becomes something else to manage. What looked like clarity starts to feel like admin.
That is often the point where people think GTD has failed.
Usually, though, the problem is not the method. The problem is that the tools arrived before the identity shift.
GTD only really works when you stop thinking of yourself as someone who is ‘trying to get organised’ and start becoming someone who captures, clarifies and reviews as a way of life.
Continue reading GTD fails without the identity shiftMost productivity advice treats capture like a filing exercise. Get ideas out of your head, put them somewhere ‘safe’, then sort them later.
That is useful, but it misses what is actually happening inside you.
Capture works because it externalises anxiety, not information.
Continue reading Capture works because it externalises anxiety, not informationI started watching this a few months back, but have just discovered it again: “Inbox Zero” Google Tech Talk at 43Folders.com.
Follows the Getting Things Done (GTD) / Take Back Your Life (TBYL) method, the video is just short of 60 minutes, but it’s great.
UPDATE: for some reason the short bit between the last two commas went missing when I published. Browser troubles, perhaps — I was using Opera. That will explain David’s comment below.
