Tag: mindset

Productivity is not a measure of your worth

A lot of productivity advice sounds harmless until your sense of worth gets tangled up with your output.

You have a good day, and you feel capable. You clear your list, reply to messages, make progress, and feel like yourself again.

Then comes the slower day.

You are tired. Your brain is foggy. Life interrupts. You do less than you hoped. And suddenly it does not just feel like a disappointing day. It feels like a verdict on you.

That is where productivity sometimes starts to collapse.

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How to make GTD stick by changing identity first

A 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.

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GTD fails without the identity shift

Many 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.

What happens next

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.

The real problem

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.

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Cynefin and constraints – what is really holding things back?

Last week we explored Cynefin as a way of understanding the nature of the problem.

This week we go one level deeper.

Because once you recognise the domain you are in, the next question becomes what is constraining this system?

Most frustration at work is not caused by laziness or lack of effort. It is caused by constraints.

Continue reading Cynefin and constraints – what is really holding things back?