Getting Things Done by David Allen
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So first things first, I had a hard time being fair to this book. I have a bit of a spiritual allergy to the language used in business/productivity self-help books, especially the type that were in vogue in the 80's and 90's. It's generally bland, vacuous, corporatist nonsense that either infuriates me, or just makes my brain deactivate.
This book has a lot of that kind of language and the author thinks very highly of himself, which made it hard for me to take the book seriously. In fairness though, the book has a lot of great concepts that are kind of buried in all the consultantese. I wouldn't have bothered reading it at all if I hadn't already experienced the benefits of the book's method without realizing where it came from.
Let me rewind a little. About three years ago I had a sea-change in my life that flowed from my discovery of emacs and org-mode. The effect that org had on me was completely life-changing and I say that without shame or hyperbole. Org gave me a system to record and sift through all my stray intentions and plan for the future in a consistent way, a way that wouldn't ever get lost or require constant recopying. Suddenly, I stopped forgetting to do things all the time, and I was able to send myself reminders to do things months in the future that I would reliably receive. I could find reference materials in seconds, and stopped dreading answering emails.
More importantly, as a second-order consequence of that kind of organizational system, I started to trust myself more and take on bigger personal efforts (like my scanning project). And after undertaking those projects, I could keep myself focused and accountable, and the results were astounding. I lost weight, got stronger and faster, saved more money, worried less, and slept better. I also picked up a half-dozen habits I'd been trying to cultivate for years (like journaling). I've migrated more and more of my life into emacs/org-mode because it felt (and still feels) like pure fucking magick. I'm writing this very blog post in emacs and will publish it using an add-on to org-mode.
So when a friend said that org-mode was, to some extent, patterned on Getting Things Done, I figured it was worth a read. And there it was, all the built-in org facilities described abstractly in the book: "capturing" things, agenda items, refiling, the "sacred" calendar concept. All those things had robust org-mode tooling and were core elements of Getting Things Done.
The book is, in my opinion, unconvincing on its own. I was only able to take it seriously because I've already effectively implemented most of the "program" inadvertently just by moving my life into org-mode. So I know how the method works and what it's capable of, so I could see the gold among the dross. Basically this is a short good book, trapped inside a bad long book, and you'll need to sift through to find the good parts.
A Few Good Features/Takeaways:
- Persistently getting everything you're thinking about doing out of your mind and onto a trusted recording medium (capturing) will free up a lot of headspace even if you don't do anything about any of it.
- Keeping promises you make to yourself (or consciously renegotiating them instead of just ignoring them) will make you like and trust yourself more.
- Keeping track of the universe of things you need to do will, paradoxically, help you feel comfortable taking on more and bigger tasks
- The method he describes is entirely technology-agnostic and tool-agnostic, so you needn't use a computer or any specific software to employ the system as written. You can do it with paper and a few boxes.
A Few Bad Features
- I feel like the author is trying to sell me proactive, synergistic opportunities, over and over.
- The author is very personally focused on physical/paper processes, which results in a generalized neglect for the special organizational opportunities that software can offer. Given that the book is a 2015 update of a much older book, that physical focus is not surprising, its just disappointing. org-mode (or evernote or onenote, etc.) can do things you couldn't dream of doing in paper, and I'd be interested in a more thorough-going exploration of how the system could be expanded with dedicated tooling.
- Parts of the book effectively repeat themselves, meander, or bury the lede entirely.
The book is recommended with those reservations.