I guess that, next to the anonymous blogger behind “I Found Some of Your Life,” you are the newest internet meme, Merlinman! Seriously though, you are right, but the thing with nerds is (and I am often guilty of this myself), we tend to get very excited and enthusiastic about things that work for us. Try to bash GIMP on /. and you’ll pick up “freaks” (enemies). I did, anyway. Where some cults arise around intangibles like religion and UFO’s, geek cults spring up, IMO, around more empirical stuff. In that sense, I think it’s a far less worrisome thing. Don’t sweat it and keep going on the path you’re on [oh great leader]. Heh.

My Mac zeal carries over. I’ve got what the film Primary Colors calls “true believerism.??? So forgive my particularly loud chanting.

Odd coincidence: I was listening to the soundtrack to Life of Brian as I read this.

“Yes! We are all individuals!”

;-)

And just to be clear: I love Anil Dash more than Bacon Bits and Christiane Amanpour combined. I need Anil, and so does Prince’s career.

I’m just getting a little schizzed by the— yes—Cult™ that seems to be welling up. I don’t want the fate of dear Brocktoon. ;)

Yeah, to be clear, I’m not trying to anoint you as The Martha. I just think it’s a good idea and it’s an interesting trend. The trend/Martha part actually also ties into things like SBJ’s “Mind Wide Open” and the Hacks series as well as the ORA Make mag, so I probably should have split that into a separate post. But fortunately, I’m getting flamed by GTD supporters for, um, being interested in GTD, so that’s one way to keep a cult from growing. :)

I really like your pragmatic viewpoint in this post. I’ve been reading 43 folders for about a week now, and really like lots of the ideas. I’ve downloaded lots of apps, cleaned up directory structures, and added lots of lists to my comp, and feel way more productive. Other than that, I still think the most important lesson for productivity is turning off all distractions and sitting down to work (mentioned in some blogpost of yours), everything else is debatable.

Thanks, Can Sar. I appreciate that. You and me, we’ll be Productivity Unitarians sampling from many temples and telling our friends which ones seemed to work. :)

Mr. Mann, your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?

Dan:

Very good.

You know, Mr. Mann, if you wanna avoid the cult-like aspects, perhaps you would do well to avoid using words like “sanctity” when referring to your GTD action lists. Just sayin’

I think Anil’s choice of ‘digital Martha Stewart’ was spot on. Not in the way the GTD cult has manifested itself, but just in the desire. Both MSL and GTD offer a pleasant picture of how life could be more perfect. Nothing I like more than sitting around reading about how much potential my life has for betterment. Appealing betterment at that. Martha shows me how to make cookies. GTD gives me the opportunity to find the time to make them.

Yum.

All your GTD cult are belong to us. Earlier this year when I went waaaay deep in one of my (several) attempts to implement GTD, I called myself a David Allen Drone. (afterthought: perhaps I shoulda said David Allen Droid?). A lame attempt against DavidAllenDrone-ness: setting up categories in my Palm/Palm Desktop lists, I didn’t mark them @context, but rather *context. Sad, I know.

You have no chance to survive make your time. All your inbox are belong to us.

Sure, you say that now. But three months from now, when you’re wearing an apron hand-woven from recycled index cards and screaming up a froth as you pin your hapless assistant against the garage door with the front bumper of your car, THEN where will we be?!

(Kidding, kidding. And still waiting for my number to come up for the library’s sole copy of GTD…)

Listen, Erika, that assistant was a total bitch who had been getting all up in my shit for weeks. I’d warned her more than once not to touch my label maker, but she just had to make “a few little tags” for her kid’s goddamned science fair project.

She’d had that door-pinning coming for months and should have thanked me for the lesson.

;)

We seem to manage ok at home with just one label maker for the whole family, but when I finally gave in at work and got my PA to get me a label maker, I had to explain that I was entirely happy for it to be used by the whole division, but that it was my label maker and if it wasn’t in my desk drawer when I wanted to make labels, I would be Most Unhappy.

Shh! Leave it in Peace!

Oh god. Anil’s caught on to the growing GTD undertow in the geek community and

The GtD troops are coming

Anil Dash has, just as me, found that the cult of GtD is suddenly blooming in the geek community. Maybe Merlinmans well written 43Folders was the igniter. I don’t know, but in these times of blogs, homepages, RSS-feeds, GMail, Flickr and whatnot the…

Overlords Meme

A Google search of “i, for one, welcome our new * overlords” turns up 3700 results. Not quite a goliath meme, but fun and dandy anyway. Some favorites: I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords (the original Simpsons quote)…