One thing I’ve always thought would be very cool is a web enabled “desktop” for GTD. Right now, it fits well into a Palm and PC desktop model, but if you want to webify it you need use a Wiki, or sync your todo.txt to a web server somewhere. Somebody taking the Salesforce.com concept and twisting it for GTD would be powerful. It probably wouldn’t be that big of a stretch at that point to roll out GTD for Sales Reps, GTD for Programmers, etc all by tweaking the dB sitting behind GTD-on-the-web.com

Now I’m off the buy those domain names… :)

I don’t know that diversifying is the answer. What I’d like to see is a companion to GTD which talks about: strategies for adapting GTD for your personal situation; how to resolve conflicts and inconsistencies (e.g., I use a PC at work and a Mac at home; and some methods for quickly and simply evaluating new tools as they become available.

Thanks for replying to my previous post, Merlin. I’m honored.

I suspect David works from home. The “43 Folders” method works iff you have access to the shelf where you keep them 24/7; eitherwise, you need two sets of 43 folders, one for the tasks you’re up to in the office, and another for the things you’re doing at home like concert tickets and mortgages and the like. (My wife works at home and is notoriously disorganized. She’s going to do the David Allen gather/purge thing Monday; I think I’ll prep a set of 43 Folders for her.) And if you’re going straight from the office to the baseball game, do you put the tickets in the previous day’s home tickler file to be moved to the office tickler file, or what? And if, like me, you have a third place, a cafe where a remarkable amount of work gets done… You can get lost in details like this. Not all of us have a car where we can keep the 43 Folders in the trunk either.

One of the things that I carry with me from my Franklin Planner days that’s an awkward fit for GTD is the notion of roles. For each project, there’s meta-info about the role I’m playing: I’m a father, a husband, a writer, an open-source programmer, an employee, and so on. David has his own context lists, things he can do out on the road, things he needs his wife’s advice to accomplish, things he can do when connected to the Internet, and so on. Working “context” into GTD seems to be an uncomfortable fit at the moment precisely because there’s a centralized repository that’s as big as a milk crate.

I wonder if investing in a hand-scanner and using a “43 Pages” Wiki is the solution. The two things I’m guaranteed to have at my side at all times are my laptop and my moleskien.

I got into the GTD bandwagon from this site, obviously. It has helped a lot in terms of managing the vast array or projects that I manage. I’m a full time student, I run a non-profit online community, write texts and do consulting. Before GTD it was difficult to keep track of the open loops in each of these. After, and after implementing a Wiki to keep track of everything, its much easier.

I do have a ways to go in terms of productivity. Mostly this deals with information overload and how to manage it. As well, I want to add more projects to the pile and manage those sucessfully.

I’d also like to better integrate different tools into my arsenal, like finally using my Treo as a PDA instead of a phone that checks e-mail.

I’ve been using a homebrew web-based (php) calendar system based on GTD for over a year now, and it’s been just the thing for me.

Under the hood is a database of one table: “items”. An item has a text field, a date, a status (done/open) and a type: appointment, to-do, tickler, waiting-for, project, maybe, weekly-recurring, monthly-recurring, yearly-recurring, diary-entry.

New items can be easily created on the web page, and existing open itmes are displayed sorted into lists by type; in addition, each item displayed is a hot link that will pop up a text editor for a text file that can be attached to the item.

The display of each list appropriate for the type: for example, the list of open appointments only shows appointments in the future; the list of open ticklers shows all ticklers until they’re marked as done. Essentially undated types — projects, maybes — are all shown until done, regardless of their posting date. Each item has a checkbox next to it to ‘close’ it.

That’s it, it works and it’s simplified my life immensely. The greatest insight for me of GTD is the idea that if you write everything down, you don’t have to worry about it.

I’ve been fighting with all the same demons over last 3-4 months after finding about David’s GTD by way of Emacs PlannerMode. Naturally, my experience is much more limitted at present. At the same time I am trying to work out something that I can use at work and at home at the same time. This means it should work equally well on PC (work) and Mac (home).

I’ve thought of Palm that could be a mediator b/w the two big boys — but on a more careful consideration it won’t work all that well. An alterntive I’m still (mentally) playing with is running some sort of a web service that could be used to sync with Outlook at work (at least to-do’s and calendar + list of active projects and maybe a few other odd bits), and text files on my Mac…

One of my New Year’s resolutions (!) is to be a GTD born again. A couple of thoughts on David and GTD. I’ve yo-yo’ed quite a bit on fully implementing the system, but having the insight from your sight and the 43folders groups really helps. (Consider that a testimonial.)

Some thoughts on GTD: 1. I don’t think he is a geek nor does he really understand technology. He is a businessman and comes at technology from that perspective. Thus you’re points about always on and instant access to data are not really anything that I have seen him address. Outlook, Word and the Palm are about as techie as he gets.

1. I long for a GTD for teams—I think he addresses it slightly in the sense that GTD in many respects is about delegating and tracking projects, but looking at how GTD could be implemented for a project team would be superb.

2. I know he is in the business of selling books and seminars, but I would like to know more about success stories (and failures) of the GTD systems. Too much of GTG and Ready for Anything is about David hisseslf and how he implements GTD.

3. I agree with the whole tinkering with the system thing. I tend to do that too much as well.

Anyway, Merlin Happy New Year and keep up the good work.

Thanks for the great series of articles on GTD. It’s certainly got me thinking about what I do well and don’t do well with the system.

One of the things I’d like to see is some way of linking what I’m doing with why I’m doing it, as a way to keep me on track and keep me motivated. Sometimes GTD just seems like an endless list of actions — it’s easy (for me anyway) to lose sight of the goal. I need a systematic reminder of, as you say, “…the valuable, desirable, and well-articulated outcome” toward which I’m striving with my tasks.

One of my “attractive nuisances” is thinking about how I’d desig a mash-up of GTD and the 7 Habits.

Merlin, I enjoy your blog a lot. You can call me one of your converts. This time, I disagree with you, though. A series of targeted editions of GTD would NEVER be close to enough. I think everyone must use his/her imagination to tailor GTD. Imagination? The full power of his mind! Even if you are “some kind of manager or sales person who works mostly in an office, travels often, and has lots of scheduled appointments in a given week”, heck, even if you’re David Allen you cannot just let the book do the thinking for you. One think we all must know is that the GTD method is really hard! It’s not for the faint-hearted. Sure, a lot of copies have been sold, and yet, the ratio of “successful stories”/”copies sold” must be between 0 and 5 percent. Why? Because it must be YOU who does all the WORK! Now, who likes that?

I don’t think Merlin meant for the “GTD For …” books to replace the GTD book. They’d work in addition to the base GTD book, giving you ideas and tips on how to customise GTD for various specific occupations.

I’d love to see some books like these released - maybe even as PDFs or audio books or something. I’d buy the “GTD For Programmers” one straight away! They could put a few case studies into each one, showing how real people in those fields have adapted GTD to increase their productivity. Merlin would make a great case study subject!