^^ zap ^^

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 06:16:49 -0400

I love the system (saved my life a couple of times) but I donâ€™t think the book is a good place to start. Iâ€™ve read it many times because Iâ€™m obsessed with it but it led me down to a couple of bad paths when I was first starting out.

Bad path number one: writing down everything but not processing it properly. Bad path number two: writing down and processing everything but not actually doing the stuff. Bad path number three: having lots and lots of well-organized lists, doing the stuff, and getting stressed and exhausted.

https://idiomdrottning.org/gtd-bad-paths

Emacsen

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 07:55:31 -0400

ðŸ” Repeated @Sandra's Note

Emacsen

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 07:57:23 -0400

@Sandra

The book that changed my life on this topic is Time Management for System Administrators.

The author has a system like GTD called the Cycle System, and it's what I've used now for ~15 years with only a few tweaks.

Have you heard of it?

Waitman Gobble

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 08:09:24 -0400

In 2004 I went to David Allen's workshop at University of Santa Monica. His procedure is good. I'm pretty sure he has updated it to modern times :)
https://gettingthingsdone.com/

Sandra

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 08:39:18 -0400

@Waitman Gobble I'm scared of getting too involved in "official" GTD stuff because of their old connection to the MSIA cult, but, a lot of the lessons that I think are missed in the book are explained more clearly in his podcasts and interviews etc.

Waitman Gobble

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 08:49:52 -0400

Maybe it's a cult, i dunno :) my ex-wife was into that stuff, i think it cost me about 45k. USD. I went to his workshop at USM because she was attending the school. Allen has some great ideas about productivity. I recall he also said GTD is not so much a rigid framework, but one should create their own system that works best for them. Don't necessarily have to drown oneself in tedious non-useful organization. Something like that, it's a decades-old memory.

Waitman Gobble

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 10:37:14 -0400

Another 'self-improvement' thing we did was Dahnhak. It's like military bootcamp-style yoga for yoga commandos, :) Not really exaggerating. No pain, no gain, take no prisoners, etc. On one hand I've never been in better shape, but on the other they do/ (or did, at least) use high-pressure sales techniques to motivate people to pay 10's of thousands to go to their retreat in Sedona, I'm not sure but I think if a member is not Korean then there's no opportunity to teach, etc, however they tell non-Korean patrons that they can become masters and have classes and their own center if they buy in to their programs. (my experience is from years ago in los angeles, so it might be different now?). Our neighbor laid out the cash and went through their 'masters' thing and came back only to wash their floors without pay. Which she did for some months and eventually dropped out of their program. That made it easier to convince my ex-wife that paying out that money for the program would likely result in nothing positive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_%26_Brain

Sandra

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 11:09:50 -0400

@Waitman Gobble Sedona is such a quagmire for this stuff ðŸ’”

Waitman Gobble

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 09:07:58 -0400

here's an interesting article about Allen and GTD

https://www.wired.com/2007/09/ff-allen

Alexandre Hannud Abdo

Fri, 24 Dec 2021 10:32:18 -0400

Cheers. From here I read your post about using notmuch and deferring e-mails. I've been considering trying notmuch. I'm more motivated now. Thanks