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Why GTD Doesn't Work and Why I Like My Modified System is Better
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daneb1

Posted: Jul 22, 2012
Score: 0 Reference
I consider your suggested SOLUTION very overcomplicated. My opinion is when you need more than a few lists and calendar to organize yourself, it starts to feel OCD. But still, your ANALYSIS of drawbacks of GTD and its productivity applications in the first thread is among the best texts I have ever read on the subject. I fully agree with you and thank you for it.

I abandoned GTD system years ago and found again old-new system: common sense.
By the way, many people forget that greatest achievers in human history like Franklin, Mozart or Aristoteles did not use GTD. Can you imagine it? And IMHO I also doubt they had iPhone 4 and localization reminders :)

My time management philosophy becomes more and more simple: DO what is important over what is less important. Cultivate your habits, your personality, and your self-discipline. Be still aware of your vision and goals and do not overcommit to many things at once. That`s perennial wisdom repeated in hundreds of books, all together 10x useful than any newest GTD hack...
graphkoks

Posted: Aug 15, 2012
Score: 0 Reference
i love the idea of the perfect phone adapting to your schedule.

even tiny things like evernote taking current events from the calendar as titles for notes turns often out to be useful. so your phone must be somehow a bit of nerd heaven.
wksims86

Posted: Aug 16, 2012
Score: 1 Reference
Seeing this thread back at the top, I realize I think the problem is not as much with my solution as it was with my ridiculously complicated expression of a solution. My post was somewhere between wall-of-text and word-vomit, and that doesn't do anyone any good. Props to those of you who chewed through it, but I can do better.

I'll maybe attempt to rewrite that into something more manageable at some point. I've shifted how I do things slightly, but, as a general rule, these were/are my summary points:

* GTD as a general concept is great. Keep it context-aware, out of your head, and stress-free.
* GTD as it is implemented by most people is hamstrung by 1) too many things to tweak and review, and 2) false categories like @home and #someday.
* I have tried, with varying success, to develop a tool-oriented, general-GTD system by reworking Toodledo and adding in context-aware technology.
* I suck at writing short, concise posts to describe things.
* Tools are overly criticized, but when used with general common sense, they can be extremely effective in task management and reduce your "review" time.


I'll try to summarize my current Toodledo setup.

Contexts = Life Area
e.g. Work, School, Personal, Chores (stuff to do at home), Errands (stuff to do out), Shopping List, Inbox (default when new task is added quickly)
Folders = Projects (sub-context)
e.g. Work-Client-00001, -00002; Personal-Projects, -Media, -Home Improvement; Chores/Errands-single-event, -repeating-event, -longterm....
Tasks go under folders, sub-tasks go under tasks and inherit the properties of the parent
Due Date enabled, Start Date enabled for spacing out repeating events, e.g. I'll "Change sheets" every two weeks, but I want a 4 day buffer to actually do it before it's overdue, so I put the due date 4 days ahead of the start date and set to repeat.
Priority enabled, but it's becoming less important to me
Location enabled for context sensitivity for phone
Repeat enabled
everything else disabled (used to use Timer for work projects but have since switched to another time tracking app)

Main View: Context > Folder > Due Date

Example:
C=Personal > F=Personal-Home Improvement > T="Change Out Bathroom Hardware" (no due-date) Loc=Home
sub-task: - Purchase caulk (no due-date) Loc=Home Depot*
sub-task: - Order fixtures (no due-date) (Loc = Home)

General principles
- Digital or not, everything needs an inbox. Different life areas may need different inboxes.
- Things should stay in your inbox for as short as possible, but you should spend as little time reviewing your list as possible.
- Physical things need to be done yourself, but task management can be done automatically. Once you "tag" an item with the appropriate data, it should just simply sort itself into the right place/priority.
- Context awareness depends on the following things: your location (am I in a place I can do it?) the tools you have (do I have everything I need with me to do it?) and cross-communication with other tasks (is there something else that I should be doing instead or at the same time?)
- A system that can properly handle these questions will minimize the work you are doing.


This message was edited Aug 16, 2012.
wksims86

Posted: Aug 16, 2012
Score: 1 Reference
For the few of you guys asking about a blog, I don't have one yet, but I might put one together. Maybe it might seem less insane that way.

Any complex problem can be made simple by a sufficiently complex tool. The end result can be simple even if the programming of the tool is complex. So in my case, it's really hard to describe, but it's exceptionally easy to use.
elizabeth3tx

Posted: Aug 26, 2012
Score: 1 Reference
wksims86: I think you have some amazing ideas! I have been reading Effective Executive and some other books, trying to figure out some of the same things you have laid out.

I totally agree with you, GTD can help you have "mind like water" but what good is it if you aren't getting the right things done and moving forward with goals.

Anyway, great job articulating it, shout out to a fellow law student/tech nerd, and I am really interested in seeing what you come up with.
bcmyers

Posted: Sep 14, 2012
Score: 0 Reference
sksims86, I've read Getting Things Done three times over the last several years and your critique bears little resemblance to the what's in the book. Others have already done a credible job of pointing out the flaws in your analysis so I'll simply say "ditto."

As for the idea that GTD is too dated because technology has blurred the lines between the contexts David Allen suggested in 2002, I just can't see it. Yes, I have a phone with me all the time now but I'm not going to make calls during a meeting with a client, or at 2 am when most everyone else in my timezone is in bed. So an @Calls context still makes sense. As for the ubiquity of the Internet, which is now available to anyone with a smartphone and a good network signal, I simply created an @Web and @Email context. How hard is that? @Office, @Home, @Boss and the rest still apply (I can't do home repair while in the office, or put together packets of marketing materials stored in a closet in my office while I'm at the airport).

I've read your explanations of your system and I think no matter how you slice it, you've way over-engineered this. It is true that David Allen has said to simplify a complex event you need a complex system. He has also said for your system to work it must be easy enough that you could maintain it even if you have the flu. I agree with him, based on my own direct experience with GTD (the methodology I use today) and other systems I've tried in the past.

My own GTD system simply reflects back at me what I need to see, when I need to see it. I don't have to put a lot of thought into maintaining it, so I can spend more time doing the things that I've parked in my various lists when I can and should be doing them.

I'm not going to attempt to persuade you to dial your system back a notch because frankly it's your life to do with as you please. But you put this out there for people to discuss so I thought I'd chime in with my two cents' worth.
bcmyers

Posted: Sep 14, 2012
Score: 0 Reference
wksims86 -- I realize your handle isn't "sksims86." I thought I corrected this typo but either I didn't or something happened when I clicked "Post Reply."
joelhfx

Posted: Sep 19, 2012
Score: -4 Reference
To the original post: Using GTD for 1 year isn't nearly enough time to qualify you as someone who can criticize it in any way.

Everyone loves to blame the system when their life doesn't fit perfectly into the GTD method and that is just wrong headed.

I've been using it for about 4 years read/listened to all his books 4 times each and continue to slowly implement more and more of it as I find myself more capable of benefiting.


I will be "getting it" for years to come. Change what you must for your best use, that is normal. I still haven't implemented "tickler folders" and I may never do so but I reconsider doing so quite often to make sure my situation hasn't changed.

Just don't pretend to respect David Allen by saying that after a year of use that you've found a better way or that you've identified "problems" in a system that was slowly developed over a period of 25+ years.

It's barely funny, but it is laughable.

That's my rant. Anyone who thinks the GTD system has a problem has no idea what the system is.
Salgud

Posted: Sep 19, 2012
Score: 1 Reference
Amazing! This is the first perfect man-made system I've run across. :)
Chad Brack

Posted: Nov 11, 2012
Score: 0 Reference
c

This message was edited Nov 11, 2012.
ste.witton

Posted: Nov 14, 2012
Score: 0 Reference
This thread confuses me - the posts that say 'amazing, the first perfect man-made system i've run across'... What? Where? I'm not being funny but wksims say quite a lot without actually talking about his 'perfect' system. The title 'Why GTD doesn't work' is followed by a system that seems GTD-like to me. We all tweak GTD to fit changing technology.

I repeat, where is the perfect system?
Purveyor

Posted: Nov 14, 2012
Score: 0 Reference
Actually, it's not "the posts that say".
It was one post by Salgud. He was being facetious. Or, maybe sarcastic. Perhaps even sardonic.
:)
ste.witton

Posted: Nov 15, 2012
Score: 1 Reference
Posted by Purveyor:
Actually, it's not "the posts that say".
It was one post by Salgud. He was being facetious. Or, maybe sarcastic. Perhaps even sardonic.
:)


I can't believe I didn't see the sarcasm, I must have been half asleep from reading the novel about the perfect system :-)


This message was edited Nov 15, 2012.
pd1ckey43

Posted: Feb 25, 2013
Score: 0 Reference
I'm not going to comment on whether this system is good, bad, GTD, or not. What I am curious about from the original poster is this: Could you (or have you) create downloadable versions of your Tasker Profiles that you mentioned in here? I'd be interested in tweaking them to meet my needs. I'd make them myself, but I'm new to Tasker, and wouldn't want to completely mess one up (especially since it's essentially 'reinventing the wheel').

Thanks, and have a great day:)
Patrick.

Posted by wksims86:
Building a Context-Sensitive Phone

I'm no iPhone buff, so I have no clue how one does this on iPhone. But if you have an Android phone, there's a neat little tool out there called Tasker that gives you very advanced controls over your phone. It's good at setting up if/then/else scenarios. On its own it's a cool utility, but when you pair it up with a productivity system, this sucker becomes really useful.

For my Toodledo interface I'm using Ultimate To Do. I'm not the biggest fan of the UI, and I'm playing around with DGT some, but Ultimate To Do does one thing very well that makes the unlock purchase worth it: predefined complex views. I can set up one my widgets to show me folders 1, 2, and 4, all tasks due in the next 3 days with a priority of 1 or greater unless the task hasn't started yet, and another widget can show me folders 2 and 3 that have an expected length of 30 minutes or less, while a third can show me everything I haven't modified in the past 7 days that's assigned to a particular contact. It's an exceptionally robust system, and it's very good for defining complex views. This was great for me because it cut down on the amount of time I'd have to spend scanning over whole folders just to find the subtasks I needed to access.

Another neat trick for Ultimate To Do is location reminders. Only, location reminders aren't the greatest because they require your GPS be on for it to work correctly. Tasker works very nicely here. I've set up a series of Tasker profiles that will essentially tell the phone where I am and when GPS should be enabled. First, the phone will look to my Google Calendars to determine location from that. Do I have a class or a meeting scheduled? If so, it will active the school profile which will do things like silence my phone, mute all alarms, turn off Wifi, and shift my homescreen to a school-oriented setup. This means that my main UTD widgets will show school tasks and things I can only do at school. Swipe left or right and I'll get peripheral information, like tasks due soon, or tasks I can do while driving home. Once the calendar shows I am no longer in class, the phone will shift back to normal mode, unmuting my ringers and shifting to normal homescreens with basic widgets. Same happens with work, and when my calendar says I'm working.

So what happens when I stop in to study over the weekend, but I don't have it on my calendar? Another profile checks WiFi SSIDs. If it sees the work SSID, it will shift over into work mode automatically. Same goes for home and school. With the Sense UI, I get 7 screens. Generally the widgets for each phone mode will stay roughly the same (main page, calendar agenda [I use Agenda Widget], major applications, news feed and contacts, and 2x UTD list screens with quick-add event and task buttons [which let me send an e-mail/SMS message to Toodledo or Google Calendar]. But by enabling certain workspaces (scenes) through Tasker's context sensitivity, I can change out which applications have shortcuts, which widgets appear and with which information, what background shows up, what calendar events get highlighted... and of course I can switch it manually if I need to, but because the context sensitivity only changes the overlay and not the actual accessibility, I can always check on my school tasks from work or my errands from class with a couple extra taps.

When I'm mobile, I've set up Tasker to check if I'm in the car. I can cheat here because my radio has bluetooth built in, so I just have it check to see if it can connect to my bluetooth, and if so then it will flip on GPS, remind me to plug in, boot Pandora, and turn on "Errands" mode. Here, when I'm driving past Best Buy, because my GPS is on, Ultimate To Do will remind me that I really need to stop in and buy that new static defrinklyzer I've been ulcerating over. Except here Tasker acts as a TSA gate agent. It checks my calendar to make sure I'm not on my way somewhere, and that I actually have time to go into Best Buy. If I do, it will pass the alert along and my phone will zing at me through my radio. If I don't, it will stop the alert from going through and then molest it while taking photos of it naked.

I won't get into the details of building profiles, mostly because it's tedious and boring and I'm doubtful anyone will have made it this far through my wall of text, but Tasker is a really cool utility for $5. If you have Android, try it out. If you have Sense, make a Scene for any major life-context with a unique but awesome-looking background. Load up the app shortcuts, contacts, widgets, whatever you want for that particular context, and then save it to queue with Tasker. When setting up Tasker, just try to think about how, if you were a phone, you would figure out where the heck you are and what you're doing. If you have unique WiFi, use that. If you're location controlled, you can have tasker use dead reckoning through cell phone triangulation, and then if it thinks your close it can flip on your GPS, check, and then flip it off. If you have an event tied to a calendar, use Tasker to reference the calendar. The possibilities are endless.

The one thing I can't stress enough is that location isn't enough. I work in marketing, and the big new tech trend in marketing is location-aware advertising for your phone. What advertisers don't get though is that just because I work near a Starbucks doesn't mean I'm going for a cup of coffee 50 hours a week. Your phone needs to know where you are, and then it needs to know what kind of stuff you're doing. If you can give it (Tasker) these inputs, you can program it to give you context relevant outputs.

Your phone should be as helpful as a personal secretary that rides around with you and reminds you of important things, thinking when you don't have to. This has gotten pretty close. Essentially I have 7 phones - one for each identifiable context facet of my life - rolled into one nifty device. Phones are important, too, because for the most part they never leave our side. We always have them near us. You don't have to wait for them to boot. You don't have to connect to WiFi to get internet. They're basically the always-on portal which make them great for productivity systems. I can tap out a task that I just thought about and drop it into an inbox to deal with later on Toodledo, and I don't have to worry about remembering to add in what I wrote down on that post-it somewhere. It's a great capture and reference tool, and while it may lack the real estate and reference of a full-fledged PC, it works pretty well for dealing with front-end task and life management.

Toodledo
Toodledo does some stuff very well, and then it does some stuff very irritatingly. I still like Toodledo because of the robustness of it. The web interface is just plain awful. I came late to Toodledo, so I can't imagine what it must have been like before the UI retrofit, but even still, it's just uncomfortable and cumbersome to use. But, you can tell Toodledo has been built by programmers. It may look terrible, but it has a the most robust feature-set for a task management system I've seen. And as a feature geek, that speaks to me.

That said, I turned a few of them off a couple weeks ago. I found I wasn't using certain columns, and they were wasting screen space (a problem on my laptop and phone) and reference time. So here's how I Toodledo:

1) Context
Contexts are folders. I got rid of tool-oriented contexts like @laptop and @desk for categorical contexts. These tend to be broken down into life areas like @School and @Work that are not necessarily location tied but represent a particular facet of my life. I have 7 major contexts right now, although I could probably drop it down to 4 (Work, School, Personal, Family).

2) Folder
Folders still operate like folders and group tasks based on shared characteristics. Folders include things like Chores, Games, Civil Procedure, Website Design, and so forth. Generally speaking, folders break down into a parent-child relationship with Contexts, but they don't always have to. I could have @Work errands and @Personal errands that both show up under Errands. But honestly this rarely happens for me. The advantage of switching Folders and Contexts is that it allows for this parent-child relationship into a folder/sub-folder kind of system. You don't have to turn a folder into a task with subtasks.

3) Due Date
Self-explanatory

4) Start Date
Extremely useful for task filtering, although it completely screws up Google Calendar when I try to show my tasks on it. At first, I never used start date because I felt like if I were putting the task into Toodledo then obviously I was starting on it. But even putting an artificial start date to push the task down the line a bit has made me overall more productive and not nearly as likely to keep a list of overdue tasks. This is most useful for dealing with sequential tasks, because on my phone I can show the task due now while hiding the one due later, unless I go looking for it.

5) Priority
Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of priority. I feel like either something is worth doing or its not. I tried for a while to make priority represent "energy level," but even that didn't work really well because I apparently never had energy. I'd love to play with a system at some point that works on two axes to try to fix this: high energy / low energy vs. have to do / want to do, but for now I've still settled on priority as the best way to rank tasks for importance. Mostly I just ignore it, though, because priority should be easily determined from a properly broken-down Context and Folder system.

6) Location
Also less important than I would have imagined... Most of my context awareness through my phone can be done via other contextual clues. But this does become nice for things like driving by the grocery store or Walgreens, or remembering to grab the logbook from work.

7) Repeat
In doing a major overhaul to clean out the broken stuff, I've scrapped the daily "check mail" type tasks just to cut down on the noise while I made sure the new system worked. Now I'm finally adding them back in. I don't have a lot of repeating tasks, because I always run behind on them and then they nag-nag-nag, but for important stuff or long-term projects that require constant small actions (e.g. ripping all of my DVDs, scanning 1 a day) are good for repeat.

8) Star
I guess you could call it a "next action" flag. I call it an "Oh crap, take care of this NOW" flag.

Everything else I've turned off.

Length/Timer were only slightly useful. Generally I'd forget to start the timer when I'd start a task (because it was easier just to do it). This might be useful for people for whom time efficiency and prediction is more of a concern. Because I don't have time to review, and because I feel pretty good about my time-estimating abilities, I went on and turned it off.

Tag should have been more useful for creating a new axis for task management and reference... something not stuck in a parent-child relationship, but I'm almost always able to group relevant tasks into useful views just through Context>Folder definitions. A lot of people seem to use tags for tool- or location-based contexts (e.g. I can do this at my #computer #phone #home #work #Amys #shipment), but when I tried this I spent more time entering in all of the possible contexts than I did just figuring it out in my head or referencing the task by its folder (e.g. "I can do all of that stuff in those places because I'm looking at my "Work Projects" Folder and I need to talk to Amy about the next shipment date).

Dropping Status was probably the most un-GTD of all, and everyone I know who uses GTD thinks I'm some kind of loose cannon because of it. But Status just took up way too much time. So everything defaults to None. For every task I have, I need to set it to a status then: Next Action, Active, or Planning. Practically all of my tasks are in the active phase, because if I'm planning something, it's usually not concrete enough to have established tasks. Planning items wind up in my notebook while I'm drawing them out and mindmapping them. Only items that tend to be complete will make it to Toodledo.
So then it'd either be "Active" or "Next Action," which had me flipping statuses of items every time I finished a task to create new next actions. And then I'd almost always be wrong, thinking I'd finish one task but really being able to knock out another that was only "Active." Delegated and waiting were actually the more useful out of the statuses, but I'm also a really obnoxious perfectionist, and so I tend to just do it myself and not ask for help. So delegation (and therefore waiting) never really happened.
Hold / Postponed on the other hand weren't very useful. If something's on hold for me, it's almost always still active - I just can't get it to it yet. I.e. the context is wrong. Usually this was for things like homework, which would force me to change the status of the next item from "Hold" to "Active" every time I finished an assignment. I spent more time changing statuses back and forth than I did just knowing "I can't do that yet," especially if I dropped the task into a folder full of similar things that I can't do yet, and hiding their appearance until I can do them.
Somedays get put into a separate folder. Cancelled items get deleted. Reference gets pulled off of Toodledo and put into OneNote.
Assignor I don't use because I am riding solo on task management. It's hard to convince others to buy in. Most of my friends won't even use Google Calendar. Bunch of Luddites.
saskia.x

Posted: Jun 26, 2013
Score: 0 Reference
Posted by s.l:
I somehow get the impression of compulsive behavior.
...
If I need to buy stuff, I try to keep it in my head


You either have an amazingly good memory, not much going on in your life, or not much to buy!

As curtisc_1337545806 said, some of us really do NEED this level of "over complication", either through having insanely busy or complex lives, or because of poor cognitive functioning like ADD or other memory/attention issues (or in my case, both!).

It is wise to avoid complicating stuff more than necessary, of course - there is a point where you are just bogged down in the system, but it sounds like wksims86 has found the right balance for them. Perhaps you are one of those lucky people who can manage their lives with a very simple system (like my husband, who just keeps short paper todo lists and seems to magically get stuff done with very little hassle!), but many people are not like that (and I'd hazard a guess that Toodledo users are, on the whole, people who feel they need a more sophisticated system, otherwise they'd be using paper or something like google tasks).

Personally I've found the bits of my life that work best are those where I have been almost obsessively organised. I am, overall, a pretty disorganised person, but with these weird pockets of OCD-style organisation that work really, really well! The trouble is these tend to require so much upkeep that I can't possibly extend them to cover my whole life or I'd never have a moment to relax or spend quality time with my family, so I'm always on the lookout for ways to automate & simplify stuff, and it sounds like the system that wksims86 has got going for themselves fits the bill for them. It looks like a lot on paper but when you think about it it's obvious that on a day to day basis it requires a lot less effort than many alternative systems.

Currently I'm coping with an ancient Android phone which has a mental breakdown if I ask it to do anything remotely complicated, so an app like Tasker is out of the question until I can afford to get my other phone fixed or get a new phone. But when I'm back in the year 2013 I'm definitely going to download it as I could really do with a more sophisticated reminder system that "knows" where I am and whether I have time to do a particular task.
saskia.x

Posted: Jun 26, 2013
Score: 0 Reference
wksims86 - one flaw I can see with location aware systems is that location is often not simple, particularly with those of us whose lives are not very routine-bound. As you highlight with GTD-style contexts, many tasks can be done in multiple places, including things like buying specific items (many things can be bought in various different shops, and I don't have a single set route past certain shops that I take every day). This is one of the reasons I've never really bothered with the location field in Toodledo, which is very simplistic. Does your setup allow for this?
saskia.x

Posted: Jun 26, 2013
Score: 0 Reference
Sorry, I've actually only just noticed that this thread started over a year ago! If you're still reading this, wksims86, I wonder if you'd comment on whether this system is still working for you or if you've had to do some tweaking?
saskia.x

Posted: Jun 26, 2013
Score: 0 Reference
Regardless of the fact that this thread is rather old, I'm going to go ahead and weigh in on the "is this a valid criticism of GTD?" question while I'm here!

I've also read the book several times (well, twice from cover to cover, and have "dipped in and out" more times than I could count) over a period of many years, and used to read a lot of GTD blogs/websites etc, so I think I have a fairly good handle on what GTD is/isn't and how various people seem to be using it. I totally agree with many of the arguments wksims86 made, at least if you assume they were talking about GTD as it seems to be implemented by many people. The original book allows for a bit more flexibility than many GTDers advocate - there seems to be a dogmatic version of GTD "out there" on the internet that isn't necessarily what I think David Allen envisaged (e.g. "never use priorities!", "calendars are only for absolutely fixed events!", etc), but yes, he did argue that traditional task management systems relied too much on prioritisation & due dates and that really you shouldn't be putting tasks in your calendar unless they actually had a certain date on which they should be done, so this dogmatic version isn't a million miles from "authentic" GTD.

Though I would point out that the bit about prioritisation seems to be about people using systems that they *call* GTD but clearly aren't really, since DA certainly never said you should be messing about with reprioritising "Level 3 Top Priority tasks" to lower priority when something more important comes up, etc. In fact he specifically argued against this type of thinking (it is one of the reasons why he suggests not bothering with priorities, because in reality they are far too fluid).

I also agree that contexts, as set out in the book and as used by many people, don't fit well with modern lifestyles. Of course, many people still do jobs that have a much more clear-cut separation between different contexts, and some people don't like to use their phone to write emails or whatever, but an awful lot of us nowadays live lives where these contexts are a lot more blurred & flexible than they were when DA wrote the book. And some of us have lifestyles where we have a lot of personal control over exactly where we are and what we're doing at any moment in time (e.g. people who work from home &/or are self employed) so we are essentially choosing which context to be in rather than choosing the task according to which context we're already in. Of course, there is still a place for contexts in order to group tasks efficiently (I need to be reminded about errands even though I'm at home, but once I go out to do a particular errand it makes sense to try to get several more done while I'm out and about), but they are not so useful for day-to-day prioritisation of tasks.

Personally I've found myself relying far more on priorities & dates than most GTDers would advocate, since without them it tends to result in one massive overwhelming list! "Strict" GTD relies on contexts, someday/maybe & regular reviews to keep lists short but since I mostly haven't been able to get contexts working this way for me and I lack the discipline to do full reviews as often as I need to (and when I've had phases of being better at reviewing I seem to need to do it more than weekly in order to stay on top of things anyway) I find priorities & dates keep things feeling manageable to me.

My current system, for what it's worth, could be described as GTD-inspired but prioritised and dated (I try to keep due dates only for tasks with "real" due dates, but use start dates for all active tasks), and when I'm actually working through my task list I usually do it more in the spirit of the systems set out by Mark Forster, i.e. I skim quickly through the list from top to bottom and just do the first thing that jumps out at me (sorting by date & priority helps with this even though it goes against what both David Allen & Mark Forster advocate, since if I start at the top of the list I know I'm more likely to get the things I've deemed important & urgent done). The use of start dates as part of the sort criteria means that those tasks I really should have at least started on by now but have been resisting keep getting pushed higher & higher up the list, without muddying the waters by appropriating due dates for this purpose. It's not perfect but most of the problems I come up against are more to do with me and the way my mind works (or doesn't!) rather than flaws in the basic system! However I do keep coming up against the problem of not being reminded of the correct tasks in the correct time & place, yet not finding traditional contexts quite right for me, which is why I'm interested in the more sophisticated level of context awareness wksims86 talks about.


This message was edited Jun 26, 2013.
bcmyers Post deleted
wksims86

Posted: Sep 05, 2013
Score: 0 Reference
Sorry I hadn't noticed this thread is still alive!

Patrick, to answer your questions: I am still running the same system and it is still working very for me, with one qualification: Toodledo is not the right tool for me. I am finding that what I ultimately want is hamstrung by Toodledo's limitations. For me, it simply does too many things I don't want and not enough things I do want. For example, the biggest issue for me has been task dependencies. If I can't do X until A and G are completed, and A and G are not related to each other, there's no way for me to express X's dependency on both A and G within Toodledo. I've tried to design around this, but it's just a design-around.

I will have to uncover my Tasker profile from a backup in order to share them. I'll try to get to that soon, but I am not 100% sure where I put my backups.

The reason I am not running Tasker actively is that I have actually started development on a web/Android app designed to address some of the shortcomings of Toodledo and extend some of the functionality I described to an application platform. I still hold by the principle, "Any sufficiently complex problem can by made simple by a sufficiently complex system." But some of the complications of making Toodledo work with Ultimate To-Do work with Tasker is not actually helping make things simple. Now that I have some free time, I've been developing something that can give me 1) task dependency, 2) infinite hierarchies, 3) a better UI, 4) integration with other project management tools (e.g. mindmaps, kanban), 5) simpler implementation, and 6) a reward system for psychological motivation.

I might someday go public with it, but right now it's just an alpha test just to see if I can even accomplish it. My needs differ from a lot of people's, and I don't know that the solution that works for me will necessarily work for everyone else. I'm also not a programmer by trade, so I'm having to learn something brand new to implement this system.


Saskia.x, the singular location issue is part of what motivated me to make my own system. Your comment about complexity and needs I think is spot-on. I am a law student and law clerk for an IP firm, on the board of one business, starting two other start-up non-profits, advising in marketing a fourth business, VP of two organizations for law school, a graphic designer for the local legal bar, with a passion for video games, music, art, literature, and technology. Trying to keep all of those things straight is exceptionally difficult and requires me to stay on top of an awful lot. Many of the deadlines that I have are critical, so I need a system that won't let me slip these things.

I tried to introduce Toodledo to some of the members of one of the law organizations I VP for, and they looked abjectly horrified. It was just too much for them. A majority of people can summarize their obligations on a to-do list on a sticky note. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I'm a little jealous of it. That's why I've been tweaking my system to give me a sticky-note's worth of "do this" information despite a phone book's worth of tasks and data floating around in the aether.

Law school has forced me to be absurdly productive, and it's interesting to see how people differ in terms of responsibilities and productivity. The two are rarely correlated. I know plenty of productive people with nothing to do and unproductive people buried under responsibilities.

You summarized my old GTD argument far better than I did. After re-reading the book, you're right; the book offers flexibility that the "dogmatic" implementation of GTD does not. The dogma of GTD, as many follow it, asserts it as an absolutely perfect system that shall not be questioned, tweaked, or modified. Joelhfx illustrated that point perfectly.


So the system I use now, while in development, I think is a better evolution of the first one I suggested because it's not bound by Toodledo. It's not as complicated and is more streamlined but still offers the same (actually better) complex heuristics and information management. Maybe when it's a little more useable, I'll share it with anyone interested.

One last update: I now carry around a Moleskine for basic pen-and-paper input for those inevitable analog moments in life. It has its own input system, but mostly I use it for scratch paper... notes, doodles, sketches, etc. During my weekly review, I'll tag what is important and what is trash, then snap photos of important pages into my phone and drop them into their appropriate location in my OneNote. I use tabs to separate the sections, a tab on top to indicate current position, and corner marks to declare pages as trash/important. It has worked quite well and has been very complementary to my phone-based system.


This message was edited Sep 05, 2013.
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