Getting Things Done

I recently stumbled upon a few websites on a this methodology to enhance personal productivity called “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. The moment I read through the concept (without actually reading the book), I knew that this methodology was perfect for me! I used to use a To Do List for the longest time, either on Outlook (during my pre-Mac days), on my BlackBerry or PDA, and a bit on my Mac. Problem was, while the To Do List was supposed to get my life organized, I had no way of getting my To Do List organized, and in the end, stopped using the list altogether.

GTD for me is is a good way to organize my deliverables because it organizes them into Projects (which is basically any activity that requires more than one task to complete) and Contexts (which is a place or method where the task is done, ie, Email, Office, Errands). There are also a bunch of other concepts that are introduced such as daily review and processing, weekly reviews, etc., to make sure the list is never stale, and I am constantly reminded of what I need to do.

So since I started getting into GTD, the next natural progression was to look for the best GTD app for my Mac. I tried a bunch of applications, from Kinkless GTD, to Midnight Inbox, Life Balance, and a bunch of other things. As usual, my search criteria for the app of choice was one that had all the necessary GTD features in a good looking package. While the methodology was generally the same, the various apps implemented them in various ways, as varied as the way different users adapt GTD to their own use. After trying a bunch of them, I realized that my use of the app, and therefore the GTD methodology, started to decline.

It took me a while to figure out why, but I finally determined that the reason was that I placed the extensiveness of functionality of the app above the function the app was intented to do in the first place, which is get me organized. The apps I thought were good were really just too complex and time consuming to work with. In the end, I spent more time looking around for, installing, and configuring various apps instead of being more productive!

In my search for the best GTD app, I came across a dedicated GTD app called “Ghost Action”. I think its a relatively new app, but I immediately dismissed it without even trying because it just had a simple one window interface and very few menu buttons. As opposed, for example, to Midnight Inbox, which had a full GTD workflow built in, with automatic collections (from applications I dont use) and a very structured methodology. I thought having the most feature rich application was the key to getting things done, but in the end, the richness of the application just got me even more distracted than before I started using the app itself.

So my latest, and hopefully last GTD app (since I paid 20 bucks for it) is Ghost Action. It doesnt try to shoehorn me into a very structured process, but at the same time places just enough structure to organize the stuff I’m supposed to do. Moral of the story: KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid!