GIGO: words unreadable aloud

GTD some comments

About two and a half weeks ago, I mentioned "I found a nice GTD summary here at the Minezone Wiki. Had some comments on it which I'll put somewhere else."

Matt Vance wrote that GTD summary. I haven't read Robert Allen's book, so I wouldn't presume to comment on how well Matt has captured the ideas in it. I have read some of Merlin Mann's entries about GTD, and have occasionally read David Allen's weblog.

So, these notes are therefore not so much about GTD itself, nor about how well Matt has captured Allen's ideas. Rather, I read Matt's summary on its own merit, and these notes are a step towards adapting this stuff to my world. And do note that they're definitely an unpolished draft.

First: there's the 7 PEF WUSS habits. The "F" (First Things First) got expanded into Covey's most recent book. But earlier, the F just turned into Mishrogo Weedapeval. While there are hints about spots where GTD addresses the "Mish"ion, it looks to me like GTD is primarily concerned with the "Wee"kly planning. So, like, "PEF(Mishrogo Wee(GTD)dapeval)WUSS".

One thing I see missing from much of the GTD online materials is that there isn't much fun to be had. Gotta factor that in.

Specific notes:

In the section "2. process 2. actionable? NO 2. incubate" ... I suspect that I'd have a whole file cabinet's worth of "incubate" items.
43 folders just sounds way too specific. Other than vacation plans, dental and medical appointments, etc., things farther out than a week or two just rarely get precisely scheduled and tend not to be items I need to pay much attention to. So I'd simplify this to about ten folders (actually, ten tabs in my (vaporware) tabbed wiki outliner/scheduler):
- This week (5 weekday and one weekend folder)
- "No later than" / kicker bouncer.
- Second (Covey-) Quadrant items (Important but not urgent)
- Hard-Scheduled
- Blue Sky (What can I say? I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one...)
Issue: Seems like 99% of what I do is "projects", and 80 to 90% of the difficulty involved in most of them is in deciding "What IS the next thing to do?". As I said, I haven't read GTD, but that seems like it's been glossed over.
Likewise the "Weekly Review 6. ensure at least one kick-start action" has the same issue. It's hard.
The "big picture view" under the "Six level model for reviewing", and the "1. purpose (why?)" under the "Five Phases..." section, both equate to the "Mish" part of the weekly planning.
For me, one real "Critical Factor of Filing System" is to avoid paper wherever possible. Put it all on line, tag it well, and "search, don't file".
"dumpster day" --> discardia.
Summary, under "apply a simple set of formulae": the second bullet says "I still need to decide what this means to me ==> IN basket item". My problem with this is that I'd need an "IN GARAGE" instead of an IN basket. And I'd need to spend two or three days a week making those decisions. Ok, maybe not that much, but sometimes it feels like it's trending too far in that direction.

12:44:04 AM comment/