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It’s been a good practise to get into. Books I fear will be my Achilles heel. Although I have recently gone through my bookcase and have a garbage bag full of books that are not representative of me, or that I can’t bring myself to read again. I fear that I have a long way to go. I have listed 2 today on eBay, with more to come.

With a pile of books that I must get through reading, including two largely untouched library books I must get to, now is not the time to indulge in rereading or in what I call “re-try” reading. I was well behaved putting these books in the eBay pile, but as I looked through them to write up the listing., I had pangs of regret.

“maybe I should reread this one”
“I didn’t give this one a fair shot.”

“Did I get as much use out of this one as I could”

Oh if only I had infinite time time to read.

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I’ll use it ….

Sometimes your highest priority is to get some of your lower priority stuff done, especially when that adds to your quality of life.

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At this point I can’t imagine living my life with 100 things–although I’d like to think I could. Maybe the idea is to start and reduce. I wonder if it is different for women than men. But then, I look around and I see:

• half used make up,
• unopened foundations,
• multiple half used tubes of toothpaste,
• books I promise myself that I’m going to read and never do (and really have no interest in)
• seven different colours of post-it note,
• three somewhat used spiral notebooks, and
• three small pads.

Do you think you could?

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The hardest thing about the book was also its greatest asset. The fact it was an audiobook meant that it was right there with me which not only kept me moving through the book, and mindful of the principles, both good things. I am finding having a hard copy of books with me at the points that I feel like reading harder than it once was (bad for GTD itself perhaps, but there you go), so the audio allows me to use those moments when I have a gap, but when my head is too active to enjoy nothingness.

The negatives were that it was hard to get into a groove with it because in this book unlike in the audio version of the Getting Things Done book, the quotes were included in the audiobook as well as the hard copy, and the chapters are short sharp pointers; profound but not deep, and still practical enough to have you going “Now there’s a thought.” on more than one occasion

Allen claims in the introduction that after writing Getting Things Done, he started to think about the why of the approach, why the principles he was teaching seemed (at least to him it seems) universally applicable and as such started to put together principles and essays about their application. These are those essays. They are solid as an introduction, or as a review. There is depth to them which makes the format of an audiobook without chapter markers at the end of each point hard.

It is worth while as a read even if you have no direct interest in GTD. In Allen’s words;

This program will likely validate much of what you already know and do that works. But it will also challenge you to apply that awareness in a much more conscious and consistent manner and that’s where the real power lies.

In my own words it is as much about mindfulness as file folders.The spiritual angle is tangible and makes it a lot less a business book and much more a life book.. Thinking about my own choices and the impacts I have has been useful, given that really there is nothing new under the sun. As he says

If God is all and you’re part of that, just relax

This isn’t a sponsored post but my advice is if you want to buy/borrow a copy, get a hard copy.If you want to buy this it is on Amazon.

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I’ve now done my first real weekly review (there wasn’t a lot to review on Day 0); and I now feel clearer. I never got through assigning “Next Actions to the Projects in the List, so cracks were already beginning to appear, but that has been sorted now. After all, that is what the weekly review is for. I did a week, paper based (so others can “see” what’s on my radar). I like that logic, but until I get to actually go out and do the “buy printer ink“activity, it was fun to go back and use my old friend , OmniFocus. I know there is a risk with switching, but this morning I was excited to do some actions.

Some things I’ve learnt:

• It is unfortunately still possible to avoid doing that which you don’t want to. This is not a magic bullet, but it means you can be more systematic and there are fewer highs and lows which is nice.
• I tend to be blunter in my communications because I don’t have to decide what to say to Person, I tend to forget the niceties a bit. If the action is “Send Person a sms about coffee next week” My sms might read hi How’s thursday next week for coffee” then I might remember to ask how they are, or sign my name! Same goes with discussions in person, I show up with a list and off I go. Efficient, but less fluff. Ok for business but not so warming for loved ones.
• On the flip side, I listen better
• The Mind like Water thing is great.
• I think being able to put social/life/relaxation stuff on the list and having it as important is so great.

A summary of GTD is here and the methodology is:

GTD is based on making it easy to store, track and retrieve all information related to the things that need to get done. Allen suggests that many of the mental blocks we encounter are caused by insufficient ‘front-end’ planning. It is most practical, according to Allen, to do this thinking in advance, generating a series of actions which we can later undertake without any further planning. The human brain’s “reminder system” is inefficient and seldom reminds us of what we need to do at the time and place when we can do it. Consequently, the “next actions” stored by context in the “trusted system” act as an external support which ensures that we are presented with the right reminders at the right time. Since GTD relies on external memories, it can be seen as an application of the scientific theories of distributed cognition or the extended mind.[1]

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Indeed till about three years ago I went through several highly organised “patches”. I want that back. One the most holistic systems that I used and loved was the highly googleable “Getting Things Done” methodology.

I’m going to try that again.

I was looking for a summary to send to my friend who is coming up to be my arms and legs for the day. I found this as a start..

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