deepstash
Beta
Getting Things Done
In the last half of the 20th century, what "work" represented in the industrialized world was transformed from an assembly line, make-it and move-it kinds of activity to "knowledge work."
Back then, work was self-evident. Now there are no edges to most of our projects.
258 SAVES
1.93k READS
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
8
Key Ideas
GTD is a productivity method for organizing your to-dos, priorities, and schedule in a way that makes them all manageable.
Its 5 principles are:
In the 1950s, work shifted from being labour-intensive towards being mind-intensive and eventually started to overload people’s cognitive abilities.
This led to the personal productivity bo...
Various organizational tools, production methods and other ways towards efficiency appealed to the logical mind, but slowly it dawned to many that the basic concept of these systems were the industrial processes themselves, and just a reusing of repetitive, mechanical motions, repackaged for knowledge workers.
These systems, however logical and appealing they looked, were not aiding productivity even though it seemed like that on the surface.
A productivity method called ‘Inbox Zero’ by Merlin Mann, a productivity hacker and creator of many other productivity tools like 43 folders, became a rage in 2007. It was based on the fact that all email should be answered or categorized until the inbox has zero emails left.
While sounding great, this personal productivity method actually increased a person’s email, leading to a circular path of pseudo-work: replying to the endless email.
9
Key Ideas
If you focus on getting the small stuff done but not the big stuff, or switch between tasks all the time, you’ll be less effective.
Pick one important thing to focus on at a time and learn to evaluate what tasks and projects are of higher value to you.
It's best done by focusing on the smallest first step and practicing just launching into that.
Pick the tiniest first step, and launch into it.