{"id":677,"date":"2008-02-06T22:44:42","date_gmt":"2008-02-07T03:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kev.deadsquid.com\/?p=677"},"modified":"2008-02-06T22:44:42","modified_gmt":"2008-02-07T03:44:42","slug":"and-this-month-i-joined-a-cult","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kev.needham.ca\/index.php\/2008\/02\/06\/and-this-month-i-joined-a-cult\/","title":{"rendered":"and this month, I joined a cult"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I have been organizationally challenged all my life. I’ve been able to get away with it, up until now. My current job involves juggling a few hundred balls, and I’ve dropped a lot more than is acceptable, and most of the drops come from not being properly organized. I needed – and still need – help.<\/p>\n

David Allen<\/a> has an organizational system. It’s called Getting Things Done<\/a> (GTD).This organizational system is popular with a ridiculous number of people. Some of them swear by it so rigidly you could probably accuse them of being zealots. They scare me. Thankfully, most of the people who praise his system are normal folk, some of whom I respect a great deal.<\/p>\n

So I’m trying it. It’s essentially a way to rewire procrastinator’s (like me) brains and force them to deal with things right freaking now, and then move on the next thing and deal with it right right freaking now. You can put things on the backburner, but you have to keep checking them to make sure they’re not forgotten and burned. <\/p>\n

Basically, you deal with what can be dealt with immediately right away, schedule what can be dealt with later, and toss that which is really not related to you. Oh, and you track everything. It’s a little more complex, but that’s the gist. <\/p>\n

I’m starting to understand the cult-like following, but hope I’ll never be a zealot. It’s a great foundation thus far, and we’ll see how I feel about it three months in instead of two weeks in. I can already see a few tweaks I’m going to make, but as a time management foundation, I like it. It gives you a sense of accomplishment, and a method to deal with all the balls up in the air without letting them crash.<\/p>\n

I’m noticeably (to me, anyways) more productive, and feel a lot less scatter-brained. Fingers crossed.<\/p>\n

The book is available from Amazon<\/a> or Chapters<\/a>, and I like using Remember the Milk <\/a>and\/or Behances Action Pads<\/a> for task tracking.
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I have been organizationally challenged all my life. I’ve been able to get away with it, up until now. My current job involves juggling a few hundred balls, and I’ve dropped a lot more than is acceptable, and most of the drops come from not being properly organized. I needed – and still need – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kev.needham.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kev.needham.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kev.needham.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kev.needham.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kev.needham.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kev.needham.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kev.needham.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kev.needham.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kev.needham.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}