Task-focused GTD systems
Abstract: A primary disconnect of GTD systems is that they are more interested in the data than the actions.
As an analogy, let’s pretend you are are tasked with starting a new rocking chair manufacturing company. Would you rather have
- A pre-designed assembly line that had all the jigs and supplies for the steps involved in building your product, or
- A Norm Abrams-style workshop (à la New Yankee Workshop) where you have every imaginable high-end tool needed to craft anything out of wood?
I’m hoping you’d choose #1 (since the question wasn’t whether you aspire to be a craftsman). The key here is that choice #1 is a task-oriented solution, and #2 is focused on the materials and tools.
GTD focuses on the “next action,” driving you toward tasks that you can process through with less mental baggage than abstract project goals. It is this decomposition of projects into the next actionable tasks that causes so many “ah hah” moments for new GTD disciples. In hindsight, it’s obvious, but it’s a fundamental shift for most folks.
The trouble is that most GTD systems are based on the data you use to perform your next actions, rather than the actions themselves. For instance, Microsoft Outlook has email, calendaring, todo items, notes, etc. – all the tools you’d need for a good GTD implementation. But it doesn’t help you turn that new request from your boss in your inbox into a todo item that’s due by Friday. There’s no easy way to take a message you just sent and create a tickler for following up 3 days from now. I could go on…
I want a system that focuses on what to do with the data, rather than giving me arbitrary ways to organize it. I want an assembly line that I walk up to in the morning and that enables me to crank through whatever work is on my plate and whatever comes at me. I don’t need lots of customization of views and fields, as long as I can trust that the system isn’t going to let open loops get stale.
In order to make a new system that has a chance of success, it needs to build on a mental model that blends with what new users bring to the app. What are other analogies for this action vs. data struggle? What other apps are more focused on the action than the data?
Feedback is welcome,
-benJ
If I understand your question, here is how a former social studies teacher sees it. This appears to me to be the weakness in all “mechanical” systems. The link to make it work is the human or humans. There is always a balance needed for the “assembly line and the tools.” No machine or mechanized system can always anticipate how to do the balance so humans must fill in the gaps. I think that is why the mucky-mucks have assistants and secretaries.
Ben, consider your GTD app relative to something like Microsoft Project. Now, I have zip experience with GTD apps, but considerable use of Project. What I am pointing to is quantification. In project management, each task has estimated time to complete, and that time is assigned against resources (people) of various skill types. I wonder if similar quantification would be necessary for a truly helpful GTD. My time management experience says that it isn’t helpful to be tickled incessantly, if at the root I’m hopelessly overloaded. It’s also helpful to look forward for a week or so, and evaluate whether I should do some of Thursday’s tasks on Tuesday.
[...] unrelated things out of sight. This is related to what I was talking about the other day, about data vs. task. Most systems try to put as much data on the screen at a time to make it easier to move between [...]