Pragmatic Geek

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

I’ve been thinking a lot about a wiki-like system to facilitate the habits of GTD.  It’s a wiki in the sense that everything is an item, and there is no explicit hierarchy.  There are no folders, and no binary parent/child relationships between projects and tasks.

But its not enough to depend on a simple wiki, since wikis don’t treat links as first-class objects.  Wikis automatically link outward from the item to other items referenced in the context, and if they’re good, they can also report which items are linking to items.

If a link were a first-class object, it would have other attributes, such as

 

• Strength – think of the links that connect you to your friends in Facebook – some friendships are stronger than others, with the strongest being your spouse, weakening down to the point of the folks you added just to play Mob Wars
• Directionality – if you’re using links to establish task sequencing, obviously one of the items is a prerequisite to the other
• Why – the “link type”, possibly including
  • blocked by – for “waiting for” items, could be blocked by another person or task
  • revision of – when a newer item overrides the content of a previous item
  • reference – when two things are related just because they are part of the same project
  • source – where did the item come from
  • member of – for mimicking parent/child relationships

 

I have a few questions:

 

1. What is the smallest set of link types that can suffice to map all the items used for system that captures all your GTD activity?
2. Do links have “completeness” ? Can a link itself be marked as finished?  Or is it the item that is marked as finished?  (Think about when a task is delegated to someone.)
3. Do links have age?  Like twine left in the rain, do links fade over time?