It’s amazing how many geeks I know who are shaved- head over Chuck Taylor’s for the personal information and time management system detailed in David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. I figured that the very systematic/structural nature of it appeals to a certain programming mentality. This post I found on 43 Folders (a GTD-focused blog) sums it up beautifully:
I think Getting Things Done appeals to nerds for a lot of reasons. Overgeneralizing for effect:
* nerds are often disorganized or have a twisted skein of attention-deficit issues
* nerds love assessing, classifying, and defining the objects in their world
* nerds crave actionable items and roll their eyes at “mission statements” and lofty management patois
* nerds like things that work with technology-agnostic and lofi tools
* nerds like frameworks but tend to ignore rules
* nerds are unusually open to change (if it can be demonstrated to work better than what they’re currently using)
* nerds like fixing things on their own terms
* nerds have too many projects and lots and lots of stuff
I’ve been playing around with the system this week, reading 43 Folders, online excerpts of the book, and other related material, and have found a lot that’s useful for my own organizational style. I have the book on order. Have other Street Techies read GTD and/or use this system?
Other GTD resources:
Online excerpts from of the book from BusinessWeek Online: Part 1 & Part 2
PDF Workflow Chart that summaries the GTD method.
A summary of the book in outline form.