Kevin Molloy

I’m a big fan of G(etting) T(hings) D(one). I’ve tried most of the many methods out there. But somehow I’ve found myself in very strange place, in between four of five different methods of organising myself, and my time.

I was pretty weirded out by this at first. I’m naturally the least organised person in a room… I procrastinate, prevaricate, pontificate and do various other things with letters coming between p- and -ate (prate, pollenate… ummm…). I’m doing it now look. Thinking of clever words to say instead of writing a blog post. And I’m fairly confident this blog post is a justifiable form of procrastination, away from another, more important, real-world task I have on.

But I eventually came to a realisation. I’ve pretty much found my own, personal, oft-touted and never-achieved nirvana state of organisation. I’m right on the balancing point between utter chaos on the one side, and mind-numbing databases and spreadsheets on the other. I’ve done it! I’m here! I’m organised and creative at the same time!

The other realisation was that this blissful situation (trust me when I say it won’t last long) is the result of no particular creed or strategy. In fact, this halcyon hinterland has been reached by straying from the path a number of times, each time taking just a little of the old method with me, whilst learning a new discipline. I temporarily feel like a GTD ninja.

So whilst I subscribe to the overall theories of none of the below, training in their ways has always left me a level up in the way of the GTD. Now I just have to concentrate not to look down, and to keep on training.

(1) GOOGLE TASKS – Google took over what I used to use RTM (Remember The Milk) for – namely the actual LIST of things to do. The genius thing about google tasks? You can use it straight from your gmail inbox (as you could with a RTM plugin). And even better – you can quickly and simply make a task from an email – and whenever you access that task in your todo list, you can click straight through to the relevant email you need. Google Tasks supports multiple lists, but I find I get confused doing this, so I stick to just the one list. I also don’t use it for everything. I use this task list for long-term jobs: things that need explanations, where you need to go and see what was said in an email. I still don’t feel like I’ve juiced google tasks for all it’s worth though – the fact it ties in with my google calendar is something I’m yet to make use of. Google have some great tricks up their sleeves, I’m sure.

(2) EMAIL POLICIES – I’ve been getting a bit better with how I act on emails. I get around 50 to 60 legitimate emails a day. Some of them take an hour to prepare for and reply to, others 2 minutes, and still others I don’t need to reply to at all. So the new policy? I archive anything I don’t need to reply to as soon as it’s been read, so it’s out of my hair. I also reply to anything that will take me less than 2 minutes straight away, no matter what I’m up to at the time. This second policy has got me into some difficult situations (10 emails at 2 minutes each is 20 minutes out of whatever I was working on, and sometimes I shouldn’t really be dropping the ball for that long). However, I find policies work best if you stick to them in all cases except where it’s obviously paramount you break them (at which emergency point no policy will be helping you anyhow). And 90% of the time, replying straight off to these emails removes 90% of the tasks on my list. A short list of 10 tasks is much easier to prioritise than the longer one of 100. Even if it took 2 hours to clear the first 90 emails, at least they’re out of your hair.

(3) PAPER LIST – It’s old fashioned, it’s messy, and it’s deeply, deeply un-GTD, and possibly even luddite. But I need my paper lists. These lists have EVERYTHING on them. Things like ‘organise a gig on an hot air balloon’ and ‘pick up 4 AA batteries’ and even ‘this man gave you a business card last night, find out who he is’. And the satisfaction I get from scribbling one of those entries out? It’s an indescribable amount more than ticking the checkbox by something digital. It’s the peak of GTD bliss. I can hear the sound the pencil makes as it effaces the offending and completed task. (Yes, that’s right, I use a pencil. HB.).

(4) ITERATION – this is possibly the most GTD thing I do (GTD as a concept being credited to David Allen, and this kind of constant re-evaluation being key to what he talks about). Every day, every single day, I rewrite my paper list, from start to bottom. It means that anything that’s been on their too long becomes a guilty rewrite – I either have to get it done, decide that it’s no longer worth my time, or actually DO it. It also helps me figure out what it is I’m going to do that day. It’s probably the most important thing I do every day. It is, however, utterly boring – so it’s definitely number 4 on this list.

(5) NOT DOING THINGS – this was the best idea I ever had. I think that all GTD is aimed, at the outset, at giving you free time to do the other things that you love. But the end result is always a draconian system from which you can never retire, and which will leave you always with a task to complete. So at any point I so desire, I completely ignore every system I’ve ever built up, and do exactly what I want to do. That’s often catching up on my google reader account (that way I feel marginally productive – it’s relevant news! – it’s culture!). Or buying a can of coke. Or spending 30 minutes getting as far as I can on Desktop Tower Defence. My innate sense of guilt and productivity always leads me back to what I have to get done, and normally I’m a much happier, more productive person for it. Obviously sometimes I spend a day reading blogs and beating the 154th wave of oncoming enemy troops with a newly upgraded squirt cannon – but I kind of treasure those days. Like the days you watch half a season of Friends with nothing but a ting of pringles and some Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream. Those days are probably more important that all of the 50 combined ‘productive’ days that came before.

Yeah, so, um – I might go do some washing up. I’ve been putting it off this whole time. Feeling guilty about that now.