Getting Things Done is a cult, part II

Weirdorama interview with David Allen, the man behind the personal productivity geek craze of GTD at New Day Herald, the organ of the oddball MSIA (Movement for Inner Spiritual Awareness) cult, itself run by the frightening John-Rogers. Next Action: The @backlash starts here...

GTD & MSIA

Bromdinium is not the most organized of people, nor the tidiest. And he's increasingly got a pile of things to do. Rather pointless things, but a pile nonetheless.

So, January 1 saw a couple of resolutions. No. 1 was to try and get organized. The web was full of David Allen's 'Getting Things Done' - even the Guardian was on it. So I stumped for the book, and even a .pdf guide to sorting out MS Outlook and started to make lists of things; all seemed very sensible.

Still, there was something weird about Allen's prose. Lots of muttering about 'mind like water', lifechanging, even odd things like 'if someone doesn't write their next action down, I cut them out of my life', or 'try giving everything up, and descending into the darkest part of your soul till you have nothing. I've done that a few years ago', as well as other weird stuff, not to mention the flash web site and costly seminars.

Looking at a couple of mailing lists, the term 'cult' came up now and then - but only, I thought as a joke.

But reading this post about MSIA (short for the zanily titled The Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness).

This is rather old news, and not exactly gospel, but makes more sense of the weirdness in the book.

Notes & Queries GTD shock

This was posted recently on a GTD list. The venerable, scholarly, and slightly unhinged Notes & Queries has the following moto:


"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE

"WHEN FOUND, MAKE A NOTE OF," is a most admirable rule; and if the
excellent Captain had never uttered another word, he might have passed for a
profound philosopher. It is a rule which should shine in gilt letters on the
gingerbread of youth, and the spectacle-case of age. Every man who reads

with any view beyond mere pastime, knows the value of it. Every one, more or
less, acts upon it. Every one regrets and suffers who neglects it. There is
some trouble in it, to be sure; but in what good thing is there not? and
what trouble does it save! Nay, what mischief! Half the lies that are
current in the world owe their origin to a misplaced confidence in memory,
rather than to intentional falsehood. We have never known more than one man
who could deliberately and conscientiously say that his memory had _never_
deceived him; and he (when he saw that he had excited the surprise of his
hearers, especially those who knew how many years he had spent in the
management of important commercial affairs) used to add,--because he had
never trusted it; but had uniformly written down what he was anxious to
remember."

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/7n100110.txt

Bibliographic Software Rant

Today I spent 30 minutes or so downloading IdeaMason 3, which some people on the blogosphere have been getting very excited about. And compared to most pieces of software, it's fairly slick and does most of what you want. But not all. And that's the crucial thing. All these producs ultimately suck because of one or two fatal flaws.
IdeaMason - apart from the name, you can't import files from Web of Science, etc. or define your own types according to recognized standards (eg. EAD for archives).

Endnote - vast numbers of irritating little flaws and bugs, no real notetaking abilities, difficult to sort. And exensive.
Biblioscape - has it all,but no Z39-whatever connection, just 'screen scrapping', and it looks painful and is dreadfully buggy.
Papyrus - near perfect - for 1992. Doesn't play well or at all with XP, let alone Word 2007
Word 2007. Citation tool - this is more like it. But how to organize your notes (MS desktop search and the improved metadata 'ribbon' look like one solution), and - fatally - no Chicago footnote support. And nigh on impossible to amend the default formats. Roll on version 2.0
Others - NotaBene. Expensive, and like others in this category, you're pretty much dependent on having your pc or laptop with you.

What is needed/signs of hope.

1) Access anywhere. Work, home, library, book shop. Endnote Web looks promising, and nice that it's 'free' for those with a Web of Science subscription. [n.b., seems to have some problems with firewalls]
2) Run from flash drive. See (1). Biblioscape 7.0 promises this.
3) Google Scholar. They must have some bibliographic control in there; ditto google books (and their download .pdfs are wonderful - or at least will be). So, all that's needed is some way of harvesting the output reliably. Endnote seems to do this tolerably. Great for those without a subscription to journals.
4) Word 2007. Bad news for the little guys, but at least Microsoft have made a start - and it's a good one.
5) Adobe 8.0 (beta). Finally makes pdfs seem usable and almost easier than paper or even a codex for information (if not prolonged reading).
6) Google Notebook. Simple, free and does what it needs to, mostly. Is there a Google Cite in a lab somewhere?

Until then?

1) for those with good handwriting and access to a cheap stationers, index cards are hard to beat.
2) USB flash drives/ google docs/ gmail/ thinkanywhere - get your stuff wherever you are.
3) MS Word. It's still the standard - at least until openoffice gets it's file size and loading times under control. Make use of the keywords, files things properly and use desktop search (be it google, copernic, or ms). MS Outlook, if you've got a tablet PC.
4) Outlook/Palm todo lists. And keep it simple, with 'places' categories. Forget about prioritizing, and stick it in your calendar if it's time bound. Moleskines for those with neat handwriting and damp climates.
5) Tinderbox, for those with money and a Mac. For the rest of us, Muji pens and paper.
7) Avoid trying out software. It just clogs up your PC and wastes time. A bit like this blog...

UPDATE (Feb 2007)

Clearly I've ignored my own advice, esp. (7):

Still trying to get Endnote Web to work within my office firewall (integration with Word, that is). No joy so far, but the help team at Thompson have been, well, very helpful.

A couple of other pieces of software worth looking at:

1. Good Sync - a bit like Windows 95's weird briefcase feature, except this one keeps flash/usb drives (or whatever) in sync with desktop (or whatever). Free and effective, with most of the options you'll need.
2. JabRef 2.2 - open source Java-based bibliographic software. Especially useful if you have any idea what the hell LaTex is all about. (it's a nice front end for BibTex)
   

What's GTD good for

Spend a few minutes on the web looking at the cultish-GTD related websites, and about 90% of the stuff is about tweaking software, how to use a Moleskine diary, how to relate NA to Projects, etc. But ignoring all that obsessional stuff, it does seem to work. My question is 'why?'.

A few tentative answers:

1. getting stuff of your mind. Less worried, less stress, more work. Makes some sense.
2. not loosing stuff. Good filing, fewer bits of paper. Some people say up to 30% of time is spent looking for stuff.
3. getting rid of excuses. You take something out of the inbox, figure it can be done in 2 minutes, and make a start. No time wasted on starting, stopping, restarting, working out where you were.
4. makes you think about getting organised. What else does, except perhaps a new year? Being forced to list a project, with outcomes can't but help most tasks.
5. keeping inboxes manageable - see point 1.
6. Lists and Next Actions - always something to do - no procrastination here. Means you can just chug through a whole pile of tasks when you've the energy and time.
7. Weekly review. Keeps everything in intuitive order.
8. It isn't rocket science. Most systems would probably help, this one doesn't worry about prioritizing or being too complicated.

What else?