Chaos to control (almost)
Published by on December 6th, 2005
ADD is never the most appropriate affliction for encouraging proper organisation of life, work and bits and bobs. But there is something to help.
KGTD (Kinkless GTD) is basically a set of scripts designed to work with OmniOutliner Pro - sorry windows fans, this is Mac only - which offers a customisable implementation of GTD (see the book “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity” by David Allen).
Though not exactly the perfect implementation of GTD for my own tastes, it serves me very well until I get around to learning enough ‘real’ programming to build my own (likely not this weekend, with the Geek Dinner event and all… you know how it is).
The principles of GTD discard the age old and terribly inefficient use of todo list tasks organised by importance and due dates. GTD encourages a system whereby every aspect of life you are trying to remember, even the seemingly smallest, insignificant task, are all gathered in one place so there is no longer a need to keep trying not to forget them. Not only that but once a task is entered into one’s GTD ‘Inbox’, it is assigned an activity, a ‘context’ which determines exactly how you need to act on that item.
The principles of a GTD system are relatively straightforward to understand. Alas the one thing no system can provide in abundance is the discipline required to maintain its implementation. Excellent tools such as KGTD can give you enough relief in your general day to day organisational stress, that discipline becomes easier to handle.
A system which helps you manage the biggest projects and the minutiae of individual tasks has to be a grail worthy of a quest. Now if I can just get jEN to use it, she might, just as I have done, find that magical answer to the day’s unfocused thrashing.
Technorati Tags: add, kgtd, onmioutliner
One Response to “Chaos to control (almost)”
December 6th, 2005 at 1:24 pm
Bah- I have a great system of colour-coded post-it notes on the backs of shaved Bolivian llamas on roller skates. Though they reduce the living space around us, the skates make them fast to deliver my next task on demand. You’re just upset because they always spit on your side of the office…
Ok, seriously. I’ll look at KGTD today. I admit, it would be lovely to get more sanity in my brain. (Plus, the llamas keep eating my notes…)