The Single Most Important Message I Got out of ‘Getting Things Done’

by blogrdoc

I raced through reading GTD. I knew that when I had gotten to the last chapter, entitled ‘The Core Principles’ - I had wisely moved quickly to the end of the book. In my opinion, the first and last chapters are 99% of the book.

Here’s the most important passage I got from GTD:

As Steven Snyder put it, “There are only two problems in life: (1) you know what you want, and you don’t know how to get it; and/or (2) you don’t know what you want.” If that’s true (and I think it is) then there are only two solutions:
* Make it up.
* Make it happen.

Why I love this quote

As an engineer, even as a student, we learn about iterative solutions. What this means is that you actually assume an answer. Isn’t that funny? Put another way - to answer the question, you simply make up (with an educated guess) - the answer… just like David Allen says in the quote above.

Here’s a link to post about my GTD implementation.

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  1. 4 Responses to “The Single Most Important Message I Got out of ‘Getting Things Done’”

  2. By Chris on May 5, 2008 | Reply

    I’ve been wanting to pick this book up. My reluctance comes from the fact that he may not have anything new that everything he has written is the same thing that everyone is saying.

  3. By blogrdoc on May 5, 2008 | Reply

    I do think he has an important message which is:
    1. The human mind is limited in it’s ability to deal with complexity.
    2. The best way to deal with this complexity is to write things down.
    3. When you write things down, make sure it is something directly actionable. These are called ‘next actions’.
    4. Do not postpone the *planning* stage. An example of this is don’t write on your todo list: “organize garage”. It’s too vague. Instead write: “put soda bottles in trunk to get recycled”.

    There you go… all of GTD in a post comment :)

    He has other stuff, obviously in his book, but I don’t see it working for me (e.g. 43 folders)

  4. By Alik Levin | PracticeThis.com on May 7, 2008 | Reply

    blogrdoc, that is exactly why i started to read the book and then stopped. I felt it can be summarized the way you just did in the comment - thank you for that .I’ve been waiting for this one.

    alikl

  5. By blogrdoc on May 7, 2008 | Reply

    It’s amazing how people have globbed onto GTD as if it’s some panacea. GTD is basically akin to your concept of ‘reducing friction’, which I like a lot. It is a system of “staging” your actions… you still, ofcourse, have to *do* them.

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