Getting Things Done - GTD
Have you fallen off the wagon?
AUTHOR: Francisco Sáez
"If you don't fall off the wagon regularly, you're not playing a big enough game." ~ David Allen
Have you tried to implement Getting Things Done in your life and you don’t manage to do it in a consistent way? Have you had some crazy months, full of urgent things, and have you been slowly leaving your personal organization aside? No matter how hard you try, after a period of control, do you always end up overwhelmed and everything goes back to the original chaos?
It’s true that the GTD learning curve can be quite long, not because it’s a complex methodology or difficult to understand, but because it’s necessary to get used to doing things in a different way than before. That’s why it’s quite normal for you to fall off the wagon a few times before you manage to integrate it definitively into your life.
However, if it happens to you too often, it’s likely that a wrong interpretation of the methodology (sometimes it’s a simple nuance, but it can completely change your perspective) is preventing you from establishing any of the fundamental organizational habits. Consider this:
- Do you capture EVERYTHING that comes into your mind? If you don’t do it (or you do it at 80%, which is the same) what you have in your system is not a faithful reflection of your reality, and your brain will stop trusting it sooner rather than later, which will end up triggering the abandonment of the rest of the habits.
- Do you clarify what you capture FREQUENTLY? Every day, every two days… Priorities are constantly changing, and if you don’t clarify your pending stuff frequently enough, it turns out that there are priority things that you don’t yet have defined in your system. Again, your brain will no longer trust a system that does not reflect the reality it perceives, and this will lead to the abandonment of other habits.
- Do you do the WEEKLY REVIEW? Every organizational system has a natural tendency to disorganization that must be corrected constantly. Doing the weekly review is essential to correct the imbalances that occur each week and leave the system updated, so that you can trust it.
If you do these three things correctly and on a regular basis you will end up establishing the necessary habits to be well organized and reach the degree of relaxed focus that this methodology promises.
Do you still fall off the wagon on a regular basis despite doing all of the above? Tell us your case in the comments below ;)
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