Category: “Getting Things Done - GTD”

To-do lists can be really useful when used properly. The problem is that a lot of times we use them wrong. And one of the most common mistakes is writing down simple things that we can cross out easily to make ourselves feel well.

The GTD phenomenon appeared over 15 years ago, and maybe due to that the more skeptic want to say it’s dead. The truth is it was quite a “trend” some years ago. According to Google, the “Getting Things Done” search grew significantly in 2005 and it reached his maximum at 2007. However, the acronym GTD (much more popular outside the Anglo-Saxon world) took up the torch since then, and the graphic shows that the interest has been constant from then on.

I suppose you know Pocket. It is an excellent service that allows you to save all kinds of links to read or watch later. It integrates perfectly with all your social media, your email, your browsers and all your mobile devices, so that whenever you find something that seems interesting, wherever you are, and you don’t have enough time to go through it thoroughly, you can capture it with just a simple click to look it up later. Frankly, I believe it’s a great idea.

In forums regarding personal productivity, GTD, and mainly, personal management apps, I always find quite a big percentage of people who are really worried about questions regarding speed. Why do I need to double click, when I could just click once? why isn’t there a keyboard shortcut for every operation in the app? why does it take a few minutes to perform a specific process instead of just seconds? etc.

One of the factors that influence the most in your personal productivity is the energy you have when you need to face a task. It’s obvious that if you’re feeling tired, moody, distracted or grumpy, you won’t be capable of keeping the same level of attention to what you are doing and because of this you either will take longer to complete the task or the final result will be worse. But usually, both things will happen.