Category: “Getting Things Done - GTD”

Everyone likes tools. Tools excite us. They empower us. They slow us down. A tool that is not sharp doesn’t allow you to do so much. A very sharp tool allows you to stab yourself.

Whenever a FacileThings user cancels his subscription, or simply doesn’t renew it, I try to find out the reasons. If they answer my email and the reason is something that is not working properly, or it’s not easily understood or they just don’t like it, it becomes an opportunity for me to improve the service and avoid that other users end up with the same (bad) experience. However, one of the most usual answers I get is something like “using the application meant doing things in a different way than I am used to”.

In GTD we name those things we have captured and are still not processed as “stuff”. And we do it on purpose, to denote their abstract nature, since we haven’t yet paused to think what they really are—although we may have a preconceived idea. Then, when you are processing or clarifying your stuff, the key question is “Is there any action required?”

Every time you are learning something new, developing a new habit or running a big project, there are always moments in which thoughts invade your mind. It looks like you don’t move on, you don’t feel comfortable and your goal seems too far away.

When you are processing your inbox, that is, clarifying the meaning of those things you have captured before, you will probably find some that don’t need any action right now but might need it in the future. They are actions like the following: