http://www.darklingwood.com/2009/06/why-gtd-getting-things-done-doesnt-work.html

Welcome back to sanity

My mother and I are as far apart on the organizational personality style chart as two people can be. I cannot function without organizational systems, I create them in my sleep and maintain them almost subconsciously. My mother is like you – a highly creative whirlwind, plucking her tasks out of the tornado that swirls around her at any given time.

I thought GTD was going to be revolutionary, and eagerly ate it up. I was thoroughly dissapointed. It provided nothing really new for me, and was way too “big” for my mother. It seems well suited to the average individual, but if you fall outside of that spectrum it doesn’t do you much good.

There are books and systems out there for “messies”, people with generally disorganized personalities. Most of them are dedicated to space clutter and written to an audience of married women, which might make you dismiss them out of hand.

However, for someone with a lack of ingrained order and structure, dealing with space clutter is a great way to get started. The results are immediate and gratifying, and the backslides that you need to catch are much more noticeable earlier on than in a more intangible mental clutter eliminating system such as GTD.

The habits that you develop when dealing with space clutter will stay with you and make the transition to dealing with mental clutter much easier. I have some books I’d be willing to lend if you’re interested.

One other observation. For a highly creative person who has lots of different tangents going on at any given time, something simple like a PDA or a notebook won’t cut it as a GTD capture device. Going back to that tangible vs. intangible thing again, I also find that sticking stuff into a digital organization system is like shooting it off into a black hole. Out of sight, out of mind.

I have several giant white boards, mounted in plain sight where I have to walk by them multiple times per day. One is just for my personal life, one is for business and projects, and the third is for household mundaneness such as grocery lists, meal planning, etc. For really comlicated long term projects (such as your conference) I also use tabbed dividers that help me further divide the whole into subtasks and keep track of things.

And I guess the last tip would be, one step at a time. Trying to jump into a whole system all at once is almost a gaurantee of failure. Pick one organizational habit and don’t add another till the first is second nature. Its sort of like weight loss, the all or nothing approach gets you nowhere.

BTW, congrats on the conference! I have been having some health problems and wound up in bed that day. I hate that I missed it. Looking forward to next year, though.

Start small, find ONE thing you can do consistently that will have a long term effect. Are you overwhelmed by the largess of GTD? (Personally, I like the idea, but keeping track of all those lists/etc takes more time than just doing stuff.) Use it as your basis and adjust until it is both evil and genius enough to work for you.