I believe there are two reasons some of us don’t do well with the popular workflow approaches. Not at superstar level, but consistently enough to always be gaining ground. Perhaps not coincidentally, I’ve also worked out my own way of getting things done. In my old age I think I’ve figured out what it is that’s missing, and why.
Something is missing from the “how to be productive” discussion. I also don’t think I’m that unusual in my chronic inability to convert the written wisdom of David Allen or Cal Newport into a sustainable, self-directed way of working. That might be entirely my fault, as a productivity non-natural, but knowing that doesn’t solve anything. There are just too many moving parts you have to get right at the same time. I would read and reread these books with great enthusiasm, and learn a lot from them, but never seemed able to implement their systems as an ongoing thing. This pattern seemed to happen with every productivity book I tried, even the very best ones like Deep Work, Atomic Habits, and The Pomodoro Technique. Then at some point I forget to check a few of the interconnected lists and folders, and soon my watertight system has become another pile of papers with important things written on them that I will get to someday.Īrtist’s rendering of me implementing the GTD system And several times, I have - for about 48 hours. I love the system, and I’ve spent much of my adult life fantasizing about having it in place. It presents a watertight system for gathering all of your obligations into a giant funnel, and cranking them through a coordinated workflow system so that pure success gushes out the bottom. In my own quest for the grail, there probably isn’t a book I’ve read more times than David Allen’s landmark book Getting Things Done.
It would unlock vast tracts of life that have always seemed off-limits to us. A sustainable productivity method is our holy grail. So for those of us who have always struggled to get a reasonable volume of stuff done, whether it’s because of ADHD, depression, or natural temperament, the prospect of becoming a productive person is extremely appealing. It’s the only way to express ourselves, maintain our households, and create things that improve people’s lives. Of course, everyone understands the rewards of getting things, by whatever means, to a state of doneness - even those of us who live in an inner world with reverse gravity. The gravity in the doer’s inner world seems to draw them in the direction of action. So they start the doing process and this appears to give them some relief. Even if the task is in some way objectionable, its not-doneness is apparently more objectionable. Doing seems to be their most natural response to existence. Natural doers are mysterious creatures to me, but I have met and observed many of them. When there’s something that needs doing – a table to be cleared, or a flowerbed to be weeded - they get uncomfortable and start doing it.
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