On Iron Horse he flies, on Iron Horse he gladly dies, Iron Horse his wife, Iron Horse his life.

2004/10/15 15:14:00

I absolutely know right now everything I’m not doing but could be doing if I decided to. ??David Allen??

What happened to the summer? I almost remember it, fun weekends in Croyde, a couple of good weddings, a new house, but no real lazy days in the sun. This year has passed me by so far. I have been so tied up in the right now that I have missed what is coming up or what has passed.
Time has come to stop all this and take control. I have a mountain of paper that needs filing, a million projects I want to do, a house to unpack and I still have days where I can’t remember what I have done because I have basically done nothing.
So I did the only thing that I seem to be able to do right now and started to read the web, on a mini mission to get my self sorted. I looked at all sorts of software and websites but they all smacked of the “Self Help” section. Then I stumbled upon 43folders a little website about hacks for Mac OS-X. Not that relevant you may say but these hacks were based around the book by David Allen called Getting Things Done. Now I am not a great believer in these self motivation, time management and getting you ducks in a row, buzzword compliant books and ideas but something about what I was reading just hooked me in so I popped it into Bloglines and thought nothing of it.
Some days later after reading a few more entries at 43folders I decided to do a bit more digging on this Dave Allen guy and see what GTD(Getting Things Done) was all about. It all sounded pretty simple you based around getting things off your mind so that you could be free to think and then sorting through these things and sorting out a list of actions that you have to do.
I brought the book determined to make some sort of a change to my life. I have almost finished it, which is unusual for me and books. It is all very obvious stuff and as he writes about doing this or that it smacks as a little simple but by starting to put it all into practise I feel I am starting to take some control back. I have filed all my paper work, I have an empty e-post in-box, I have a list of real actions that I have to do next. I have a set of projects that I want to do and these are feeding my action list nicely. But best of all I am getting things done. No really. No honestly, it has made quite a difference to the way I feel right now. I still have quite a way to go and it may all fall to pieces real soon but right now I feel a lot better for it.

PS. Do you like how I got in a motivational phrase and everything. I will be writing a help yourself book before you know it! In GTD(Getting Things Done) Mr Allen had littered these little phrases down the sides of the page. They have to be the most annoying thing since the mobile ring tone. You have to stop reading what you are reading to read a pointless side quote. Then you loose concentration on what you are doing.

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