Getting Things Done: At Least I Bought The Book

Yes, I rant incessantly against popular pseudo-spiritual books, but if you wave a pretty little organizational system under my nose, I fall into line like a good little evangelical sheep.

Baa.

For those of you who have been living under a rock, Getting Things Done (GTD to the in-crowd) is the productivity system that powers a crusading army of geeks. And yes, I admit it.. I am a geek. A rather bad geek, who tends to forget what gigahertz means, much less how many she has, but a geek none-the-less.

GTD is the geek equivalent to The Secret, without the pseudo science. It’s a bestselling book, it’s an A-list blog, it’s heroin, crack, and Kool-Aid, all at once. It waters the plants and changes light bulbs, and even refrains from telling bad jokes about the light bulbs.

(Q:how many GTDers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Will it last more than than 2 minutes?)

Like fans of The Secret, GTD converts swear that it is the single approach to all things organizational, a method which will revolutionize our lives and remove the roadblocks to our productive successivity.

Like The Secret, an entire subculture of support systems have cropped up around GTD: supporting software, blogs, and pretty flowcharts for your desktop.

Unlike The Secret, Getting Things Done requires work.

Never mind that! Look back at the flow charts.. oooh pretty colors!

*memerized stare*

But it works, it works I tell you!

Well, actually…

I don’t know if it works yet. I just bought the book.

Baaaa.

I finally succumbed to the cult-like call of Getting Things Done when my mother begged me to teach her organizational skills.

When someone starts begging *ME* to teach them organizational skills, you know they are in trouble. So I did what I always do when faced with a new challenge. I bought a book.

THE Book.

The Getting Things Done book.

*reverent silence*

*reverent chirp of crickets*

Amazingly enough, I bought almost nothing else; no new folders, clipboards, stickers, or index cards, just two baskets to replace the ones I cannibalized to make an inbox. I cleared out a corner of the living room, stacked up some existing unused organizational stuff that was laying around the house, and tada… an inbox/action area.

I’m considering printing up some sketches from Da Vinci images to give it that ancient Secret conspiracy feel to it.

Ok, seriously.

I’m going to try out the GTD system on a small scale, and apply it to my snail mail for a week or two. I have boxes of the stuff accumulated, waiting to be shredded or filed. I’ve lost important papers more times than I can count… And while sorting through things yesterday, I found a $532 dollar check, unopened.

Five.

Hundred.

Thirty-Two.

DOLLARS.
Just sitting there. Buried under offers from Direct TV and Costco. This is a problem of significant proportions.

GTD to the rescue.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Care for some Kool-aid while you wait?