GTD

A few weeks ago, I was wandering around the Behance website (found via Life Dev), when I ran across the idea of an Action Center.

Behance is a nifty little company dedicated to “Making Ideas Happen in the Creative Community.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? It is.

As well as some excellent methods and tips, They’ve come up with some drool-worthy productivity tools. I’ve already printed copies of their Action Pad Template (seriously worth checking out) and I’m lusting after the cards and labels and mini pads and and and…

Oh, right. Action Center.

The Action Center is a centralized place where all the action stuff goes. Packages that need to be taken to the post office, mail that comes in, general to-do sorts of info, anything that needs attention. An inbox, an outbox, and more. But rather than being tucked into a corner of the office, it needs to be somewhere in the traffic flow, so people *see* it. I liked the idea.

So I pulled out one of those freshly printed Action Pad sheets, and jotted down my thoughts, complete with action items and a quick sketch of how I thought it might look. It seemed an amazingly workable plan — and even more amazing, the plan worked.

I now have an action center in the living room.

In keeping with my recent theme of secret-societies-that-lend-credibility, I even printed up da Vinci style parchment scrolls and added an antique candlestick for atmosphere in the photo. (You can click on the images in this post for details, but so far as I know the candlestick was never involved in any conspiratorial meetings)

Amazingly, I assembled it for almost no cost.

The base is an old wicker chest I had laying around with junk in it (I’ll be moving all of the currently scattered household emergency supplies into the chest) On top of the chest is a lovely lap desk which I love but have never used. It has slots that are perfectly sized for file folders, and the top has convenient depressions to hold pens.

The baskets I appropriated from my studio, and the old fashioned hanging files I’ve had for years, and have always been full of junk. (There’s another larger set across the room, serving as the significant other’s inbox/magazine holder)

The only expense so far is 3 clipboards ($6) and two baskets to replace the ones I appropriated ($17).

I’m still working out exactly how to use all of the hanging file folders, but…

Doesn’t it look cool?

MindTweak: Organization + Pretty Stuff = Action Asthetics.

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.

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