Applied Effectiveness: Online Discussions and Forums

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Applied Effectiveness: Online Discussions and Forums

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Published: 6 August 2008 Author: Adrian Koh

Communities in a Nutshell

This is part III of III of our research on available online publications, blogs and online discussions.

Our research covers a variety of sources including online publications and active web communities. We dive deep into the articles and discussions to extract the most pertinent pieces of information. The result is a succinct report on the most salient topics renewed on a regular basis.

If you go on the internet today, you will find an abundance of productivity systems and success literature. Prior to the popularization of the World Wide Web, information distribution worked largely as a one way system: authors simply laid out their manifestos, and readers were left to absorb and implement these ideas by themselves. This is not the case anymore. User communities where readers can openly share their thoughts and feedback have found kinship and support in cyberspace. Recognizing their potential, we have targeted the choicest communities – chosen based on their quality, information, size, and activity – and listed them here, along with our thoughts and impressions.

Lifestyle and Life Management

Steve Pavlina Forums (very high activity, 11,702 members), the Mindlist Yahoo Group (very high activity, 6665 members), the ZenHabits forums (medium activity, 1928 members), Get Organized Now! Forums (2281 members), Daily Tips on Time Management (1,337 members), and Mark Forster’s Get Everything Done Forums cover a range of lifestyle topics including personal effectiveness, success, time management, meditation, and hypnotherapy. Forum members talk about implementing new techniques for life management (David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) System, Tim Ferriss’ ideas from his book, “The 4-Hour Workweek”, Jim Rohn’s books and lectures, among many others) and offer a healthy spirit of encouragement and support. Some of these communities (Steve Pavlina’s forum and Mindlist) also delve into the more controversial techniques such as Neurolinguistic Progamming (NLP).

Tips and Tricks and Other “Piecemeal Lifehacks”

SimplyMeWithTipsAndTricks Yahoo Group (high activity, 3340 members), Time Management Yahoo Group (very low activity, 2333 members), and 43Folders Google Group and Forums (medium activity, weekly posts) are sources for simple lifehacks and productivity tools for the everyday person. As such, they remain a good resource for starting off newcomers with the concept of “life-hacking”. These sites offer piecemeal solutions to a myriad of problems without aligning to any particular productivity system. Instead, readers are encouraged to select and customise their own productivity systems from an ever-growing inventory of “lifehacks”. The forums and discussion groups also tend to lack content management beyond a “search” field and good practices easily get lost over time. Still, when properly organised and edited for consistency, these sites can serve as a library of tools that can be utilized for many of life’s tasks.

On Applying Getting Things Done

The David Allen Company Forums (high activity, 7975 members), Getting_Things_Done Yahoo Group (6260 members, very high activity), Ready4Anything Yahoo Group (1404, low activity), and GTD Tips and Techniques Google Group (high activity, 1826 members) are groups and forums focused on the application of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system. In general, GTD focused groups are very active. These groups have the most insights on GTD and are happy to share extensively on the practical execution of the GTD concept. Group members discuss many facets of GTD and range from the dogmatic GTD enthusiasts to the more liberal users who incorporate other systems as well. Many discussion topics center on poking holes in GTD theories, sometimes offering unique and interesting systems that may be incorporated into a GTD backbone.

Discussion Groups on Software-Empowered and Paper-Based Productivity

The GTD_MindManager Yahoo Group (1318 members), AnalogOrg Yahoo Group (1454 members), and GTD-Palm Yahoo Group (7723 members) typically began as active groups, but have drastically lowered their activity over time. Surviving contributors mostly discuss the latest or most recently discovered tools to aid their productivity systems. Discussions are candid and have thorough explanations in terms of user experience. Still, the more informative tips – such as the ones detailing full productivity systems on a particular software or platform – are only to be found in the earliest posts.

Facebook Discussions and Groups

Facebook groups are currently low in activity, functioning more as platforms where like-minded people may network. If Facebook groups grow in popularity, it may eventually see more use and thus increase in value as a life-design resource.

Your Views and Contributions

Here is where you, the readers, come in. There are certainly plenty of communities on the web sharing excellent tips which did not show up on our radar. Share them with us and we will be more than glad to add them to our monitor. Let us know what you think of our existing list as well!