Many of us are looking for some kind of system to simplify our lives.  We may have one already in place or we may have looked to a formal organisational method such as GTD or DIT to try to get our appointments, tasks and procrastination under control.  While methods may claim to be able to radically organise our lives, with our different circumstances, jobs and need for control, relief usually does not come the moment we implement the system-but once we have modified it to meet our individual situation.  This is self-evident to many users, yet too often, we get bogged down in trying to follow the method to the letter and this can be compounded by other users insisting they know the right/best way to interpret any rule.  This is when the system stops being a tool to relieve stress and just adds to our existing levels.

Caught Up in Words

On a thread on Mark Forster’s Autofocus forum, Christine B writes:  “I think one of the issues in any system, whether that be GTD, DIT or AF is semantics – the thought associations we already attach to words is what actually influences.”  When we approach an organisational method, we face reading a book or a list of instructions that tells us how to succeed with that system.  This could be in the form of David Allen’s book, “Getting Things Done,” or it could be a detailed verbal suggestion a co-worker has for keeping on top of reports.  Whatever the format may be though, we are essentially facing a method that has worked for that person and in their situation, and when we press ourselves to follow their method too closely, the potential for failure is high.   This is why many users modify and personalise methods, which is not a problem-until someone starts getting dogmatic.

…There Was the Word

Tip: Don’t apply the 2 Minute Rule to cuddles with your cutie-pie, coffees with your colleagues or calls to your mother.

Take a well-known credo of David Allen’s GTD, the two minute rule.  GTD has an abundance of complex intricacies, but this rule may just be one of the most self-explanatory.  If it takes less than two minutes, don’t put it off.  Do it.  Going to the GTD forum, I had found a thread started by a user who claimed he could never seem to get the two minute rule to work for him.  This seemingly innocuous confession touched off three pages of comments from other GTD users:  Some tried to interpret what they thought the rule meant to Allen or the system in general, others admitted to modifying it to fit their own use.  While it is good to be able to converse with other users and get their opinions on a frustrating rule that just won’t seem to work, in the end, nobody can explain (not even the author of the system) what the two minute rule means to YOU.  Every rule and every tenet of every organisational system is subject to change by the user; subject to their own interpretation, and if the two minute rule or any other rule doesn’t work, anyone is free to modify it or abandon it completely.   Instead of trying to debunk what a guru meant when he or she made some statement, users can ask themselves:  What does that mean to me?  Does it help me stay on task, or do I find myself fighting it?  And if the answers are “Nothing” and “Yes, I resist it,” eliminating the rule entirely may be the best way, regardless of how the author intended it.

Personal Adaptations

“Project,” “Someday/Maybe,” “jumps out at you,”… these are some of the words and phrases people using systems such as GTD or Autofocus may have different reactions to, depending on the user.  The word “project” means something potentially different for a mother of three and a regional manager of a software company-and neither definition is wrong.  A productivity system is designed to make our lives simpler, which cannot happen if we are expending too much energy into pushing ourselves unreasonably into following it word for word.  This also means not letting others tell us that we are doing our system “wrong.”  Let the system fit around your requirements, not the other way around and try to keep in mind that these rules are suggestions.  No matter how many people have supposedly benefited from following a system by the book, if you don’t find it helpful, the method itself becomes meaningless.

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