The Better GTD? – Try Sally McGhee’s Productivity System
Published: 20 May 2009 Author: Ilike Merey
Along with the rest of the world wrangling to get organised, you’ve memorised David Allen’s book; set up your tickler files; banished the inbox demons; set up your collection points; gotten your next actions identified and sorted; and are now getting things done. Your life is under complete control.
… Or not. While some may have found organisational peace with Allen’s GTD system, there are plenty still struggling at the yoke, waiting in vain for task completion relief. These are the users who find resistance with Allen, but perhaps need more next-action management than Mark Forster’s “Do It Tomorrow,” or his newest Autofocus system can offer. If you are one of these users, there’s another option on the horizon, utilising many of the same terminologies and concepts of GTD, but with less minute steps and hyper-meticulous control. Leading consultant, executive coach, and former colleague of David Allen, Sally McGhee offers her own productivity system, in her book entitled “Take Back Your Life” —and it may be better than GTD.
Meaningful Objectives
The point of having a productivity system is clear: To get things done, and a system like GTD would have us cranking out action after action in a purely mechanical way. While we may believe that to be ideal for completing all of our tasks, McGhee approaches the problem with more sophistication. As productivity consultant Matthew Cornell comments, after interviewing McGhee: “You must be selective – you are never going to get it all done. It’s not about getting everything done, it is about getting the right things done. Then the question becomes, ‘What are the right things?’” This is where her idea of “meaningful objectives” comes in: These are the objectives we have identified as important to us and our goals. When we evaluate each potential commitment and task in the context of whether or not they contribute to these objectives, we can eliminate meaningless actions.
One of the biggest critiques of GTD is that while it is undeniably an organisation monster, feeding it takes away too much from actually getting things done. Once we begin wrestling with upkeep, the point of having the system itself becomes vague. McGhee herself distils the objective of a productivity system into three key headings:
- Meaningful Objectives
- Strategic Next Actions
- Work/Life Balance
Note the lack of “Getting Organised,” because that can be conceived of as a false objective…
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I’m confused. What are the key differences to GTD? I don’t see any mentioned in the article, other than the absurd statement that GTD would “have us cranking out action after action in a purely mechanical way.” As if GTD doesn’t address the need for objectives!
GTD can be divided into two categories: gaining control (similar to strategic next actions), and gaining perspective (similar to meaningful objectives). Does that make GTD simpler than Take Back Your Life, which has three categories?
I’m not saying that TBYL doesn’t have unique charms that might make it better for some people–I have no idea. I’m just saying that this article fails to identify any real distinction between the two.
To Keith–
Nothing in McGhee’s system is radically different from Allen’s. If you are happy with GTD, there is no reason to switch over to her system. But many people who are not happy with GTD may be choking on the following point:
GTD invites you to dump everything in and have the system process all through different contexts and criteria (so-called “cranking widgets”).
In contrast, McGhee says that by focusing on what she calls “meaningful objectives,” you may not get everything done–but you will get the right things done, and be further along overall.
I believe this is the subtle, but significant difference in their approaches.
For a simple approach to being more product and get things done, you may want to check out http://www.GoalsOnTrack.com, a very nicely built web app designed for tracking goals and todo lists, and supports time tracking too. It’s clear, focused, easy to navigate, worth a try.
There are tons of alternatives to GTD. Since they worked together as I understand it the system is very GTD like. Most alternatives to GTD are totally different. In my experience people look for GTD alternatives because it is to cumbersome or complicated that is where systems like autofocus or DIT fit the bill nicely. Additionally and big one that I find is that people need support and some systems are not supported by the actual authors leading people to look elsewhere.
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