A few observations about David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) framework for organization:

• It works. It’s simple, and it may well be nothing but an amalgam of other systems, as my skeptical friend Link seems to feel… but it gets rid of most of the artificial “fluff” I’ve found in other system and the tyranny of hierarchical, prioritized lists, which become a kind of organizational quicksand. Instead, focusing on capturing idea without stress, instilling confidence in finding information, and letting me determine natural priorities within defined contexts for actions works out to be a real winner. It is likely that any of these popular systems can work, one just has to find that which is most suited to the way they think. GTD is it for me– and apparently for many others.

• To really succeed you have to take a day (or two, or three) to completely make the change over to the GTD way of task management. I’ve been feeling pretty good about the positive changes I am making, but it is also pretty clear that trying to ‘ease’ into it is just a way for me to put off some of the harder tasks of quantification and collection.

• GTD addresses– in a natural, comfortable manner– how to manage and approach projects and actions. But it doesn’t do those actions for you. At some point “the rubber has to hit the road” and that’s usually when my old friend procrastination settles in for a long, distracting visit. I wonder about the psychology of procrastination and why people do it. It’s not just me, and judging from others it isn’t about being too smart (or too dumb), nor is it really about laziness. Is it fear? An addiction to the adrenaline of pulling things together frantically? Is it about stimulating that part of our brain that works best with near panic?

• You don’t have to join a cult or buy any products beyond the book. In fact, it’s probably best not to because:

• It is easy– way too easy– to get caught up in the technology of getting organized. I could spend the next year tinkering around with my PDA, haunting the GTD forums, and coming up with new and ever more efficient way to organize paper and folders. If that’s not the antithesis of getting things done, it has to be pretty close. As a certified geek I fall into this trap all the time in many areas… it isn’t just this area. But in this area the consequences of getting wrapped up in the method is that there can literally be no benefit at all from one’s effort!