The Biggest Reason for Failing with GTD

Posted on January 13, 2009 by Bruce Keener

In the recent Lifehacker interview with David Allen, David was asked where most folks “fall off the GTD wagon.” He replied:

“Most folks don’t take the GTD tools far enough to really get the benefits. They don’t really do a thorough and consistent mind sweep, externalizing all of their commitments into a system they trust. Then they don’t review their commitments (calendar, projects list, next actions for each project) often enough to build the trust that they’re doing what’s most important at any given time. They therefore still trust their psyche more than their system, which makes system maintenance more trouble than it pays off.”

I have emphasized his point about mind sweeping, because I have found it to be so true. I recently mentioned to you that my mind was very noisy, and doing a mind sweep made me feel so much better.

Interestingly, about two days after writing to you about that, I decided to try another mind sweep. It took me a few more hours, scattered over 3 or 4 days, to write up another 6 pages of “stuff.” Again, bear in mind that this was after I thought I had done a good mind sweep.

The extra six pages is not full of new action items, although there are a lot of new action items in the list. (My writing on those pages is big, which partly explains why so many pages.) The list also contains things I need to work through to figure out a corresponding action. For example, the list contains some negative self-talk that I need to figure out how to overcome.

Anyway, the point is that it is easy to “finish” a mind sweep before you have really finished it. I personally think that this is the biggest problem people have with GTD … they (me, too) are not really getting everything out of their heads and into a trusted system.

Have you really finished your most recent mind sweep?

Your thoughts?

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  • http://www.pelotonics.com Troy Malone

    Very good points here. I am writing a blog post that ties into this. My contention is that productivity is very similar to physical fitness. Sure, many people go to the gym, but they always have a love hate relationship with working out because they never get over the fitness hump. Once you cross the hump and have a true runner’s high experience, it is tough to slack off again…you get addicted.

    As you have mentioned here, you need to get over the hump and do a FULL mind sweep to really get there and get addicted to it. Once you are addicted to something, keeping up with it is not an issue!

    @troymalone

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

    Troy,
    Thank you for the comments. Very good analogy with the health.

  • http://www.billmyerscreations.com/blog Bill Myers

    Have you really finished your most recent mind sweep?

    If I may continue the exercise metaphor, doing a mindsweep is like lifting weights: the first time’s the most painful. If I fall off the wagon for a few weeks, I’ll find myself needing to do a mindsweep that results in nine or ten pages worth of stuff. When I do my weekly review on, you know, a weekly basis I find my mindsweep usually results in only one or two pages of stuff.

    I’ve found that it helps to carry a small notepad and pen wherever I go. I anything springs to mind that’s worth capturing I can jot it down in a few seconds. The more stuff I capture on the fly, the easier my mindsweeps are.

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

    Bill,
    Good to hear from you again, and thanks for the comment and question.

    I think I actually have finished my mind sweep, this time. When I was “living GTD,” I did one about once a month, and that was a good frequency for me … I am good at capturing actions that pop in mind (transferring to 3×5 cards that are always near me, or using the Notetaker Wallet from DavidCo), but still, with an extremely busy mind (which I know you also have), stuff gets missed, especially the more subjective stuff, which is sometimes the more important stuff.

    The other thing I have realized from this “exercise” is to be careful about cleaning out your Someday/Maybe stuff … some of what showed up in my latest dumping of thoughts was stuff that used to be in my Someday/Maybe list, before I went on a cleaning spree with it … I thought it had too much stuff in it, so I cut it in half, basically. That is a no-no and goes directly against the principles of GTD. Sure one should eliminate stuff that will really Never be done, but you really need to get the mind’s agreement on that first … generally those items are probably very few.

    Thanks again.

  • http://www.billmyerscreations.com/blog Bill Myers

    LOL! I was actually trying to answer your question, rather than pose that question to you. I guess I should have been more clear. Although I guess there’s no harm nor foul, and it did elicit an interesting answer from you.

    After I wrote my post I set about to do my weekly review and expected that my mindsweep would result in one or two pages worth of stuff. I ended up with ten. I guess I had more rattling around there than I’d realized. Thanks for helping me to discover that.

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