Committing to collecting
I’ve read David Allen’s Getting Things Done several times, and I’ve tried unsuccessfully several times to stick with it. For a while, I was interested in designing and tweaking my own geeky, low-tech system, and treating it like an engineering problem. Well, now I could care less about the system. All I want are the promised results. But I’m willing to make gradual changes, and I don’t expect everything to happen all at once. As wonderful as David makes it sound, I still haven’t gotten to that point of having 100% of everything into that proverbial trusted external system. I believe him that it makes a difference, but I have to content myself with an intermediate, incomplete system on my way there.
Today, I’m reading through Leo Babauta’s “Zen to Done (ZTD)” e-book. The key insight that he offers is that implementing GTD involves a series of habit changes, and attempts to change habits are much more successful when they’re tackled one at a time. So I’m hereby committing to developing the first of the 10 habits he lists: Collect. I’ve got a pocket-sized Moleskine in one pocket and a pen in the other pocket, so I have everything I need. The next time something pops into my head about something I need to do or some bill I need to pay, I’ll immediately offload it from my brain and into the notebook.