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GTD Debate - Writing Everything Down
Here are my beliefs on the “writing everything down” aspect of GTD. I believe that GTD is a great way to remove the stress of overbearing ideas, thoughts, and tasks when you are overloaded. If you have a demanding job, or you are sick and fall behind, that stuff can really get in the way of your life. The problem is, some people write down and plan so much, that it goes to the other extreme, and interferes in their life by being too planned. For me, my todo list is something that I try to keep as small as possible, trying to eliminate or complete items on it all the time. Because less todo items and stress means more time to spend living! As Lifehacker puts it, “Don’t live to geek, geek to live”. What are your thoughts on this? Please drop a comment with your opinion, or write a blog post with a trackback to continue the debate!
Follow The Debate: Ian’s Messy Desk: Taking a Brain Dump 
GTD and many other productivity systems advocate lists, and writing down all your thoughts, next actions, and todos. However this can bring some people from one extreme of being forgetful and disorganized to the other of having every single action planned out and written down.
Howlbeck said
am July 11 2007 @ 4:50 pm
I like online to-do-lists because things simply don’t get lost. I use them because I have all those hard-to-remember-things always available, regardless of where i am.
I totally agree with you in one point - I’m using it to eliminate my weak point: my brain. sometimes it simply says: STOP ! OVERLOAD !!! that’s when tdl’s came in, at first on paper (which was never available when needed) - nowadays on the web. I’m happy.
William Profet :: OneJobTwoSalaries.com said
am July 12 2007 @ 2:58 am
Writing down things is good but you should not overdo it. I have caught myself writing too much and taking not too much action.
The core of every success and achievement is action. So writing is just a tool, but not the real thing. I am trying to keep my todo lists simple and write as less as possible. This a hard task. :((
Regards,
William
Geoff R. said
am July 12 2007 @ 9:22 am
Howlbeck, how do you carry your online to do list with you? That my only real problem with my current Vitalist setup, and it is frustrating re-writing tasks if I need them on the run.
And William, I definitely agree with you on taking action. I love seeing my todo list almost empty
Geoff
Howlbeck said
am July 12 2007 @ 1:50 pm
Via my Blackberry and Rememberthemilk. I keep returning to RTM because it comes closest to my top favourite Todoist which is sadly missing the one or other feature at the moment fpr daily use. But i hope & believe this will be fixed soon ;o)
My problem simply was that I never ever managed to keep every information & reminder synchronized on all machines I use - RTM solved that for me.
Geoff R. said
am July 13 2007 @ 7:34 am
Sounds like you’ve got a nice solution there.
I keep all my tasks in Vitalist, but mobile viewing on my cell phone (standard small screen) is not pleasant. I have been trying to find a way to sync or just plain copy my Vitalist todos to my old Sony Palm, so that I can carry them around through the day.
Geoff
Don’t Try to Remember Everything said
am July 18 2007 @ 8:40 am
[…] Great minds think alike (/wink, nudge): Mike St. Pierre and Geoff are thinking about this too. > I Follow” title=”Leave a Comment and get the Link Love!!” […]
GTD Power Links 07-23-07 « Geeks Guide To GTD said
am July 23 2007 @ 5:06 am
[…] do you spell relief? Take a mind dump and write everything down. Geoff at Gearfire tagged me with the question of writing things down. In the GTD mindset, getting things out of […]
Writing Everything Down? Find the Right Balance! : Getting Things Done said
am August 2 2007 @ 2:47 pm
[…] couple of weeks ago, Geoff from Gearfire.net tagged me for an interesting discussion on writing everything […]