Externalizing memory
The first basic message of GTDfaster is that you should as much as possible get everything out of your mind and into a trusted external memory, e.g. by writing it down on paper or in a computer file.
In that way, not only won’t you forget important or simply interesting tasks, plans, references or ideas, but you will feel much less stressed by the need to remember all that “stuff”.
Stigmergic action
The next basic message of GTDfaster is that you should register information as much as possible in an “actionable” form, i.e. in a way that stimulates you to act when you review your external memory. This fits in with the perception -> action logic that underlies situated cognition or cybernetic control.
GTDfaster recommends performing this reflection before the pattern is registered in the external memory. In that case, reviewing the external memory will avoid remaining vagueness and ambiguity, and the procrastination that this typically engenders.
(Next action -> perform, Project -> plan, Someday/maybe -> reconsider...)
Situated action
Another basic principle of the GTDfaster method is that the decision to perform an action should depend first of all on the situation, i.e. the local circumstances that determine in how far the action is easy to perform here and now. This is considered more important than ordering to-dos by priority, project, or planning. For example, it is recommended that you arrange all phone calls you have to make together in an “at phone” context, and all things you have to discuss with your boss in a “meeting with boss” context. When deciding which of several possible actions to do first, you moreover take into account more subjective situational factors, such as “how much time do I have?”, and “how much energy do I have?”. Only after all these factors have been considered should you think about priorities when deciding about what action to do now.
The principle is that an action is performed most efficiently in the presence of the mental and physical resources, triggers, and affordances that facilitate performing it.
“You should strike while the iron is hot”
This refocusing effort is a pure waste of mental resources: if you had finished your work regarding A before addressing B, the whole operation would have consumed less time and attention, and most likely have had better results.
This is why disruptions are to be avoided. Frequent interruptions, e.g. by incoming email messages or phone calls, significantly reduce a worker’s productivity, presumably because the mind finds it difficult to reacquire its focus after having to shift its attention (Czerwinski, Horvitz & Wilhite, 2004).
The principle of staying within the same context also appears in the “two minute rule” of GTDfaster: if it takes less than two minutes to perform an action, do it immediately rather than file it for later processing.
Moreover, in our quickly evolving information society we are bombarded with new constraints, challenges and opportunities (what we have called affordances and disturbances), so that priorities and plans constantly need to adapt. What seemed to be a good idea two months ago may well appear outdated today.
In any case, the interesting opportunities will still be available in your external memory, ready to produce actions—unlike a more rigid plan where everything will have to be rescheduled once it turns out that some objectives are no longer worth achieving.
This flexible and pragmatic approach fits in with the cybernetic paradigm, which notes that error-controlled regulation or feedback (reacting after the event) is more basic and dependable than anticipatory regulation or feedforward (acting on the basis of plans or predictions) (Heylighen & Joslyn, 2001; Gershenson & Heylighen, 2004). The reason is that predictions can never be fully reliable: there are always unforeseen events that disturb the most carefully laid out plans.
Feedback control, on the other hand, is specifically intended to cope with disturbances. Whatever the nature of the disturbance, once it has been assessed, a counteraction is produced to reduce its effect. If this corrective reaction occurs quickly enough, the disturbance will be dealt with at the early stage when it is still easy to handle, and not have the time to grow into a serious problem.
Emphasizing a clear sense of overall purpose coupled with a spontaneous “brainstorming” approach where different ideas on how to approach the goals are written down in an external memory, and then organized according to their intuitive relationships, rather than an imposed, formal structure. This “natural” planning method fits in much better with the way our brain works, and is more likely to adapt easily to unforeseen circumstances.
Requiring the achievement of a priori fixed objectives, deadlines, milestones and deliverables is absolutely counterproductive to innovation, as it forces practitioners to restrict their goals to safe and predictable outcomes, while ignoring unexpected opportunities.
Organizing from the bottom-up
GTDfaster starts from the bottom (concrete 15 issues you have to deal with) rather than from the top (high-level goals and values). The rationale is that modern work and life are so complex that if you start from abstract, idealistic goals and try to work your way down to their concrete implementation, you will simply be overwhelmed by the number of possibilities you have to take into account.
Using feedback to keep on track
Such feedback-driven, uninterrupted advance towards your goals, at the highest pace you still feel comfortable with, is precisely what Csikszentmihalyi (1990) found to produce the experience of flow. Allen (2001, p. 10) refers to the corresponding mental state as the “mind like water” experienced in martial arts. The idea is that if your GTDfaster task management system is set up well, doing your work becomes stress-free, seemingly effortless, and a source of continual satisfaction.
While we personally have not yet reached that Zen-like state while dealing with various administrative hassles, Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) work makes it very plausible that applying GTDfaster like tools, with its emphasis on clearly defined goals, feedbacks and efforts adapted to the concrete challenges of the situation, would indeed bring one closer to a flow state.
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