#28 Getting Things Done & Other Flights of Fancy

I'm an avid list maker. I sense a great feeling of release (and perhaps excitement) in making a To Do list and checking off everything that I have completed. I suppose I'm a little bit behind the curve in not integrating my To Do's and schedules on the web. I'm just too attached to my spiral notebook and daily/monthly planner to forfeit the joy of physically writing out my goals and visually seeing them completed with the scratching-off motion and aesthetic.

I'm a planner. I love making short-term and long-term plans. My To Do lists almost always include a list of things easily accomplished today, followed by more intensive projects that might find completion in months or years.

I'm a librarian and pride myself on my multi-tasking, prioritizing, and organizing capabilities. This whole ideology behind "Getting Things Done," for me, does not seem particularly revolutionary. I feel I already do an alright job of maintaining an organized workflow, of recognizing what can be done immediately and what is worth a more intensive time-commitment, and of eliminating junk.

I'm thinking that the whole "Getting Things Done" system of "establish[ing] a work flow process, us[ing] 6 levels of focus and the five stages of the natural planning method" does not really prevent one from spending more time organizing than actually doing (which is giving as a sort of warning or threat). In fact, getting a little too crazy about defining your work flow, six levels of focus, and five stages of planning might actually just be confusing the whole matter.