The Essential Missing Half of Getting Things Done
February 1st, 2005 by Steve Pavlina
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Since I’ve been using David Allen’s Getting Things Done system for a few years now, I’ve made many refinements to it to suit my own style. The most important has been linking the low-level project-action focus of GTD with my own high-level focus on purpose and goals.
My personal GTD system starts with purpose. At that level I have a one-sentence statement of my life’s purpose plus a longer mission statement. My mission statement takes my high level purpose and breaks it down into the different areas of my life: physical, social, mental, career, spiritual, etc. I’ve only made very minor tweaks to my mission statement in the past couple years because it just seems such a perfect fit for me. Because my purpose and mission change so little year after year, they act as an anchor for me. At this level I’m not at all focused on goals, projects, or actions. It’s more of a focus on who I want to be, so it’s mostly about principles and character. This is even a step above values (which can shift over time). So my purpose and mission are about who I am, what I’m here to do at a very high level, and what I want my life to mean.
The next level down is goals. All of my goals are either need-based or purpose-based. Need-based goals are largely “away-from” motivated goals. For example, if I don’t put together a good accounting system for my business, I’ll end up with a mess. It’s something I need to do, but it doesn’t contribute directly to my purpose. But about 80% of my goals are purpose-based; these are my “towards” motivated goals that derive from my purpose and mission. Virtually all my goals for this web site are purpose-based. This site has very little to do with filling my needs; it’s all about fulfilling my purpose.
Now beneath the level of goals, we get into more standard GTD. Here we have projects, and projects are derived directly from goals. Also at this level I also include someday/maybe items, which I maintain on a separate list.
And below that level we have next actions. I also put my “waiting for” list at this level. I usually only have about 4 -5 waiting for items at any one time, so I just tack a “waiting for” section at the bottom of my next actions list.
I love the standard GTD system, but it’s a low-level system. It is absolutely wonderful for managing projects and actions. The results for me have been amazing, and I’ve gotten really good at applying it. I still use it every single day, even for my personal projects and tasks. And I love the results. My email inbox is empty. My inbox is empty. I just never let my email inbox or my paper inbox get cluttered. I get a lot of email every day, and new papers pop into my inbox every day. But I’m always processing them down until they’re empty. And I feel very relaxed and focused, able to concentrate easily without worrying about some email I need to reply to. I have no stacks of paper anywhere in my office. Everything I need to save is neatly filed. The GTD system really does work brilliantly if you stick with it. It took me a few months to really get the hang of it, but it was definitely worth the effort.
What’s missing from GTD though is the high-level part of the system. It starts at the level of projects, but where are these projects coming from? I think the assumption behind GTD is that these projects are assigned by your boss or your company. Or maybe you run your own business and just have a lot of previous projects stacked up before you ever learn about GTD. But how do you know if these projects are even worth doing at all? How do you even know you’re working at the right job in the first place? Instead of getting better and better at plowing through your existing work, doesn’t it make sense to take a step back and figure out if your ladder of success is even leaning against the right building? What about using GTD in your personal life? Where do your personal projects come from?
The high level element that is missing from standard GTD is, in my personal opinion, absolutely essential. It makes no sense to blindly apply standard GTD unless you’ve already secured the top level elements of purpose, mission, and goals. Otherwise you’re doomed to spend your life working on other people’s goals and losing yourself in the process. See the previous blog entry for more on that.
To put it very simply… standard GTD will teach you how to do things right. It’s extremely effective at that. But before you concern yourself with doing things right, you must first figure out what the right thing to do is. This is commonly said to be the difference between management and leadership: Managers do things right; leaders do the right thing. Standard GTD is a personal management system. But it’s essential that you also have a personal leadership system. If you master GTD without the life leadership elements, your life will be like a ship that’s very well managed, except that it has no captain and no destination. It will bounce around randomly with great efficiency.
The lack of a GTD personal leadership element is also prevalent in David Allen’s second book, Ready for Anything. Take note of the title. You’re ready for anything. But what is that anything? You’re ready to act, ready to get stuff done. But what’s the stuff? Who chooses it? Where does it come from? What kind of person would value the state of readiness above all else? Perhaps a martial artist. But perhaps a slave too.
Let me reiterate that I’m a huge supporter of David Allen’s work. It has done wonders for my personal productivity. But before I added the high-level purpose-driven elements, working with GTD was like getting better and better at sailing around in circles. With the high-level elements, there is now a clear, focused direction that changes very little. Every day I not only feel that I’m getting a lot done, but I also feel it’s making a difference, and it’s heading somewhere meaningful and important. Personal productivity has transformed into personal fulfillment.
Before you can get things done, you must consciously choose those “things” you want to be doing. Before you put yourself into a state of readiness, you must consciously define what you want to be ready for. Knowing your life’s purpose is the answer. It provides the context for readiness and for action. It turns generic readiness into “ready to speak,” “ready to write,” “ready to love,” etc. Purpose turns “getting things done” into “giving life meaning.” When you ultimately work at the level of projects and actions, they’re infused with purpose. Your purpose. Your mission. Your very reason for existence. Every paper you shuffle, every word you type, every project you complete — they now mean something. They’re a part of a larger whole, a deep expression of who you truly are. But those very same actions, blindly assigned by someone else for no great purpose, become lifeless. Just things to get done instead of a great purpose to be fulfilled.
February 1st, 2005 at 12:30 pm
You are right, Steve. GTD is a very productive system for getting things done, but it doesn’t cover WHAT things you should do. This subject is extremely important.
This subject is covered by Covey in “First things first”. The book is pretty good at getting you thinking about what you should do from a “big picture” perspective. Unfortunately, like all Covey books, it’s a very verbose book. It contains information for 2-3 good articles. The information doesn’t justify writing a whole book.
You have probably guessed I’m not a fan of Covey’s work. He has good ideas, but the “fluff factor” is way too high - the “number of ideas per page” is way too low. I think that one thing that Covey got right is marketing - his books aren’t excellent but they are marketed very strongly and so they got to be popular.
One of the books I recommend instead of First Things First is “Getting Things Done” by Ed Bliss (or Edwin Bliss). It’s an old book (older than the same book with the same title by Allen), but it’s full of useful information. It’s like “7 habits of successful people APPLIED” - he teaches you how to APPLY the good stuff found in First Things First and 7 Habits.
I’m a fan of this book.
February 1st, 2005 at 9:37 pm
This can be pretty brutal for a lot of people. Many people have many external trappings of success — great careers, beautiful family, plenty of money…but are fundamentally miserable. Not just temporarily bummed as is natural (at least, *I* think it’s natural), but are truly depressed. You see stories about people like this doing bizarre things (or rushing out to buy bottle of Prozac) all the time and the general public and media reporting on this has the same reaction: “Oh my god! He’s got all this success! How could he do THAT!”.
To me it’s always been obvious (I’ve seen it up close and personal on a few occasions). My personal pet theory about this is that these people have achieved these things simply to look good for other people, leaving them very unfulfilled. They lived their life on pre-built tracks (from grade school, to high school, to college, to marriage, etc). Sure not everyone goes off the deep end from being so dead spirtually, but they are probably about as miserable. I like how your blog post covers this and specifically addresses the issue of Getting The *Right* Things Done (GTRD). People are all ahurry about “business” not realizing they are on someone’s else’s hamster wheel amusing/working for them.
February 1st, 2005 at 10:45 pm
Steve,
Did you hear about GTD Areas of Responsibility and 10k - 50k levels of thinking? If not - read GTD book again.
February 1st, 2005 at 11:16 pm
Yes, David Allen pays lip service to the concepts of higher levels of thinking with his runway to 50,000 ft analogy. But IMO the coverage above the project level is too vague and isn’t well integrated into the system as a whole. When you work GTD at the level of projects and actions, there’s no immediate accountability to the level of purpose. No clear context is given for what 50,000 ft actually means and how it filters down to the lower levels. GTD just offers general advice to periodically think about the higher levels of your life; the advice isn’t bad — it’s just not as rigorously developed and defined as the low level parts of the system. At the highest levels, the standard GTD system essentially fuzzes out.
It’s been previously mentioned that other authors such as Stephen Covey address these higher levels far more thoroughly and systematically integrate them from the top down. Allen’s system is more bottom up. Really we need both though. I greatly prefer the lower levels of Allen’s system vs. Covey’s treatment of these same levels in First Things First and The 7 Habits. But Covey’s treatment of the high levels of mission, roles, and goals trumps GTD’s handling of them.
February 2nd, 2005 at 12:54 am
Steve,
your articles tend to get a little bit long at times - why don’t you try to add a little graphic/diagram here and there? For example, a pyramid shaped drawing with “purpose” at the top going down to projects and tasks. That would make understanding the long articles a little easier for non-native speakers like myself. That, and I know you have the skills from your game developer time
Great site! I will definately be reading all the articles you planned for this year!
February 2nd, 2005 at 6:04 am
I recently posted some similar thoughts on my weblog (and even received some hate mail because of it), although I was nowhere near as articulate as you. I certainly agree with you in that the whole 50K feet analogy is mainly lip service: it seems as though it was just tacked on because of the realisation, “Hmmm… I’ve told them how to do all this nitty gritty day-to-day stuff, but I guess I should mention how to keep an eye on the big picture, too.” I do certainly prefer GTD’s daily regimen to that of Covey, but Covey is helping me to see the aforementioned big picture much more clearly than Allen. It’s a matter of the quick daily fix versus life habits and principles. However, in the final analysis, I see no reason why these methods are mutually exclusive. …Although, I have been accused of being a heretic for alluding to such concepts….
February 2nd, 2005 at 6:55 am
I, too, think that he didn’t really cover these higher levels well in the book. However, I think he does a much better job discussing these higher-level issues in the GTD Fast! audio CDs. It is another $90 to pick them up, but they were well worth it in my opinion.
February 2nd, 2005 at 9:19 am
Thank you for this post. You’ve given me a lot to think about.
So much of what we belive is culturally determined. It’s difficult for me to step into a place where all of our reponsibilities and choices are clear. It feels like I’ve got a lot of work to do.
You may want to check out Dave Pollard’s blog. He’s pondering a lot of the same questions, in the context of the environment and right livelihood:
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/
February 2nd, 2005 at 10:36 am
I used to subscribe to Dave Pollard’s blog, but I eventually unsubscribed because I found his attitude to be too heavily focused on problems and not enough on practical solutions. I even posted a comment on his blog to that effect and suggested he consider making more positive solution-oriented posts. Even when he seems to offer solutions, it’s mostly about the “shoulds” and the “hopes” and not enough about what will actually work in the real world. His overall attitude also seems very negative and fatalistic to me, as if he expects his message to fall on deaf ears and his mission to fail. Just looking at his latest blog entry, his second sentence is: Everywhere we look we see conflict, deprivation, violence, waste, suffering, greed, destruction, hatred. Everywhere? If I want to adopt disempowering beliefs like those, I can simply watch TV news all day. I see something quite different “everywhere” I look.
While he makes some good points, and while I agree with many of his environmental positions (I’ve been a vegan since 1997, and Pollard posted previously that he’s working towards veganism himself), I can’t stand his overly pessimistic style. It’s disempowering instead of empowering. While it’s important to be aware of problems, once you have that awareness, it’s time to figure out what you can actually do about it, and take action instead of just dwelling on “shoulds.” And in so doing, that circle of influence will gradually expand and changes will happen.
February 3rd, 2005 at 7:24 am
Steve, I’m curious as to how your GTD next actions fit into your planning lists. Is the 90 Day plan, the 30 Day Goals & Plans, the 30 Day Schedule, and the Daily To Do List and Schedule, ordered lists of next actions?
February 4th, 2005 at 6:28 am
For God’s sake, people, read Getting Things Done by Ed Bliss!
It contains a much better approach than Covey. Covey has some good but impractical ideas, to which he adds very strong marketing.. and that’s it.
February 11th, 2005 at 11:19 am
The Essential Missing Half of GTD
Feb. 1, 2005 posting, detailing what the writer believes is lacking in the basic GTD model. BTW, you’ll want to take the time to follow the cross-links within the post, as well as checking out the comments. Food for thought, to be sure!
http://www.s...
February 16th, 2005 at 3:29 pm
GTD is ook niet heilig
Steve Pavlina’s Blog - The Essential Missing Half of Getting Things Done: Ik probeer nu al enkele maanden de technieken uit GTD in de praktijk te brengen. Het is en blijft natuurlijk een slim truukje, en niets meer dan dat….
March 1st, 2005 at 11:15 pm
Getting Things…Stuck?
I’m noticing a proliferation of blog posts (for example, Punkey alludes to it, as does Steve Pavlina) …
March 3rd, 2005 at 4:54 am
Thought I’d pass along a link to my free Lotus Notes template for implementing GTD.
http://www.brettphilp.com/worksmart/
Cheers!
Brett
June 8th, 2005 at 11:33 am
I dont even remember how i reached your site but it doesnt matter, cause i’m so happy i found it, it really made me think, keep up the good work
July 30th, 2005 at 11:09 am
I also came upon your site through some hyperlink, someplace. I feel like I’ve just read something really important, and I’m trying to hold on to what you’ve said (in this one and in the Purpose=Freedom post.) So, thank you. It really is a lot to chew on and I want to fight whatever inner impulses which might rear up and put me back into cog-like habits.
August 5th, 2005 at 11:13 am
I found a great website to help identify the top-level goals : MaximumBalance.com. They have some nice worksheets that help you identify your priorities, which they categorize into ‘Cornerstones’ of life :
Personal - Mind, body, soul
Relationships - Partner, family, friends
Career - Individual, team, functional
Finance - Income, budgeting, investing
Giving - Individual, family, corporate
Granted, an entire human life can be divided and categorized infinitely, but I think this is a pretty good model and the worksheets help to kick off ideas. Imagine having a GTD project running in each of the above 12 categories at all times.
Anyone know of any other high-level life models?