I know a lot of people who keep thinking that implementing a new productivity system will change their lives around immediately. I fall prey to this kind of thinking a lot of the time, too. I’m an avid GTDer who believes in the system, but I sometimes get into so much GTD (putting what I have to do into my system), that I never actually get things done. GTD, the system designed by David Allen and propagated through his books and his company, David Allen Company, emphasizes getting what your “commitments” are into a trusted system that is organized by “context,” or the environment you have to be in to complete those commitments. Once they’ve been organized, you can complete your commitments by referencing the context you are currently in and then completing the commitments currently available to you.

I personally love this system a lot. When I practice GTD on a regular basis my life becomes easier to manage, and things actually happen as I like them to. I fall into this one trap a lot though: I think that simply practicing GTD will make me a more productive person. That’s not true; GTD does not make you a productive person. The appropriate frame of mind is, “GTD allows me to be a more productive person.” I get myself so wrapped around the concept of writing stuff I need to do down that I never actually get around to doing it. I wonder, “Why does this still feel like its burdening me?”

It’s About Trust

When you write stuff down in a GTD system, the only way it works is when you trust the system you are putting your commitments into. By putting your commitments into this system, you are telling yourself that you have dealt with that commitment and that the commitment will be completed in a reasonable amount of time. When you trust your system to work like this, the burden these commitments place on you is alleviated. Knowing this, I realized I didn’t trust my system like I thought I did. So, now the question is “Why don’t I trust my system?”

Reflecting

There are a lot of things that sit around in my system, waiting to be dealt with. For example, writing this post has been sitting in my system for over 2 months now (it was entered April 4, 2011 at 9:33 PM EST). I know that the reason I didn’t want to write it was because I didn’t want to reflect on how broken my system was; I knew it was broken because instead of experiencing “Mind Like Water,” I was experiencing “Mind Like Molasses.” Still, I didn’t want to admit it was broken because I wasn’t sure I knew how to fix it.

The first part of the recovery process, though, is reflection. This is why David Allen and his associates always stress the importance of a Weekly Review. I always promise myself I’m going to do a Weekly Review, especially when my e-mail inbox pings around 2AM on Tuesday mornings with my Weekly Review reminder from GTD Connect. Those e-mails should put me into action instead of making me feel guilty about not having done one in so long. The Weekly Review is what keeps the system from breaking; looking at your system every week keeps the system in pristine shape. With such a short period between each review, any small failings in your system can be corrected in the next review before they cause catastrophe.

Over-committing and Under-defining

Knowing what you have to do isn’t just half the battle, it is the battle. A review of my system shows that I haven’t been fighting that battle. I have failed to define my commitments and my commitments have continually piled up. It has come to the point where things don’t get into my system because my brain knows that its pointless to put it in. A lot of projects in my system are poorly defined, making it impossible for me to expand them into completable tasks. Furthermore, many of these projects need to be broken up into smaller projects to truly qualify as GTD projects.

I continually allow myself to commit to projects without thinking of the consequences to my system. Many of these commitments, for the reasons above, don’t even make it into my system. This renders my inventory of commitments incomplete, putting even more strain on me to keep track of them in my brain.

Forward

In order to move forward, I’m committing to actually doing weekly reviews and rebuilding my system. At the end of the day, I may have to rip my system apart and start afresh. Getting to that point where I’m able to breathe when I look at my system will be an amazing reward, though. I need to breathe again, and the only way to do that is to get rid of the stale air that’s currently in my lungs.

So what’s the moral of this story? People are not productive or unproductive by nature. These are states that we fall into. Everyone is born with the capacity to be productive, but if we do not care for that capacity, we aren’t productive. GTD allows you to be productive by forcing you to reflect on what you need to do. This is how you nurture productivity. By identifying and controlling the source of non-productivity, you are able to free yourself from the bonds of immobility. This alone though does not make you productive. Instead, this only wipes the slate clean. It is up to you to push forward more and

1. Ensure the slate stays clean
2. Progress further forward with doing what you’ve identified