GTD Article on O’Reilly Radar
The Limits of Efficiency 
I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, but I have been crazy busy with the house hunt going on and work. Several weeks ago there was an article on O’Reilly Radar called the Limits of Efficiency by Jimmy Guterman. The gist of the article was that no matter how good of a system you use, you can overextend yourself if you keep taking on more work. There are only 24 hours in a day.
While I agree with the main point of the article, the author went also used a good amount of space to detail what he didn’t like about the GTD system, and basically it was “the cultishness”(as he terms it). Now we all know that anything people really like is going to engender a decent amount of fanboyism. Look at the iPhone, or Macs, or even my favorite Linux. When something works well (as GTD does) it’s pretty easy, especially on the interwebs, to get carried away and see it as the cure for all ills. I’ll admit to doing it several time myself. But just because there is “a cultishness” about a method or product doesn’t detract from it’s value. Mac people can be annoying, but that doesn’t make Macs’ any less of a great machine.
The other thing that the article made me think about was why I like the GTD system. I really like the fact that it is really a method. David Allen sells some GTD products and seminars, but there are a million ways to implement GTD. From the HipsterPDA to MonkeyGTD, it is really platform independent. It allows me to really experiment and find out what works for me without tying me to a product or platform.
So call me a fanboy if you will, but don’t discard an idea because some of it’s proponents are a little over the top about it.
