June 23rd, 2009 by JustinT
One system that has helped me manage all of the facets in my life is the Getting Things Done (GTD) method.
Plenty of people are familar with the philosophy pushed by the “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” where you look at your life from a high level and develop strategic items like mission statements and value assessments that will drive the actual tasks you need to do. David Allen’s GTD method does that backward – get the stuff done and then free your mind to think about the higher level stuff.
GTD is a very popular approach among the Technorati – especially in Silicon Valley. How to make it work has spawned a number of articles and software apps. One of my favorite blogs – Lifehack.org – is doing a set of articles on how to restart this system for people who’ve fallen off the GTD wagon. It’s an interesting read for someone who might be curious about what GTD is all about.
This week’s article is on the all-important Weekly Review:
More than anything else, though, a weekly review is a point of connection between you and your work. We live in a go-go-go society where work – any work – is expected of each of us, all the time. Americans, especially, work harder than just about anyone – not necessarily more efficiently or on more important things, but longer hours and with fewer breaks. It’s all too easy in all this rush of work for work’s sake to lose track of why we’re doing it and of what it has to do with us as people.