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October 04, 2007
You either trust your system or you don't
In my opinion, there's no middle ground: you either trust your system or you don't. In many GTD seminars I do, after seeing my lists and all of the things on them, someone in the audience will comment, "What if your system crashes and you lose everything?" I have backups. My desktop synchs to my handheld and it's also all regularly backed up onto a USB drive. It's also all password protected with multiple layers of security, thanks to our IT group. Some will take that further and say, "Well, what if you lose those backups TOO?" Sure, and what if the sky falls down and a woman is elected president. Oh, the drama of what ifs!
Here's what I think is the real underlying issue: if you've never tasted having nothing in your head and having it all in a total-life reminder system, it's nearly impossible for your brain to think there is a better system. It's one thing to empty your head and decide what you're going to do about that stuff. But if your brain doesn't trust the decisions are going to get parked in a place better than holding it in your "Psychic Ram," it won't let go. Your brain has to trust that the place you are keeping your lists is as good or better than your brain.
I encourage people to do whatever they need to do to create a system they trust. If you have any nagging doubt about what you're putting on your lists and choosing to keep it in places that are not as foolproof (like your head or scattered notes), I would say you have an opportunity to shore up the leaks. For some people that's knowing there is a backup. For others, it's about the privacy issue--who will see what I put on my lists?
Whatever is holding you back from creating a trusted system can make a difference in your success with GTD.
Posted by Kelly at October 4, 2007 02:26 PM
Comments
Off course the alternative of jotting everything down (with risks mentioned above) is... What if you forget?
Posted by: Robbert Michel at October 5, 2007 12:56 AM
If your system crashes and you lose everything, you can start over because just by having a trusted system, you'll know how to put it back together quickly. I just have a notebook. I could leave it on a bus tomorrow and it would be gone. But I know my projects and I know my system and I could sit down and recreate it and recapture as things popped back into my brain and life would go on. Trust your system!
Posted by: teacherninja at October 5, 2007 04:44 AM
Robbert
That reminds me of the quote:
"I finally got it all together but I forgot where I put it."
Cheers,
Kelly
Posted by: Kelly at October 5, 2007 08:20 AM
I've had an interesting experience around "trusting my system" in the past 24 hours - My beloved and trusted Palm Pilot completely and utterly crashed in the past 24 hours, and appears to be unrecoverable. It was not only my ubiquitous capture tool (note pad and voice memo capture), but also the ubiquitous version of my NA and project lists....
with the exception of a couple of hours of captured but unprocessed thoughts on the Palm that I may not have fully remembered (yet), my entire system is alive and well on my pc (synced versions), and I simply printed out today's calendar this morning, and appropriate context lists for where I'd be today. Without batting an eye, I've captured this new project of figuring out what tech solution is next for me, and am very comfortable to temporarily adapt to a hi-tech/paper hybrid while I sort it out. I grabbed a notepad/pen and the voice recorder on my cell phone as interim capture tools, a few more paper print-outs than normal, and away I went this morning...
I certainly wouldn't have chosen to lose my trusted Palm, but it inadvertently tested the level to which I trust my system, which turns out is very high. Today I realize that GTD is not nearly as much about software or hardware, but most importantly the 'thoughtware' which forms the habits and processes that makes trust in the system possible in the first place.
Posted by: Jeff at October 5, 2007 10:22 AM
2 questions-
how does one back up on a usb drive?
how does one move a e-mail to a task on the handheld? i can do it on the laptop but dont know how on the laptop. i have a blackberry 8700c.
thank you.
Posted by: James W. Criswell at October 12, 2007 06:44 AM
James,
You asked: "how does one back up on a usb drive?"
Not sure which program you use, but on Outlook you can export your PST file. Go to File>Import and Export>Export to a File. You'll see a variety of file types you can send it to, including Personal Folder File (.pst).
You asked: "how does one move a e-mail to a task on the handheld?"
I'm not a BlackBerry expert, but I don't think you can move an email on a BB from the Inbox to Tasks like you can do on the laptop. What some BB users will do is keep it in a "To Process" folder to move to Tasks once they're back on their laptop.
Hope that helps.
Posted by: Kelly at October 13, 2007 10:57 AM
