Wanted: GTD Pearls of Wisdom

[Cordelya]

The doors on my desk hutch at work are painfully bare. I'd like to make up some 8.5X11s with various GTD "Pearls of Wisdom" to provide inspiration when I need it. Things like, "If it's on your mind, it's not getting done" from OpenLoops. I also have an ulterior motive, in that my desk is against the outside wall of the room, with my back to the middle of the room, and it's an open room with about 7 other people working in the same space. I'm looking to "infect" at least a few of them with the GTD bug.

What are your favorite GTD-related Pearls of Wisdom?

If you know who wrote/said it first, please include that credit so I can do so on my posters.

TIA,

Jacq

[BigStory]

One of my favourites is from Gretchen:

"It's the habits, not the tools."

Gordon

[spectecGTD]

"Don't operate in a reactive mode; develop the habit of backing off, looking at the whole game, and making a GOOD Next Action choice."

(A parphrase of a couple of David's comments on the FAST CD)

[Day Owl]

Collect
Process
Organize
Review
Do

[ADD GTDer]

Check the margins of the GTD books and you'll see tons of quotes in italics that DA must think are relevant. You could do up a whole bunch of posters and rotate them periodically as people stop paying attention to things if they always stay the same.

Also - I'm thinking DA himself said something like "You can do anything - but not everything" but I haven't yet been able to find it in the book. Can anyone say if I have the words right, and was it DA that said it?

Thanks -

Janice

[BrianK]

The margins in Ready For Anything also have many quotable inspirations.

[jhegener]

Also - I'm thinking DA himself said something like "You can do anything - but not everything" but I haven't yet been able to find it in the book. Can anyone say if I have the words right, and was it DA that said it?

If it's not a direct quote then it's close. I think it's on the FAST tapes.

That was the quote (once I internalized it) that really helped me in the beginning when I was stressing after seeing all my Next Actions and Someday/Maybe's gathered together.

Nowadays my Next Actions consistently hover around 300-400 and I have no problems with it at all.

[jhegener]

"Make it up... make it happen."

"What's the Outcome? What's the Next Action?"

"2 minutes or less? Do it!"

[CKH]

"There's a great deal of difference, however, between making [the decision about the next physical action] when things show up and doing it when they blow up."

GTD, p. 237, ital. in original

Cynthia

[Granite Golem]

"Your mind doesn't have a mind of its own".

[flexiblefine]

Also - I'm thinking DA himself said something like "You can do anything - but not everything" but I haven't yet been able to find it in the book. Can anyone say if I have the words right, and was it DA that said it?

It's the title of a Fast Company magazine interview with DA, actually.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/34/allen.html

[stringdad]

"If you're not doing the Weekly Review, you're not doing GTD."

One of our perspicacious forum denizens will shortly tell you who said that and has it as their forum .sig.

[Jeff K]

"our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand."
-Thomas Carlyle

[Busydave]

Also - I'm thinking DA himself said something like "You can do anything - but not everything" but I haven't yet been able to find it in the book. Can anyone say if I have the words right, and was it DA that said it?

I think it was the title of an interview he did with fasctcompany.com magazine.

My own favourite, which was on the margin of one of the monthly newsletters (and probably in one of the books) is:

"Unless a capacity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior man exists in torture" (Benedetto Croce) ... just leave out the word "superior" and I think you have life in the twenty first century in a nutshell.

Dave

[Jeff K]

"Think like a man of action. Act like a man of thought."
-Henry Bergson

[Rainer Burmeister]

"If you're not doing the Weekly Review, you're not doing GTD."
One of our perspicacious forum denizens will shortly tell you who said that and has it as their forum .sig.
You mean "stargazer_rick" (http://www.rickyspears.com/blog), don't you?

Rainer

[stringdad]

You mean "stargazer_rick" (http://www.rickyspears.com/blog), don't you?

Thanks - that's him! The exact quote is:

"If you aren't doing the weekly review, you aren't doing GTD."

[Jeff K]

"The process called Getting Things Done is a personal one. It is uniquely applicable to everyone managing and deciding how to use limited resources."