Quote Originally Posted by gtderik
Not sure if this has been posted about before. I was just wondering if there were any GTD'ers on here who have successfully resolved any issues with their spouses or sig others regarding GTD. My fiancee is a bright intelligent woman with a knack for just naturally getting things done. I, on the other hand need all of the help that I can get when it comes to remembering things. Because of this I am always scrambling to write things down when we are clearing up"agendas for each other". Currently, I am as happy as I can be with my PDA set up and paper capture tools when it comes to going out. When I insist on having these things around she gets frustrated. She has started to view my system as a crutch that I now must rely on. She sees this as a bad thing. Does anyone have any advice here for this situation on how I can get her on board or at least help her to understand where I am coming from? Am I doing something wrong here? Is my system still too much on my mind?

Any help/suggestions would be great!

-Erik

A couple things...

A. Many people don't react well to having things be pushed on them. This seems to be even MORE true for spice and significant others. It can work best to just do the work yourself, and if she is inspired to do the same because she sees the results, then great. IF not, then all the pushing in the world will result mostly in more resistance. This is due in part to there being an implicit message that "You are not good enough" which is not well received.

It could also be that she knows she could be better organized, but does not appreciate your reminding her of it. Maybe she prefers to try and solve the problem in her own way, or maybe she has other resistance to addressing that issue in her life at this time.
[Aside: I have spent 50 years being wildly dis-orgainzed and for some reason or the other, was never ready to change. It is famously quoted somewhere that we don't fear failure (which can be strangely comfortable) nearly much as we fear succeeding beyond our wildest dreams.]

B: If she views your use of GTD as a crutch, and makes you bad for it, this could be a reaction to the implicit suggestion that she is bad for NOT using GTD when you keep telling her she should. It could also be due to her being annoyed at how your use of GTD negatively impacts your relationship (e.g. interupts conversations, etc). So when she gets mad and says it is just a crutch, this could mostly be an emotional reaction, rather than a logically well thought out one. IMHO, both are valid, by the way.


Why not ask her what it is that bothers her?
Ask her what the difference is between something that helps you and is a good thing that betters your life, vs. a cructh which is somehow a bad thing. If she is detail-orieinted, ask her to be specific about what bad outcome happens by using GTD as a crutch?

Good luck
Mike