I love procrastination. It’s the one thing that never fails to remind me that I am a human being and not a machine.
Some folks know that I do a computer job to earn the crust. GTD is something of a Covey cult among the programming set. If you’re not familiar with this time management and productivity system (stands for Getting Things Done), I’d post the high-level theory here and some of the finer points, but I’ll probably get it wrong and then my inbox will fill up with angry programmers who have found their Nirvana. Here’s the Wikipedia article instead.
Anyway, I saw a post on another blog about GTD stuff and I was reminded yet again that we writers will be left with our proverbial buggy whips in hand if we do not get on board.
No thanks. I haven’t got it in me to prioritize anymore. I don’t want to get things done. I just want a long, uninterrupted think, and maybe a cigarette (even though I don’t smoke).
I’ll keep to my scatterbrained ways and think about the flock of robins that landed in my front yard and wonder just what the hell they were all doing together.
Writing, even structured writing, takes me away from all that process oriented crap. It’s takes me away from the if-then mentality of the workaday world. It is my salvation.
[Note: The link to the procrastination pic came from Simply Wait. The original post disappeared a long time ago so I just linked to the Flick image.]
Heck, I would pay for a long, interrupted think with a cigarette. Cigar would do better, I’m sick of plain old cigarettes.
Joel Falconer’s last blog post..Digital Task Lists are the Harbingers of Doom
You’re really onto something here. But I say let GTD thrive. That way other people can get the work done for us.
@joel: I’ll join you for that cigar.
Jason Rehmus’s last blog post..A Vacation on a Train: Amtrak USA Rail Pass
I only kinda agree. I’m pretty sure that GTD can’t be directly applied to writing itself — but who needs it? You know how to write, right? When you start writing, do you really need Next Actions?
It’s all the *other* stuff writers have to do that needs a good GTD’ing, especially since most writers are, well, kinda like you,m Jamie — they hate all the business-y stuff that they became writers to avoid. Yet ww have to send proposals to clients, market ourselves and our work, network and affiliate, do accounts receivable and accounts payable — we wear far more hats than the average corporate office worker.
And we’re mostly not good at all that stuff, which means we put it off and screw it up when we aren’t putting it off. Having a system in place to handle all the *non-writing* stuff that writers do just makes good sense to me. It may not be GTD, but something.