Som's Bunker

(Image credit: Carissa GoodNCrazy, User Rog2Bark)

Ever since David Allen published his best seller “Getting Things Done” almost everyone out there has taken it to heart and are striving for ways to achieve productivity. Lots of software developers, designers and App makers have taken his mantra and have created countless beautiful implementations using that simple concept. Countless websites are devoted to what is now known among Internet readers as ‘productivity p0rn’. They developed Allen’s concepts to not only improve everyday productivity but they have positioned themselves as lifestyle hackers

All those resources are fantastic and have helped a lot of people ‘fix’ their lives but I don’t want any of it. Not anymore.

In short the simplest reason is this - I have yet to find a concept, process, or even a tool that replaces what my mind does and has been doing quite efficiently. I know I don’t have the best memory in the world but I tend to process and complete tasks better when they are in my head. This is also one of the reasons why I never write things down, why I don’t carry a big agenda with me or why my screens aren’t covered in yellow post-it notes. I literally want to and try to remember everything I need to accomplish to achieve a feeling where I am satisfied with my day’s work. At the end of the day productivity is different from ‘activity’.

Some possible reasons why I began to do this:

- I tend to thrive in chaos. This accurately describes my personality. Finding elegance and efficiency within chaos has always been something I hold very dear as an individual, friend, geek, and consultant etc. It also tends to reflect in the things I do. What else could possibly be more chaotic than my own mind and its infinite synapses firing away to ‘Get Things Done’? I would say I have found all the right motivation to use my head!

- A lot of productivity Apps and methods were simply too cumbersome and obtrusive. I would spend hours just trying to shift my way of processing to meet the functionalities of the tool. Shouldn’t it be the inverse? I should be the one giving the instructions and tools should adapt to how I process tasks (maybe it is too much ask?). Think about your own experience. How many of you spend countless hours not only inputting your tasks into an App but also include things like project headings, contexts, tags, reminders, funky sounds and bubble notifications etc? You could have probably spent the time knocking off your to-dos instead of dressing them up. Skip the dressing and attack the main course.

- At the end of the day is my life really that busy where I need to constantly juggle between different tools and different tasks? The art of single-tasking is lost on all of us. Eat when you eat. Drink when you drink. Finish tasks when you have to finish them. I don’t know the reason why we tend to add a layer of complexity to something as simple as a to-do list. Make a mental note of what you need to do and finish it. It it is not in your head it probably wasn’t that important enough to begin with right?

This shift in thinking to abandon all kinds of to-do management systems has made life simpler. I accomplish all the important tasks readily and have managed to do so for a while now. I have successfully in effect minimized the level of useless chatter of unwanted tasks and burdens from my everyday workstream of activities. I haven’t and hope to never be tardy with deliverables especially at my job. The real cost of failing to accomplish is too much.

It may not work for you. Maybe you are the type of person who has an App for almost everything you do. Maybe you have been post-its number one fan. Maybe you are the kind of person who carries their little-black-book with them wherever you go. Maybe you are all off the above.

Ask yourself this. Isn’t it time you lose the burden? You already have enough weight on your shoulders. Leave your to-dos in your head where it belongs.

P.S. While I don’t use any tool or method anymore for to-dos I did come across some really good when I had used back in the day. Perhaps you don’t have to completely switch over but maybe you can try TeuxDeux. It was my most favorite tool I used in the past. It is the simplest one out there. http://www.teuxdeux.com