4 Steps to Organizing a Work Space
GTD and me
I never had much luck using GTD. Too wordy, just too too something. Although I understood it, I couldn’t make it work for me. But I kept seeing references to it everywhere like the universe was trying to tell me something.
Much of GTD wasn’t relevant to me because I’m retired and don’t work. But I still have a lot to keep track of and do, what Allen calls, Open Loops. Then I discovered the book “Getting Things Done for Teens: Take Control of Your Life in a Distracting world.” (not an affiliate link)
David Allen is listed on the cover as an author, and he writes the introduction, so it has his “seal of approval,” though it has quite a different tone than his other books because it is written by two other authors, both of whom have impressive GTD resumes and one of them is a teacher.
The Teen book with its goofy drawings and critters made the whole GTD process more understandable. Though I haven’t mastered GTD yet, I have gotten farther than ever before.
About the book
It contains the same basic ideas, concepts, and steps as “main” GTD, however, it uses less business-related language and is more casual which makes it more accessible to people like me who are not tracking work projects or managing teams.
The focus of the book is to be organized and ready for whatever school, sports or life throws at teens. While I am not a student, and have only vague memory of being a teen, the concept of being ready is a useful one.
To gain control over stuff, you will learn how to (1) capture what has your attention; (2) clarify what each item means and what to do about it; (3) organize the results into categories; (4) reflect on and review what you have identified in each category, so you can (5) engage and do what needs to be done.(p. 42)
Step 1 Capture
Mybe the authors know how cluttered many teens’ rooms are, because the first step they tackle is the Capture step, focused on the need to get control of stuff.
The point is to have a physical location to handle all the stuff that’s clutter…
