GTD annoys me. Following GTD seems like a recipe for writing a bad song. Clearing inboxes, putting things into buff coloured manilla folders... focussing on the 'next step' of projects... What is the 'next step' in writing a song anyway? Mostly it's going to be sitting down and pulling your hair out! There is no tidy way! I am going to have 50 tabs open on my computer when I write. I'm going to be reading 16 books/articles/blog posts at the same time and none of them may contribute anything.
Covey is simple. Spend most of your time on quadrant 2 stuff. That is all.
One question: what is "true recreation"?
ReplyDeleteI didn't realise it was out of date? We still teach it to the first year Uni students as part of their preparation for fieldwork (I'm due to teach it in a couple of weeks actually!)....and I heard about it at work a few times before that. I think it's a pretty handy little tool.
ReplyDeleteWendy, I think true recreation refers to those kinds of leisure activities that allow you to really wind down and relax, by which I assume that things like watching television and stuffing around on the internet (which people often spend their spare time doing!) are not included. That would probably relate to Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, one of which is called "sharpening the saw" and talks about the importance of engaging in leisure activities that are refreshing for body, mind, spirit etc. I like it because it kind of reflects that OT idea of having productivity and leisure occupations in balance.
Perhaps I should add to that previous comment that reading and writing well thought out blog posts probably doesn't fall into the category of "stuffing around on the internet"...I'm thinking more of the timewasting that I do looking at YouTube, silly cartoons and that sort of thing....
ReplyDeleteThe difficulty with this quadrant is not the concept, which is brilliant, it is the detail. What belongs in each box? For many people, for instance - like pastors - the interruptions can actually be the most important things. For a creative person, the procrastination and stuffing around actually serve a very important purpose - to create something really good you need to divert your focus onto something else so you can disengage your conscious brain and allow your unconscious to work.
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