GTD for bloggers
There are three groups of people who use, or try to use, Getting Things Done, David Allen’s cult like time management system. The first group are those who follow every single step of the book religiously. The second group are those who start to read the book, get a little scared by the all or nothing approach, put the book on a shelf and forget all about it. But it’s the third group that is by far the greatest. The group that modifies the GTD system, tweaking it to make it work for them.
I’m a proud member of that third group.
I tried GTD and failed at the start of 2008. I then tried again. And failed again. But then, a few months ago, I read a book called The Creative Habit by celebrated choreographer Twyla Tharp and something struck me.
Twyla Tharp has a GTD system of her own. Twyla herself probably wouldn’t think of it as GTD, but the similarities are there. And those similarities grow when one of her techniques is applied to blogging.
If you run one blog then this system will help you. However, if you have more than one blog it will help you even more.
You will need a simple cardboard box, one for each of your blogs. Next, you will need a front end for your collection system. This can be as simple as a pen and a stack of index cards.
The system is simple. Anything, thoughts, ideas get written down on the index cards and put in the box. If you see a newspaper article that may be of use, cut it out and put it in the box. The box acts as a single, all encompassing, repository of thoughts, ideas, inspiration and anything else that is relevant, or could be relevant, to your blog.
How you process these things, how you use the contents of the box is completely up to you. Apply standard GTD rules to them if you wish but, and this is the most important thing, don’t feel compelled to stick slavishly to the GTD script.
Simply allow the boxes to take the strain. No hard and fast rules, just simple and effective organization.
i do not like gtd. it’s bogus.
I have a email address I send ideas to as I have them. Otherwise I will definitely forget!
That email publishes to a blog that nobody but me looks at.
I generally have a notebook with me, or at least some paper. Everything gets written down and eventually filters into the spreadsheet that I use for my blog. The spreadsheet has separate tabs for different categories (post ideas, post order, roadmap w/ goals and timeline, affiliate products I like, etc).
I will eventually end up with a different system, but this works for me now.
Oh yeah, I guess that I fall under the second category. I browsed through the GTD system and was afraid, very afraid. :D I do recognize that there are some great concepts in there though, and will probably go back one day and pull out the ideas I like and mold them for my personal use… becoming a member of the third group in the process.
I’m a little bit dubious of this GTD shenanigans – surely if you didn’t bother faffing about with bits of paper and books and schemes, it would give you time to get the things done? – but I’ll maybe try this out. I’ve got a shoebox mooching about somewhere, so I might as well put it to use.
GTD is just common sense – reading Making It All Work helps to understand things better IMHO. Using a box to capture blog ideas is the same as setting up a blog ‘project’ folder and capturing your ideas there.
I have a list for @BLOG in my system that is used in the same manner. The key is capturing them in the moment, writing down any ideas asap when they are in your head, and using the capture piece of GTD for your creative ideas.
I’ve lost many ideas over time due to the fact I did not capture them.
Good idea and good luck blogging!
-Stephen