In my world GTD become a goal in itself rather than a way to better manage your life.
With a few exception (calendar) I lived my life in a way that would make a GTD enthusiast cringe.
I am always impressed by those who attempt to do it but never surprised when they finally give up.
I'm highly task-oriented in my work, but mostly it's just a list of lists, maintained in a text file with infinite persistent undo. Every task starts out as a line, gets a few sub-lines when it acquires some definition, and gets broken up into multiple separate tasks if it's too big, or it only gets partially done and other tasks remain.
I don't live like that much outside of work (unless there's a specific longer-lived process, like moving house or something), and my process is very light weight. I think GTD starts out too heavy; it would be better done iteratively, starting with something very simple that works 80% of the time, and then adding more if you're so busy that you need the extra process. You could then start reading the book and put it down early on with enough to get by, but still be able to pick it up if you need more.
Pomodoro isn't as much of a black hole for me, but I do better just closing browser windows/turning off wifi/putting in earplugs instead of headphones, and focusing until I get to a point where I'm ready/need to take a break. And that's usually 30-60 minutes as it is.
tl;dr: GTD is bad for me, disconnecting, earplugs, and punctuated focused periods of effort are good.
How? Is this persistence a function of your text editor?
This has been my experience. After a while I had to realize that it is too "top-down" for real life. It also made me realize time and again that I often didn't have a clear goal. And when I had one then I was so committed that there was no need for any system except the occasional sticky note.
It's a classic example of a great solution (it really is a neat system) to a problem that does not really exist. I could imagine that people with an extremely poor memory would profit from using a well done implementation of gtd. Maybe it would also work for those who have extremely little uncertainty in their (professional) life.
There is no universal solution. GTD works well for some people in some contexts.
GTD is a worthy attempt at formalising things but in doing so it's way too generic and thus doesn't pragmatically cater for the very different situations above. IOW theory and practice are the same... in theory.
So you never wrote a function before reading GTD? ;)
That’s like a fat dude looking around at the donut shop and saying “nobody ever sticks to their diets, haha!”
I’ve used GTD for years. I just shattered your claim.
Maybe you’re like an evil hypnotist. “You will stop following your diet. You will stop following your diet. You will stop following your diet.” :-)
Seriously though — I think these two claims are both frequent and harmful:
1. It’s impossible to stay disciplined in the long run.
2. Discipline sucks the joy out of life. On the contrary, I think discipline gives you freedom.
Anyway, I don't see how you shattered anything.
First of all, I never attempted to do GTD exactly because I never saw the value. So I didn't fail at it I simply decided not to do it once I realized what it required.
Second of all that you have used GTD for years doesn't mean you are going to continue using it. Lets talk in 10 years and see.
Saying "be disciplined" is roughly in the same category as telling someone to "be happy". It's a great goal, but no help at all for someone who is not already there.
> After about five years, 41 percent of dieters gain back more weight than they lost. Long-term studies show dieters are more likely than non-dieters to become obese over the next one to 15 years.
> ... The study found that a single diet increased the odds of becoming overweight by a factor of two in men and three in women. Women who had gone on two or more diets during the study were five times as likely to become overweight.
More [earlier]:
> men with severe obesity have only one chance in 1,290 of reaching the normal weight range within a year; severely obese women have one chance in 677. A vast majority of those who beat the odds are likely to end up gaining the weight back over the next five years...
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/why-you-ca...
On the other hand, there’s a powerful minority of people who do stay disciplined. They get a lot of stuff done.
Lastly, although it’s easy to fail, it is possible to join that powerful minority.
Gary Vaynerchuk always preaches the "concept" of putting in the actual work. Also a variation of "just doing it" but with the side-note of "actually go out and do something"! Really important stuff because most of the people nowadays don´t get that and think success will somehow come around the corner one day.
Also there's a big difference between controlling your diet and "dieting". The latter is explicitly a temporary thing, and so of course doesn't have a permanent effect.
Human willpower doesn't work long term.
Read the link. It answers your question explicitly (twin studies).
Based on my personal experiences, a pool of anecdotes from friends, and the generally accepted advice of the medical community: sustained weight loss of more than 1 lb per week is incredibly difficult and not realistic for most dieters.
Since, by definition, most "severely obese" people are more than 52lb from a "healthy" weight, statistics like this seem inevitable even if the person does everything perfectly and achieves results that they're satisfied with.
Example: I've totally transformed my body with diet and exercise. But I've failed by this metric, because it took longer than a year, and I'm significantly heavier now than at my lowest weight (albeit much more muscular)
What if I listed studies showing how hard it is to stop smoking. Would you say, “well, there it is — pass me the tobacco.” No — most of you would acknowledge that it was difficult, but you’d find a way to quit.
Maybe GTD isn’t your style of personal time management. But time management is an extremely important skill if you want to excel in life.
To dismiss it by pointing to failure statistics is sad.
I actually believe education in nutrition and specifically weight manipulation would help a lot. From my experience in talking with others, the average person's views on these topics is almost in the realm of magic due to being bombarded with false information from media and product companies.
With a solid understanding in these topics, one can implement changes into their diet and very easily assess why they are or aren't making progress towards their goals. As it stands the average weight loss attempt with the understanding of weight loss as some form of black magic tends to result in temporary success or outright failure, with no way of being able to assess why or what to do about it. It is then usually concluded that one's 'genetics' are at fault.
And the fat dude would be right statistically.
>I’ve used GTD for years. I just shattered your claim.
Not necessarily. You could still be an outlier (generally when people say "nobody does X" in casual conversation, they allow for statistical noise level outliers).
Or not have very hard workloads to begin with.