Comments on: Productivity at the Fringes

By: Mandar Vaze

Mandar Vaze — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:22:52 +0000

I agree with hyperbolist. GTD doesn’t say write “everything” down. The crux of the matter is write down “everything that matters” so that your mind doesn’t have to remember it later. GTD doesn’t advocate keeping track of “trivia”

@Dustin: “.. A highly productive person must know his or her goals in order to forward them…”
That is absolutely inline with GTD’s 30000 feet view, and not at all anti-GTD :)

By: Dustin

Dustin — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:40:04 +0000

Thank you for this post. It is a very interesting concept that we often can take the ideologies and methods developed in productivity and apply them to other sciences. I have noticed that productivity involves many sciences like psychology, physics, neurology, as well as my personal favorite of economics.

You briefly mentioned “…for people who are extremely productive, there is a fundamental shift in how they work. Keeping track of trivia would only distract them from their larger goals. Also, their accomplishment is based on picking the right things to do…”.

I wanted to hit your note that extreme productivity is related to the “how” of someone may decipher their tasks, projects, and goals. From here, I think it is very basic: the way in which you translate your lists will create the priorities, and you work throughout the day by working through the priorities on your task list. I think this is what you meant by “their accomplishment is based on picking the right things to do”.

To answer hyperbolist, I think the answer is developed over time. You learn to pick from your lists or task pools based on your goals, your current priorities, and the deadlines coming up. A highly productive person must know his or her goals in order to forward them.

By: hyperbolist

hyperbolist — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:59:08 +0000

“…for people who are extremely productive, there is a fundamental shift in how they work. Keeping track of trivia would only distract them from their larger goals. Also, their accomplishment is based on picking the right things to do…”

This is indeed entirely counter-intuitive and demands elaboration, I think.

If the accomplishment of highly productive people is dependent on their picking the right things to do, from what do they pick if not a comprehensive list of tasks/projects? How can “the right things” be chosen if they are not available in the pool of choosables? How exactly do these highly productive people benefit from keeping some things in their heads, and some things outside of their heads?