Nothing Undone

At the center of David Allen’s Getting Things Done approach is the “trusted system”. This is a system into which you can put everything you need to keep track of and trust that you will see it again at the right time. The David never says what exactly that system should be, just what it should be able to do. And so, the biggest question in the GTD world is this:

“What is the best GTD system?”

Now that’s a perfectly reasonable question to want to ask. You’re going to be investing a lot of time and energy and thought into this system. You’re going to put all of your projects into it. You’re going to put all of your actions to do into it. You’re going to ask your brain to trust this system and stop holding on to everything on its own. You want the best system. But asking for the best GTD system is like asking a carpenter, “What’s the best hammer?” It’s the wrong question.

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I’ve just put the kettle on to boil. I walk to the cupboard and take out the box of Sleepytime tea. I open it, take out the last two tea bags, and bring them to the mugs I’ve set beside the stove.

Just as I’m about to tear the perforated edge between the tea bags, a thought hits me. I’d better get this right, it says. I won’t have a second chance. I’d better not screw this up.

Tea. I’m making tea, for goodness sake. It’s no big loss if I don’t get it right. And it’s not as if there’s much to mess up. It’s boiling water poured over sachets of leaves. How hard is it to pour water over a bag of leaves?

The voice persists. But what if? You wouldn’t have any more tea! Your perfect plan for the rest of the evening would be spoiled! It would be horrible! And I cringe, because I know that this is true.

I would be sad. I would even be upset. I had a plan, and I tried to put it into action. If it fails, I’m going to be pissed.

As I write this, the tea is sitting beside me, and so long as I don’t forget to remove the tea bag eventually—-and Sleepytime is quite forgiving—-I won’t have done anything wrong at all. So what was all the fuss about?

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