Get Everything Done

These are preliminary comments on GTD and DIT. Although I have been practicing GTD for years, I've only been doing DIT for a few days. Thus far, I have found that I am able to integrate the two planning systems because they are mutually compatible, but there are some salient points of difference. In order to understand DIT better, I am going to write out some of my early impressions and share them with those who have more experience with it than I.

At the most basic level, GTD and DIT have a common foundation, namely, that by creating a highly structured, rational system for organizing our tasks, we can free up the nonrational part of our mind. GTD identifies this nonrational aspect as "intuition;" DIT terms it "creativity."

Similarly, both systems criticize prioritized to-do lists for failing to distinguish interests from commitments; it is demoralizing to rewrite the same to-do's today that I failed to do yesterday; and low-priority to-do's are incoherent--we either are going to do them or not.

Now for some differences between GTD and DIT. Systems are abstract. Minds have difficulty with abstraction. So we use metaphors. By looking at the differing metaphors these systems employ, we can get some understanding of where they part ways.

In GTD, the central metaphor is that knowledge workers are martial artists. The martial artist accepts that the battle is hectic and indeterminate. Allen does not quote Eisenhower, but he might well have, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” What this means is that the office worker must be, in the words of Allen's second book, "ready for anything." The key attributes of the effective worker are intuitiveness, spontaneity, flexibility and resilience.

The defining metaphor for DIT is much less colorful--an automobile maintenance shop. The well-run shop never takes same-day appointments. The poorly-run shop always does. The well-run shop owner knows exactly what she'll be doing tomorrow. Everything is neatly planned and scheduled. What this means is that the DIT office worker must be diligent, reliable, and disciplined.

The contrasting metaphors illustrate the central difference between GTD and DIT: flexibility versus rigidity. GTD is enormously flexible. DIT is quite rigid. With GTD, as in martial arts, I never know what's happening next. I have a list of Next Actions, but it is not predetermined which ones I will do today. With DIT it is rigidly predetermined. I do not have a large list of undated actions, I have a very limited list of actions all of which are to be completed today.

What further distinguishes DIT from GTD is the unit of time that is used as the planning horizon. DIT works off of daily lists. GTD works off of Weekly Reviews. DIT has us plan daily. GTD has us plan weekly.

My initial impression of DIT is that it has taken a basic concept of GTD and carried it to a greater extreme than GTD itself. Let me back up and examine the major planning paradigm in the US. Covey's system is often termed a top-down system. It has us start with a mission statement. We define the meaning of our life. Let's call this the "top". We then work our way down until we get to a lowly action, like "Buy dental floss."

I tried Covey and utterly failed to get it to work. What made GTD so effective was that it had me start at the bottom. I looked at my desk and I looked at all my immediate, pressing commitments and wrote them down. I did not decide where I wanted to be in twenty years. By using the GTD bottoms-up strategy I was able to clear out my backlog of actions and stay on top of new ones. GTD was effective because it placed so much focus on clearly defining and recording lowly actions.

The difference between GTD and Covey is that the former focuses on and starts with the action at the bottom. The latter focuses on and starts with the mission and vision at the top.

GTD employs a spatial metaphor. It says that actions are on the bottom. Life goals are on the top. But it also uses a temporal distinction among these different spatial levels. Life goals span many years. Lower levels span a year or two. The very lowest level is not given a clearly defined time period.

DIT rectifies this indefiniteness in GTD. GTD's lowest level is called the "runway." If we integrate DIT into GTD the time period of the runway becomes the day.

DIT out-GTDs GTD. DIT is more bottoms-up than GTD. GTD never gets more finely grained than the week. And even for the week, GTD never requires us to set clearly defined commitments. DIT forces us to make definite commitments with definite time periods. GTD tells us to distinguish between what we've committed to and everything else. But the GTD time period for most of our commitments is the indefinite "as soon as possible." DIT has me clearly define what actions I will complete TODAY.

DIT has me plan today. GTD does not. That's it in a nutshell.

I might still be over-enthusiastic from the excitement of trying something new. Only time will tell. But my experience thus far has convinced me that DIT can improve my efficiency over the long term, as much as it has already improved it over the last week. By focusing on today I am getting more done.

Here's another attempt to compare GTD and DIT. I just posted this on the David Allen forum.

I have been using DIT as an adjunct to my GTD for four days. I only finished reading the DIT book on the fourth day. So, any judgement about DIT is highly preliminary.

The fundamental difference between GTD and DIT lies in how "commitments" are understood. In GTD I have faithfully been keeping all of my commitments in my trusted system. I will continue to do this, whether I continue with DIT or not.

The problem that I, and many other GTDers, have found, is that even when I rigidly distinguish my active Projects and NAs from my Someday/Maybes, some of my Projects and NAs sit for months and even years in my trusted system.

GTD stresses capturing everything. The thing is, it's a lot easier to capture all the things I am interested in doing than it is to do all these things.

I do prune my trusted system every week and I constantly delete items or move them to Someday/Maybe, but I still find that there is an imbalance between capturing thoughts as commitments and actually doing what I have committed myself to doing.

What I liked about GTD was that it removed a lot of chaos from my life. It got me focused on the runway--Next Actions--and 10,000 feet--Projects. I had tried Covey and Lakein's top-down approaches and they didn't work for me. The bottoms-up approach of GTD was great.

I have found (admittedly, in only 4 days of practice) that DIT takes a virtue of GTD and makes it even better. GTD got me to focus on the runway. DIT has gotten me to focus even more on the runway. GTD preaches being flexible and relying on intuition in deciding what to do. The problem is that, too often, instead of choosing to do something that would be very helpful, I chose to engage in some kind of worthless displacement activity that would provide short-term pleasure and long-term discomfort. I was much better off than I was pre-GTD, because I was always aware of exactly where I stood with regard to my commitments, and, when the time pressure became too great, I would knuckle down and do what I had to do. But, when the pressure eased, I would "intuitively" spend more time goofing off.

DIT got me to use the day as my planning unit and planning interval. The planning unit is the time period for which a plan is created. The planning interval is the time between planning sessions. I find that GTD is rather indeterminate with respect to the planning unit. I do do Weekly Reviews, since the week is the planning interval. But I never felt that GTD was asking me to create a Weekly Plan, because there is no fixed GTD planning unit because modern worklife is hectic, volatile, and fluid. There were higher-altitude planning units of 2 years, 5 years, etc. But I always felt that the strength of GTD was its treatment of Projects and Next Actions. And GTD does not specify a time for most NAs and Projects other than "as soon as possible."

DIT does have a planning unit. It requires me to create a plan for each day. It urges me to resist modifying that plan as much as I can as I am buffeted by the daily incoming slings and arrows of work. What I have found, somewhat ironically, is that by drilling down to the runway level and planning daily, I am better able to be a long-term hedonist who avoids the immediate, distracting sirens of temptations by binding myself to the mast of my daily plan. If I decide at 8AM what I want to be doing at 10AM, I will make a much better decision (from a long-term perspective) than if I decide at 10AM what I want to do at 10AM.

Don't get me wrong. My self-discipline soared once I became a GTDer. But there was still a lot of room for improvement. By integrating DIT with GTD, by writing a daily plan which I modify only with greatest of reluctance, I am seeing that improvement.
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Wow thanks for that great explanation. It really makes more sense now.

Hi Moises,

Your posts on GTD and DIT are excellent. I too come from a GTD background. You can see my many posts here and the initial struggles in trying to integrate the two systems. My thoughts are in line with yours in this -- GTD works well for the organizing, but DIT to me is the missing link in the actual doing. It has made me much more focused and productive. I will continue to post my ideas and issues, if any, on here as I continue with my implementation of DIT. It is indeed a great system! Welcome to DIT!

-David

Nicky and David,

Thanks for the warm welcome. I am aware that I am contributing to a conversation about GTD and DIT that began quite some time ago. I look forward to discovering how others sort out the issues that these systems address.

moises

After trying for several years, I gave up on the idea of implementing someone else's system, and instead focused on getting my own system the way I wanted to.

I got a great deal of freedom when the focus switched from trying to get someone else's system to instead getting things right for a system I could call my own. All the frustration and fighting that I used to feel disappeared and instead I imagined that I was at a buffet where I could put anything on my plate that I wanted.

This was a major mental shift for me -- I hope this helps.

I also came to DIT from GTD, but with a very short-lived experience with GTD. I was excited to find GTD because I have a very creative ADD-type mind. Writing everything down that I wanted/needed to do gave me great mental relief. The problem with GTD for me came when it was time to do the weekly review. After writing down the hundreds of potential to-do's, I was understandably reluctant to review all of them, plus projects, somedays, etc., etc. Very soon I found myself continuing to write down to-do's to get the relief, but not doing them or the review. Like a previous commenter, I found myself doing a lot of displacement activities. DIT has helped me to see how crazy my estimation of what I could accomplish in a day or week really was. I do best when I only assign tasks that I believe I will complete--not what I want to complete, hope I will complete, or pray I will complete! The only remaining problem I have is that I continue to write down all my ideas of things I could, should, and would like to do. I can't complete all of my wish-list to-do's in a day, so I'm not 100% sure what to do with them. Right now I am using Things from Cultured Code on my IMac and IPhone and I really like it for using DIT. I either put to-do's I think of into a project category or I leave them in Next. Very few items go into Someday. It is true that using this approach shrinks my list. As I do a daily review of what should go on my task list for the next day, I determine that many of my hairbrained ideas in my Inbox or Next need to go right into the trash. I guess what I am wondering is if I should have a better filter before I even record the to-do's. In other words, if the to-do I think of doesn't need to be done within a certain time frame or has to do with a project I'm not currently working on, should I not record it? Should I be more diligent about using Someday or should I have a separate category/list for items like this? I should point out that I am primarily a homeschooling teacher, but am also a writer, speaker, videographer, program developer...you name it! The lines between work and personal really don't even exist! I do try to create boundaries in my schedule, but I am looking for help on creating boundaries in my task list I guess. One thing I plan to do is to create a deep cleaning schedule for the house. That way I know that those kinds of to-do's will eventually get done and I don't have to stress over where to put them. TIA for any thoughts!

Noticed your comments on house cleaning. You should check out flylady.net. She has good routines set up to help cope with the deep cleaning of homes. Her routines fit nicely with Mark's DIT system, and work well for creative people.

Christine I agree. I wrote an article on Flylady for Woman's Day magazine years ago. I keep my house clean using routines thanks to her. But I have house projects that never show up on her missions that aren't urgent that I haven't known how to handle. I am going to try doing a 15 minute project on a different area of my house each day. I just programmed it to repeat in my schedule. I have 30 different areas each day. If I miss one one month I will get back to it next month and I will still be further ahead. The size of my house and being home all the time with the kids make FLYLady's zones not very useful for me. For example, for her "other rooms zone" I have half the messiest rooms on my house to clean.

As for other issues I plan to schedule things out rather than leave them in a Next or Someday category will the list will grow and grow. The other thing I am doing is using someday as a free time category. Anything that would be fun to do but isn't essential and there are no deadlines will go here. It won't bother me if this list grows.

This is an update on my progress. I have completed my will-do list every day since I started creating them. Today is my 11th day in a row. The amount that I am accomplishing daily is easily 30-40% greater than pre-DIT. DIT is making a significant change in my worklife.

Yesterday was the first day I almost fell off the wagon. I was feeling stressed thinking about some big projects that I faced. I started telling myself that I had worked hard all morning on difficult tasks and it would be OK to goof off for just a few minutes because I deserved it. Soon enough I had wasted more than two hours.

I then had to crank as hard as I could to finish everything on my list in the time that remained. I was quite fortunate that no urgent time-consuming random factors intervened late yesterday afternoon.

I must say, that when I first read DIT I was skeptical. But you can now count me as a true believer.

I view DIT's closed list as a form of behaviorism. You give young children gold stars. I get to cross off items from my list. And once I cross all of them off, I get to write down how many days in a row that I've done my entire list. I have been using all kinds of behaviorist methods for years. I have all kinds of goals and I track how many minutes I spend on them. The thing about these methods is that there is no magic formula for finding the right one. You need to experiment. For getting work done, I have found that DIT works wonders for me. It has far exceeded my expectations. I wasn't even sure that I wanted to read the book. I am quite grateful that I did.

moises-

Thanks for sharing your progress as you implement Mark's ideas.

I too, am finding a lot of value in the closed lists and the race towards the "gold star" at the end of the day....

The question "Should I do this at all?" is a great one, and very useful. Thanks. Here's what I wonder: I may come up with ideas that are worth doing, but if I do them now I will be overcommitted. Is this where the "future current initiative" list comes in?