I read it the first time about four years ago. And I revisit it once or twice a year. I’ve occasionally had it working in toto. But mostly, I just use the bits that work for me–the Tickler File and In Box. A lot of people never get those going and find the categorized by context Action Lists are what works for them.

Heh. Well played!

For me, one of the most important concepts is drawing boundaries between “actions” (things you can actually do, such as “read chapter one of JavaScript book”) and “projects” (things that consist of many actions, such as “learn JavaScript”). Also, the boundaries between “collecting,” “processing,” “reviewing,” etc. help me keep from trying to do everything at once.

And Joshua is getting 10 years in the gulag for that “fascist” remark.

Sarah: Can’t find an e-mail in your profile/blog, but would love to see the PDF – rachel@lisjobs.com. And thanks for the pointer to your blog, too! More on this probably later, gotta run…

How I did it? Well, first of all, I don’t take David Allen As Holy Writ. Since I first discovered GTD at the beginning of a sleepy summer semester, I had the time to implement it all, run with it for a week or two, and see what parts I actually used. For instance, the tickler files didn’t work for me, so I would stuff deferred things like that into my waiting on queue and set an alarm in outlook for when I wanted to start on them.

However, I know the “throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and see what sticks” thing doesn’t work for most people, so I’d say start with what you feel you’ll get the most benefit from tight now. For me (and most people) when I started GTD, just cleaning up my workspace was a godsend.

At the time my “office” was the circ desk, so I was able to do my initial clean up and gathering in a couple of hours on a quiet friday during intersession. I don’t agree with him that you *have* to clean up your whole office in one fell swoop–that sounds incredibly intimidating to me. Break it up into zones, and do one zone a day, or one a week, or whatever works.

As far as the process itself, I found a great workflow diagram that’s a bit more understandable than the one in the book–email me and I’ll zap over the PDF. And you don’t have to start with all of it–like you mentioned, just the 2 minute rule can help out. Maybe try a version of the weekly review(I’ve found this probably the most helpful of the steps). But really, pick out a tip that looks good, dip your toe in, see if it works for you, and repeat. THe important thing is creating a system that works for you, not to embrace the “system of the week”.

And to your other questions? there are approximately 18 billion GTD sites/blogs out there, each with a slightly different implementation. 43 folders is awesome, as well as other newer blogs such as Black Belt Productivity. And I don’t know if I would say I’m *stress free*, but life definitely goes smoother now that I KNOW that my boss won’t ever email me to ask on the status of a project i forgot existed. I hope I haven’t bored you silly, and that some of this works for you!