The hammer of order

You might’ve noticed the ‘GTD in box’ and the ‘tickler file’ in the rather odd photo I posted a little while back. You might’ve recognised them as being components of David Allen’s personal organisation system – Getting things done. You might’ve wondered why I, of all people, have an organisation system (my desk is practically a work station!). And a formal one at that!

Now, a personal (and professional) organisation system is something you’d likely find in the corporate world. And if you know me you’d know exactly how much I disdain the corporate world- It’s essentially a massive (and unnecessary) ego trip that everyone is somehow fooled into playing along with. But in any case the real question is: why does an affirmed Geek like me have one?

There are many answers to that question: I have terrible memory, I tend to loose things that I’d likely want later and I make a mess of things that should’ve been straightforward. In short, I suffer from the first stages of absent minded professor syndrome. I’m not quite there yet (hell, I’m still an undergrad!) but its progressing.

Absent minded professor syndrome, which we shall call APS because three letter mental disorders are so  loved in the medical world right now, is a state when your mind is constantly wandering. You think of one thing and that leads to another and that to another and so on. You love the thought stream, you live the thought stream and you exclaim in absolute delight at the wonderful ideas your sub-conscious coughs up. Unfortunately, that love leaves you with a predicament: either live the stream in your head and loose touch with whatever is around you or force yourself away from it and live with the knowledge that what you really want to be doing right now is a mere mental hop, skip and jump away.

Well, I don’t want to do either. I want to be able to enjoy my particular brand of madness to the fullest while loosing as little touch with the real world as I can. The answer, therefore, to the question of why I try to be organised lies in the true nature and purpose of an organisation system – to free yourself of unnecessary thought and worry.

The the essential first principle behind GTD (getting things done in buzzword form) is simple: Take all the thoughts that are clawing for your attention, whether they be as mundane as ‘do your laundry’* or as profound as ‘pen out the interesting approach to AI you thought up’* and put them down in a trusted and efficient, filing, organisation and reminder system. (The buzzword for this being ‘total capture’.) Once everything is in the system you needn’t worry about it anymore because you know you’ll be reminded of anything you need to do when the time and place are right and that any information you need is going to be right where it is supposed to.

That leaves your mind free to do whatever its doing right now! And what I’m doing right now is dreaming whatever I care to dream of, secure in the knowledge that I’ll do everything that needs to be done and sure that whatever I imagine and care for will never, ever be forgot**.

In short, I live in order that my mind may live in beautiful, beautiful chaos.

 

*Both of these are actual entries in my next action list!

**Please, please tell me you got the reference! A clue if you didn’t: the 5th of November.