I don't like or need GTD...

You may say. And that's fine. I'm not really into proselytising when it comes to GTD. I just live it out and hope people will ask me about it. But humour me for a minute. You may say you don't like the GTD approach or you don't need GTD approach and that may be so.

But do you like:

  1. The idea of dumping all the nagging worries out of your head and recording all the wonderful ideas in your head whenever they come to you or as often as you need to?
  2. The clarity of pinning down what you actually have to do about all the different dreams and duties, relationships and roles in your life?
  3. The holism of having all your duties and resolutions noted in one place so you can choose what to do based on where you are and how you feel?
  4. The simplicity of separating actual activities from larger stuff to help you take the basic steps towards big commitments and amibitions? 
  5. The commonsense to ask what you are wanting to achieve before worrying about how you are going to achieve it?
  6. The freedom to set aside time every week to get a bird's-eye view of your life, hopes, commitments and prayers so that everything stays in persepctive?
Well you may "Not like GTD" but that's basically all it is:
  1. Capture everything,
  2. Idenfity the 'next action',
  3. Keep context-specific lists,
  4. The project vs action distinction,
  5. The 'natural planning model',
  6. The 'weekly review'.
GTD is not a system, but a 'systematic approach' as David Allen makes clear in his second book, Making it all work. You can apply this approach to your iPhone or erratic, strange piles of stuff in your hippie teepee house or your paper-based filofax or your kitchen noticeboard. What system you use is irrelevant, it's the systematic approach that's the big thing.