[转帖]Getting Things Done vs First Things First

阿懒

阿懒注:在别的地方看到的，把FTF和GTD的方法融合在一起使用。

Getting Things Done vs First Things First
Friday, October 28, 2005 11:53 AM by mpower
http://blogs.msdn.com/mpower/archive/2005/10/28/gtdvsftf.aspx

Ok, so the title of this post is a bit over the top - I recognize that in some ways David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) and Stephen Covey's First Things First (FTF, the sequel to 7 Habits) are orthogonal - they address somewhat different problems in the time management arena. But anyway...

I was thinking about some of the different challenges I've had with both systems the other day. For example, I'm great at keeping my next actions up to date and regularly go through my inboxes, but I'm either pretty bad at reviewing and doing what's on my lists or I always find something more important to work on. It's almost like my next actions/calendar/someday-maybe/etc. just show all the stuff on my plate and the urgent (important?) stuff gets done while the other stuff just sits there. I'm just a paper pusher in that system. I rarely think to look at all my lists and when I do I rarely have time, energy, or something to do anything more than I already knew needed to be done. On the other hand, when I've done better at FTF in the past (and when I've tried to go back to it more recently) I never felt like I was on top of everything. GTD does do that for you. And FTF helped me do a better job of getting the important things done than GTD.

As I thought about these issues and considered another attempt to use the FTF system, I was struck by the personality behind each system. Both men, Stephen Covey and David Allen, are highly successful in business and both consider themselves successful in their personal and family lives also. However, I can definitely relate a lot more to Mr. Covey, just because he has kids. Now, Mr. Covey has nine and I've only got two, but I also know that, when you're counting children, two is closer to nine than zero. Of course, my parents are very glad I'm learning this and expressing gratitude for their own sacrifices. I'm learning that children present challenges in time management that are different in both kind and degree to those presented by other adults or even other people's children. When work, church, and community responsibilities leave me only a little time to be with my kids, its hard to stop, look at my next actions, and work through the list. My kids almost always win, and they probably should. That makes choosing what few things I will do in my spare time much more important: will I do the dishes for my wife, fix the broken closet door, read a good book, pay the bills, send in a $10 rebate form, or mow the lawn? The ideas in FTF help me make that decision. The ideas in GTD just make my list of choices longer.

Now, I know I've been somewhat unfair in presenting this battle of the planning systems. GTD and FTF can co-exist. They are just sets of principles that can help you manage your time and actions. Some of the principles overlap nicely, such as having a weekly planning and review. Ideally, I'd like to find a way of merging all these principles into a coherent system that helps me focus on the important things while still staying on top of everything. But I'm thinking now that I should start from FTF and incrementally add the principles espoused in GTD rather than the other way around because of my particular situation. For all the rest of you, there may be some value in comparing your current circumstances to both David Allen and Stephen Covey; it may help you choose which system makes the most sense for you.

该贴来自群组：时间管理实践(FTF和GTD)

[此贴子已经被作者于2007-12-23 22:52:29编辑过]

阿懒

Habits vs Things
Tuesday, November 01, 2005 10:07 AM by mpower
http://blogs.msdn.com/mpower/archive/2005/11/01/habitsvsthings.aspx

One of the challenges that I and many others face with David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) is that the number of next actions, someday/maybe items, and lists in general seems to be out of control. Mr. Allen recognizes this to some extent and encourages dividing next actions into lists by context. Ideally, this means I should only have to look at the next actions for the context I’m in. But of course, to make the right decision and do the most important things will require changing context (going to work, picking up the phone, etc.), and so I still need to look at everything. I don’t, and so my brain takes back responsibility because I can’t trust my system.

This problem with GTD is a result of the focus on things. It’s all about improving your productivity by keeping track of all the things you need to do, or want to do, or hope sometime to do. Certainly, this is an important part of being productive. But because the paradigm is focused on getting things done, it has the side effect of forcing you to keep track of a lot of things. And because you get so caught up in keeping track of all the things, it leaves less time and brainpower to make sure you’re doing the most important things.

In contrast to the GTD paradigm of things, Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits paradigm is about habits. To become more productive you develop habits, like being proactive or putting first things first. These habits themselves don’t help reduce all the things that need to be done, but they do focus your time and energy on those that provide the greatest return on investment.

In a more general sense, however, habits are the key to reducing all the things in your life. For example, one thing I’ve never added to my calendar or my next actions lists was to read the scriptures each day, because I already have a habit of doing it. A bad example is that I don’t have a habit of checking the oil in my car when I get gas, so I have to put it on my next actions lists or it doesn’t get done. Ok, so it doesn’t get done anyway. But if I had the habit, I’d have one less thing to keep track of. And it would get done.

So now I’m going to look through all my next actions and calendar items for habits that I can develop. What can be made into a habit, and what should be? It’s true that habits take time to develop – there is no quick fix. But in the long run, instead of just getting things done, it means I will become a different person, a more productive person. And that’s what I want my system to do.

董卓

[em02]翻翻吧！！！！！

robert8888

又是英文！看得好辛苦啊！