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8 Reasons GTD is for Creative People Too

I’m blogging about GTD, eProductivity, leadership and books. If you want to join with me in this journey you can follow me by rss feed, by email or through Twitter
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All too often I see the myth that GTD (Getting Things Done) by David Allen isn’t suitable for creative people perpetuated.  For an example of this see the prelude to Jonathan Mead’s post “7 Productivity Tips for People that Hate GTD” where he says:

I’m sure it must be awesome for some people (that’s why it has all those followers, right?). But for others, it just doesn’t fit. Mostly with creative-minded people.

I know that no methodology is right for everyone, but to compartmentalise GTD to this degree is unfair, so I felt the need to jump to its defence.  And no, I have no pecuniary interest in doing so.

GTD is for creative people because:

  1. It’s a flexible methodology only and is open to creative implementation;
  2. It has the ability to be implemented very simply;
  3. Creative people often have non-creative parts of their life or job that need doing;
  4. Creativity can be stifled by worry about undone things;
  5. GTD opens up more time to be devoted to creative interests;
  6. GTD helps you focus on “short bursts” of creative activity;
  7. GTD helps you formulate a “To Not Do” list; and
  8. GTD helps you focus on what’s really important to you.

If you’re a creative person, how about adding to this list for me.  Give me your thoughts and I’ll put together a more comprehensive post later giving you credit for your input (make sure you give me a link to your site if you have one).

My 2 cents worth is that creative people who think GTD isn’t for them are confusing the methodology of GTD with the various possible implementation and/or tools for implementation.  Work out an implementation that suits you and you’ll find your creativity actually increases… a lot!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 11th, 2009 at 11:57 amand is filed under Productivity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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