This is old and too short to be useful but I thought I'd add this as a footnote for the future GOE if it ever happens:

Personally I feel that the "you need self-discipline to do this system" has always been a flaw of the actual system. I find that the actual effective parts of systems don't require self-discipline at all and the ones that do, you can be trained at a work or school for that and self-discipline is actually more counter-productive except for someone who does buy into that concept and hence their motivation can be found in achieving that concept rather than on being self-disciplined.

Btw to answer the topic, I would say to look for it in other people. If you can't find it in your current environment, chances are your surroundings suck. (No offense to the people you know.) It's the whole "you need a purpose" thing all over again. Self-discipline doesn't help you define a purpose. Productivity systems does. So if you rationalize that self-discipline is required to adapt a system then the specific system is flawed right then and there for asking you to be productive rather than making you productive. It's like a person selling you a gold ferrarri but only if you can find oil in the Sahara desert first. Sorry, no deal.

There was a philosopher so great I can't remember his name.  But I'll never forget what he said: "Sometimes I get the urge to start a new project, exercise, or accomplish something constructive.  Whenever I get that urge I lie down until the feeling goes away."

Of course, discipline can be bought. 
Though I don't know of any research showing that it improved the purchaser's productivity or organisation.

excellent. i think that is exactly where i've been going wrong. can anyone recommend a good dungeon in the Derbyshire, UK area?

perfect. i'll meet you there, cranioscopical. you'll recognise me by the gimp mask and bow tie.

Would it be irony that the code name for Instant Boss was originally "The Whip"?

now that is a cool name.

One thing I also forgot to add is even though I wasn't here in the past GOE, I get the impression that you guys or many of you guys compared the systems on a whim.

I'm not claiming that this is the cause for distress but I think productivity systems should have a different way of comparison. Not that I found the perfect solution but in a way, it's also how I feel many notetaker and outliner comparisons are flawed.

Often times when we compare them, we don't have this big test project (that really needs to be done) to move around in each notetakers. Instead the ones I read often compare features, tasks, speed, etc.

I find at least with notetakers and softwares, it's possible to get away with this under the rationale that "no one person has the same needs".

With productivity systems though, when applied it either sinks into the neck of the tester like a vampire or it doesn't do anything at all. Then often times the guy recommending the system will say that you need to make a habit out of it first. Then they recommend random number of days first.

It's just an assumption. If I'm wrong, my mistake. I apologize.

Unfortunately nudone, I'm extremely un-productive so even though I have what I consider a system, it's not really good if it's only making me slightly more productive.

I will say though that I have had the same mental problems as app except I wasn't productive in the first place.

If you like to know still though, I could probably reserve some day tomorrow to write it and try to include images but it's really not something you could even say comes close to working.

Edit: It's also going to be long. Longer than any post I've written in this forum. That's why I'm asking you if you really want to read something like it.

Quote from: mouser on March 26, 2009, 07:33 PM

Nudone,

I might not disagree with the main point you are trying to make.. but i think one could also argue it in this way:

There is no magic "system" that is going to fix you and make you more organized.  Your problems may have deeper causes.
And maybe there is nothing that much better about one system over another.
But it's possible that in a search and exploration of new systems you might discover some deeper issues or leave yourself open to learning something about yourself that helps.

At least that's a more positive take on the search for an organizational system that suits you.

Hmm one could take an eclectic approach.  Personally I think most "systems" degenerate into dogma that crams reality into the mold with enough pressure to make it "fit" the system.  Better to steal one good gimmick/feature or two from each and chuck the rest.

The problem with this approach is it is precisely how semi-moderate planner type/productive people have hijacked the GTD concept.

They say "oh, the great thing about GTD is that you can take these many concepts" and while it's true to some extent, it's also true for most systems.

The bad side is that they rarely tell you what the end result of implementing GTD is. In fact more often than not, I've only heard David Allen say this is what GTD is when you completely do it. Sure, he's the creator of the system so he'll do that but these other people often don't even try.

What they'll often do is hide enough frustrations until some new hip trick software arrives or they discover some cool productivity trick that just complicates the process and is only good on the surface and then lo and behold. GTD is complicated and so to simplify things, try this.

This is how we got the horrible confusing thing that we should all just take bits off and create eclectic approach and productivity systems are a headache and hard to compare in the first place! Worse, often times, productivity writers won't try to set standards for fear of some people thinking their systems might be still flawed that rather than accept the criticism, they "encourage" the supporters and these supporters often end up defending them to the point that they rarely need to.

The problem of course is that everyone who doesn't buy the system or doesn't get the system is the victim because they're rarely guided into the system but instead the supporters create such a mish mash of their own eclectic approach plus the creator's productivity system that it trickles down to software design for these systems, it trickles down to confusion and headaches with these systems but worse, you can't properly compare the two systems validly because it has become like emacs vs. vim. Each side having so much eclectic plugins that you need to consider the plugins.

While this is bad for software, it at least isn't life altering for most people (just a headache to understand the right customization) With productivity systems though, it becomes a case where a productivity system is near impossible to criticize "as a system" (i.e. not some separate section) because then somebody would say, "oh you didn't try it with index cards" or "oh you didn't try it with this software" that even if you get past that, people will just say "oh you're not supposed to follow through and through and it's supposed to be eclectic" that in the end, if you didn't quit by then because of the confusion, you would have a headache until you just go "no more. They all don't work!" after having your entire mindset nearly destroyed.

I'm not a proponent of GTD though nor do I claim to be an expert in productivity systems but it's pretty obvious to me that when you try to browse productivity blogs especially the popular ones, no one dares to criticize each other. It's usually the commentors and often only with side-glancing arguments. No in-depth discussions. It's also a crime many software supporters have. They used these software and suddenly the software can or they figure'd out a way to create @work, @home filters and checkboxes and tabs and they call it GTD and few call them out on it until something like a ThinkingRock comes and oh suddenly it's:

While many other task management applications have found ways to incorporate the ideas put forth by the Getting Things Done methodology that David Allen developed, it seems that very few have been built from the ground up as GTD applications. There are certainly a few web applications that can make that claim, but in terms of "offline" applications, the pickings are pretty slim.

Guess what happens after this? Will the supporters take this as a sign that something is amiss in the rest of software-dom? Nope. Instead criticism only trickles down to: "Oh, it's a Java app" or "Oh, I don't like having a flash drive with me". Again. Nothing on the actual system. It's like the kernel is connected to whatever application is open at the moment. Of course it all falls down like a house of cards. Even these eclectic people rarely hang up their productivity system to be looked at. Believe me, my system's eclectic too and I can tell you, it's not as easy as molding a system. I had went three versions of my molded system already because I eventually found out a flaw again and again so to say eclectic models are the best, then guess what, all these supposed original productivity systems are eclectic models too. If they all were perfect and meant for eclectic adaptation than these systems wouldn't have gotten away with any praise because then there would be no standards by which to judge them except for which becomes the best marketed system. Henceforth, productivity will never improve because instead of building upon the shoulders of better productivity systems, everyone's taking a piece out of the mona lisa and using it as sticky notes.

Quote from: Paul Keith on March 28, 2009, 12:29 AM

Edit: It's also going to be long. Longer than any post I've written in this forum. That's why I'm asking you if you really want to read something like it.

hmm, if it's going to be the longest post you've done then it's not worth it. sorry to say that, nothing personal, of course. i'm just interested in the novel approaches people may have; if it requires having to understand a complex set of operations then i won't be interested. if you've any unusual little methods that are unique then they are probably worth revealing about.

i'm interested in the fun parts, the game parts, the daft parts. but only if it's brief.

Yeah, I thought so. It's really simple but to remove the headaches, I quadruple dump instead of David Allen's single dump/sometimes double dump so it's long. No single area works through separation though because it's a system. (or rather they're nothing special once you separate them)