GTD vs. It's All Too Much

Recently someone commented on my post about clutter and said that he had just started reading David Allen's Getting Things Done book, but after reading my blog post, he wondered if the It's All Too Much book might be a better start. Since I had been thinking about New Years' resolutions, I wrote a long, semi-rambling reply to him and then decided that I would clean it up a bit and post it here.

Hmm, good questions. The answer may be just to read both, as they complement each other quite well, but I'll go into a bit more detail.

Getting Things Done (GTD) is largely about getting control of your "stuff", but it concentrates on two phases and primarily on informational "stuff". The first phase is to do a clean sweep of your home and workplace and organize it - mail, papers to file, magazines, catalogs, e-mail inbox, calendars, notes to yourself, etc. He suggests that you go through your house and/or office with a laundry basket and put everything into one huge "inbox", then process each piece using his flowchart. You are not allowed to put anything back in the box or put it aside - you must file it, turn it into an action or project, handle it right then (the two minute rule) or trash it. When you get through, your home or office won't be empty of stuff, but you will have gotten rid of a large percentage of it and what you have kept will be usefully organized. Best of all (and the biggest psychological benefit of this) is that your head will be clear of stuff as well. It is a great feeling to not have nagging worries about upcoming bills, projects to do around the house, or wondering where your tax papers are. The second phase is to try to handle every new "input" into your life the same way - don't let it pile up, process it in a timely manner, collect the appropriate information and assign tasks, etc.

The first part is time consuming, but easily "doable" by anyone. I guarantee that anyone who does it will feel an immediate benefit. The second part is like many other things in life if you are like me - it's hard to make yourself do it continually. I'll do it religiously for a few weeks, haphazardly for the next month or so, then let it slide. Every six months or so, I'll feel the worry start creeping up on me, re-read (or at least re-skim) the GTD book, and start all over. Every restart is easier though because of all of the crap I've processing before (I'm no longer sorting through tax returns from my college days, for example). To me it's like diet and exercise - you know it's good for your health, you know that not doing it is bad, you know that you feel better when you do it so it's not just delayed gratification, yet sometimes you eat junk food and despite all of your New Years' resolutions, it's hard to make yourself go to the gym everyday.

It's All Too Much was, to me, a different sort of book. GTD is about attempting to create a set of procedures for dealing with life in an information overload society. As I said before, it is a book that I reread periodically to re-inspire myself and to re-evaluate how I'm doing things. I'm convinced that if I could make myself do everything in it 100% of the time, my life would be better for it. It's All Too Much, on the other hand, is a book that I'm not as likely to reread, at least not as often. Instead of a set of procedures to deal with life, it's much more of a wake-up call. GTD deals with mail, and papers, and magazines, and e-mails, and calendars. It's All Too Much deals with all the rest of the physical "stuff" in your life - clothes that don't fit or that are out of style, books that you won't ever re-read or reference, magazines, "collectibles", hobby materials that you "might get around to getting back into some day", broken items that you might get around to repairing someday, things that you never use but that seem too nice to throw away, gifts that you never use that you don't want to get rid of in case it hurts someone's feelings, etc. It has a few good "life rules", such as after cleaning out your closet of things that don't fit, hang everything remaining with the hangers backwards. When you actually wear an outfit, hang it back up with the hanger forwards. At the end of the season, discard all of that season's clothes that are still hanging backwards - for whatever reason, they aren't clothes that you actually need. But primarily, it is a great book to read before you start cleaning out your closet or garage because it lets you put things in perspective and gives you a set of questions to ask yourself, such as "When will I ever use this?", "Is it worth taking up the space, dusting it, stumbling over it, or whatever in between the times that I might use it?", "If I need one of these ten years from now, would it be easier to buy another one or borrow one when I need it?", "With my busy life, is it really worth my time to fix this toaster one day or just throw it away and buy a new one?" and so on.

Just about everyone has problems with the GTD sort of stuff from time to time - "What do I do with this piece of mail?", "Where did I put the manual for my camcorder?", "How do I deal with the 352 unread messages in my e-mail inbox?".

On the other hand, not everyone has a problem with clutter, or, more importantly, many people don't realize they have a problem with it. You don't have to live in a house full of old newspapers stacked to the ceiling to have a problem - a superficially neat house with bulging closets, a full attic, and a garage with no room for cars can be just as bad.

I'm never going to achieve a Zen-like state of minimalism. I like my books and games and electronics parts and gadgets, but achieving balance and simplifying things as much as possible are good goals to shoot for.

The short answer is that I don't know what your house or apartment looks like, but I'd suggest reading and trying GTD first and if after phase I of GTD, you don't think you're decluttered enough, read It's All Too Much (or just check it out from the library and take notes). I would also recommend subscribing to the RSS feed from Lifehacker and 43 Folders for good tips and for tools (paper, computer, or web-based) for doing GTD.

One more note that I left off in my original e-mail reply:
GTD feels great while you are doing it because every step makes your life simpler and removes items from your "psychic RAM" as David Allen calls it. On the other hand, de-cluttering your life as described in It's All Too Much is extremely painful while you are doing it. Unless you are just lazy or into total avoidance, most of the stuff you accumulate you kept for a reason that seemed good at the time. Going through that accumulated cruft years later brings on feelings of nostalgia, guilt, and sometimes inferiority ("I really wanted to learn how to do that, but I never took the time and now I realize I wasted my money") and speaking of money, it also makes you realize how much money you've likely wasted over the years. On the bright side, once it is all done, you will feel better and it's good to see all that stuff in a pile for the trash or for charity because it helps you make better decisions in the future.