Zen to Done by Leo Babauta

Zen To Done (ZTD) is a system that is at once simple, and powerful, and will help you develop the habits that keep all of your tasks and projects organized, that keep your workday simple and structured, that keep your desk and email inbox clean and clear, and that keep you doing what you need to do, without distractions. This book was written for those who want to get their lives organized and actually execute the things on their to-do list by changing existing habits. And let me say that changing your habits is possible. Using the habit-changing techniques I describe in this book, I have made many habit changes: I quit smoking, started running, started eating healthier, completed a marathon, doubled my income and got my finances in order, have almost eliminated my debt now, completed a triathlon, lost more than 20 pounds, and started a successful blog, and more. Read this book. You'll be amazed at what you can accomplish with this productivity system.

This was not great.

While I appreciate the core idea of “GTD but one at a time” the book never really goes beyond this and ends up repeating a bunch of sentences over and over again. And I'm not even sure if the strategy of only doing one habit of GTD at a time makes sense.

For example if I decided to to the collection habit for a month and was very diligent at collecting all my open loops, productivitywise I think I would still be in a terrible position because the collection habit only makes sense if you are reviewing the lists you make also. If you are not regularly reviewing the list you collect open loops on your brain is probably going to pick up the loops because it doesn't trust that you will deal with them at some point. Or at least this is what David Allen would probably say, and I would definitely believe it.

The problem, though, is that it's not just these two habits that depend on each other but almost every habit in GTD and ZTD depends on each other. You can't have collection without review just as much as you can't have review without organisation.

The idea of doing only one of these habits at a time is not something I could imagine happening in any succesful way.

On top of that, even if I had to assume that you could somehow make this work by only doing one habit at a time, I found the actual content in the book very light and not nearly well substantiated enough.

Zen To Done is a great book. It takes elements of [b:Getting Things Done 1633 Getting Things Done The Art of Stress-Free Productivity David Allen http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1158299716s/1633.jpg 5759] and Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as well as some others and combines them. Moreover it's a terrific book for those who have read one of those books and thinks that it was a bit much for daily use. I walked away from this book trying to plan less stuff, focusing on doing just a few tasks well. When I do remember to use this approach I am happy.