Getting Things Done

A very stimulating paper about the optimum organization of workflow:

Francis Heylighen and Clément Vidal: "Getting Things Done: The Science behind Stress-Free Productivity"

The goal of GTD is not to so much to optimally achieve given goals with given priorities (because goals and priorities are in constant flux in an information society), but rather to maximize the number of usefull tasks performed.

Cognition is

• situated (triggered by environmental stimuli)
• embodied (sensor- and motor-activity involved)
• distributed (over the brain and environment)

The environment serves as an external memory. It triggeres actions and is a source of

• affordances (opportunities)
• disturbances
• feedback (compare present project state with goal)

Project plans in GTD:

• overall goals sufficient
• not too far ahead
• focus on actions