Jim Willis

I am an Oliver Burkeman fan. I deeply enjoyed Four Thousand Weeks and have been a long time subscriber to his newsletter, The Imperfectionist. His new book, Meditations for Mortals is currently on my nightstand. What draws me to Burkeman is his “reformed productivity enthusiast” point of view which we both share, perhaps for different reasons.

Promoting his current book, Burkeman made an appearance on a recent episode of Cal Newport’s podcast, Deep Work. I enjoyed the episode but what really stood out to me was a brief exchange between the two about David Allen’s Getting Things Done. The exchange seemed to point to much of what I find interesting about productivity and productivity systems. 

In additional to being a fan of Burkeman’s, I am a long time (probably 20 years or so) adopter of Allen’s Getting Things Done system. It is a lens that I look at my life through that helps keep entropy at bay, a little. Several years ago, Cal Newport wrote a New Yorker piece that, if not disparaging of GTD, was less than enthusiastic about it. Reading the New Yorker piece, I got the deep sense that Newport was misunderstanding a lot of what GTD is about.

When Newport and Burkeman discussed GTD on the podcast, it was clear to me that not only does Newport misunderstand GTD, but Burkeman, in a very polite, non-confrontational way seemed to recognize that Newport was also misinterpreting GTD. So I feel like I’m in good company here. I really wish that Burkeman were a bit less passive here and dug a bit more into the spiritual side of Allen’s GTD.

Newport’s “Deep Work” idea of productivity focuses on cognitively demanding tasks. He has amazing tips and takeaways about focus and concentration, but makes a lot of assumptions in a way that to me has a bit of an air of privilege to it. It lacks (and frankly dismisses) the practical, real world approach that David Allen offers. Burkeman didn’t exactly spring to the defense of GTD in the podcast, but I do think that Burkeman’s approach to productivity serves as a defense of GTD, especially when considering life’s inherent limitations.

Newport is dismissive of GTD, I assume, because he believes it is to focused on the process or the focus on organizing shallow tasks. Rightly so, Cal Newport, seems skeptical of systems for the point of systems. And I agree there. But his “Deep Work” approach assumes a control over time and the agency or freedom to say no to shallow tasks, or at least the freedom to lead a life where failing to tackle these shallow tasks don’t have massive consequences. This kind of life isn’t accessible to everyone.

One of the reasons GTD has played such an important role in my life for 20 years now is that it easily handles large and small tasks in a trusted, structure way. This structure has allowed me to deal with real-world complexities and balance work, family and personal responsibilities. For someone like me who doesn’t have the luxury of adopting an organizational system that can ignore shallow tasks, GTD has been essential in allowing me to manage my day to day tasks without losing sight of bigger goals.

in Four Thousand Weeks, Burkeman writes about the importance of accepting our human limitations and the finite nature of time. Burkeman functions as a bridge between Newport’s (privileged) idealism and Allen’s practicality by focussing on prioritization and making meaningful choices with the realization that not everything can or should be done. Burkeman compliments Allen, and I think this is why he didn’t just nod along in agreement with Newport’s disparaging of GTD on the podcast.

For me, and I suspect many others, productivity isn’t about eliminating shallow tasks. (note: the idea of how you approach shallow, tiny or routine tasks is worth a dive, and a great place to start is this piece on the “tyranny of tiny tasks” vs. “fidelity to daily tasks” from LM Sacasas.) Sure, life is short and I want to engage in meaningful work and Newport does provide some great models for this (checking email on a schedule, time blocking, etc.). Likewise, I think the idea of creating overly complex organization/productivity systems seems like an ineffective use of our limited time on earth. But I do think that GTD offers just the right framework for managing the unavoidable shallow tasks of life while also making space for deep, meaningful work. 

The goal of Allen’s GTD is to achieve “mind like water.” For those of us who don’t have the luxury of being able to ignore or at least not track shallow tasks in some system, life can become filled with the noise of these smaller tasks if we don’t put them down into a trusted system and get them out of our heads. Failure to do so leaves a mind that is cluttered with a lot of shallow tasks, the very opposite of mind like water. The whole point of Allen’s GTD is to free the mind of the distractions of these shallow tasks so that you can live life with your best possible attention and concentration. I think Burkeman gets that. I think Newport is confused by this and his New Yorker piece and exchange with Burkeman highlight this misunderstanding.

In any case, all three of these guys have done a lot to help me keep my act together. For that, I’m grateful and was happy to spend some time thinking about how they relate to one another this morning.