My GTD practice for 2010

I have been practicing GTD since 2004 and my system has evolved much over the ears. I have decided that my GTD practice for 2010 is all about attention - paying attention to what has my attention and responding appropriately.

I have spent a lot of time in discussion with my GTD practicing friends in person and on the boards about the right way to do GTD; when and how often to do weekly reviews, when and how often to look at higher levels, what contexts to have, which lists to process first, should due dates be tracked, how do you use a tickler?, how do you prioritize?, how to capture? and many more statements and questions about the right way to practice.

I find myself brought back to David Allen's statement, "If you don’t pay attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves".

I have been finding more and more that GTD is about responding appropriately to what has your attention, not keeping everything perfectly orderly all the time (unless clutter is what has your attention), not reviewing lists on a strict schedule (which I have found can be counterproductive if there are things on the mind distracting focus), not doing it the right way because there is no right way since everyone's attention is attracted to do different things.

What is going to change in my system? not much, I am still going to use Outlook for list management at work and Remember the milk at home, I am still going to be capturing on paper and using an inbox for processing, and I am still going to be using my calendar and someday/maybe list as a tickler; so what am I changing? I am changing the way I think about GTD.

My big change for 2010 is taking it back to basics. I will be paying more attention to what has my attention, this will determine how often I review the different aspects of my system and what I am looking at when I review them.