GTD With a Twist

I mentioned "Getting Things Done" in an earlier post - as a twist on the system, I decided to start measuring exactly how many Things I got done each day.  Every time I finish a task on my to-do list, be it 'Clean the closet' or 'Read the next book on the pMBA list' or 'Take out the trash', I increment the counter by one for that day.
"That's silly," you say.  "Surely 'Clean the closet' is a much bigger task than 'Take Out The Trash.'  What a useless measurement."
Well, yes, but - in the long run, I think it averages out.  This is why tracking the number of open bugs as we approach our ship date is actually a useful thing to do.  So while on a day-to-day basis the number might not be useful (spent the whole day reading Book X, therefore I only got 1 thing done) - tracking on a week-by-week basis probably is.
Right now I seem to average 1.25 things done per day.  So if I can get to the point where I'm getting 2 things done per day, I can be happy.  For a while.  And then try for 3.
Of course, I will no doubt start gaming the system.  Breaking tasks into smaller sub-tasks;  calling things I wouldn't have called tasks (like writing blog entries?) tasks;  and so on.  To a certain extent that's fine - breaking up tasks makes them more manageable, and recognizing that I'm being productive while I'm writing a blog entry seems fair, too.  And at some point I'll run out of ways to game it, and I'll have to come up with real ideas for increasing my productivity.

Comments

[GBGames]

So by breaking down tasks into subtasks, you really mean breaking down Projects into Next Actions? Cleaning the garage might entail throwing away junk, sorting through the rest, putting up a shelf, and putting the boxes of stuff on the shelf. Cleaning the garage would be a Project and so can't be considered an actionable step. You can't do Projects. You do Next Actions. I don't think it is gaming the system at all.

[Brett Douville]

On Republic Commando the programmers did a quick daily report -- a quick list of things they did that day. It was mailed out to all the programmers; it helped managers keep tabs on where time was going (e.g. five hours of meetings? no wonder so-and-so's not productive) and it also alerted other programmers to potential sources of bugs. (Hrm, weapon firing in multiplayer just went fubar, and look, so-and-so was in there improving performance... could they be related?)

Anyway, point is, if it's something you wouldn't feel weird about putting in your daily, I'd say it counts.

[Robert Anton Reese]

There’s nothing more satisfying then having a list of things to do then, methodically ticking them off.

Brett Douville is right about alerting your colleagues about tasks done. At my work we have tied subversion into our bug track database so that when a fix is made a list of the updated files get posted as a comment for the bug. This makes figuring out what went wrong a lot easier.