Matthew Cornell

While talking about GTD with my illustrator friend Rebecca Guay (check out her books on Amazon), we realized that two of our passions (writing children's books, and productivity coaching) have something deep in common. I love the way she put it: "You know you've hit a nerve when your idea expands into infinite possibilities."

In her case, she's come up with a great idea for a new children's book, and it continues to support deep exploration (e.g., she can easily imagine an entire series). For me, diving into the personal productivity realm just keeps getting more interesting, broader, and richer. In addition to absorbing ideas from great thinkers like David Allen, Stephen Covey, Dale Carnegie, and Peter Drucker, my study is exposing me to areas including time management, creativity, etc. I would list them all, but, not surprisingly, Steve Pavlina's already done so - here's his terrific list from Personal Development for Smart People:

• Time Management
  
• Motivation
  
• Overcoming Procrastination
  
• Goals
  
• Courage
  
• Work/Career
  
• Wealth/Money
  
• Momentum
  
• Problem Solving
  
• Balance
  
• Fulfillment
  
• Consciousness

Whew! In other words, I've found that GTD expands into infinite possibilities. Maybe this helps explain its near-cult status [1] - like any activity with such breadth, one can easily plunge as deeply as desired. This also gives me something to offer when asked to justify a blog on the topic - I'm not just imagining secret codes in some strange-but-popular book. (However, if you read the third line on page 73 backwards, you'll see that Allen is in reality...)

Here's how Po Bronson puts it in What Should I Do With My Life?:

"What am I good at?" is the wrong starting point. [...] A simple test: Is your choice something that will stimulate you for a year or something that you can be passionate about for 10 years?

I'm betting this is a 10 year one.


References and related posts

• [1] For more on the cult aspect, see Meme Exploding: Getting Things Done, GTD: A New Cult for the Info Age, The Cult of Getting Things Done, or Meet the man who can bring order to your universe.
  
• Another fabulous quote from What Should I Do With My Life?:The relevant question in looking at a job is not What will I do? but Who will I become?
  
• In "Interesting, but not useful," or Does it pass the scribble test?, I describe another "is it interesting" test - does it make you scribble furiously when reading it or talking with someone?