Imaginary Landscape, LLC

Every year as the holidays approach, I believe there will be plenty of time to clean, purge and generally refresh my workspace. Just thinking this gives me license to do none of it throughout the fall until I can no longer see my desk.

So the holidays came and went and every cleansing opportunity was met by a compelling reason not to. In fact, most of the reasons weren't so compelling.

And so there my piles sat, slowly exerting psychic pressure. It was then that I stumbled upon Getting Things Done - the self-proclaimed guide to Stress-Free Productivity from author David Allen. I would have laughed it off as yet another tree-hugging philosophical life-book but for two things.

First, it was well reviewed in the Harvard Business Review. As a long time reader of the Review, I respect their opinion. Second, it was number four of the top ten geek gifts on Boagworld.com. And given the fact the Paul Boag seems pretty cynical, his claim that it transformed his life was enough for me to spring for a copy (using last year's Border's gift card - thanks, mom).

The first few chapters almost blew it for me. A little too much Zen-this and Martial-Arts-that. However, if you can stick it out until Part 2, that's where it hit home. A real detailed, bottom-up approach to implementation that (thankfully) left no room for interpretation.

It took two full days to set it up. I burned a Saturday and Sunday to get it done so as not to be distracted. So far, I'm two days into it and feeling pretty good.

I needed a system and this one seems like a good one. Time will tell. Regardless, if it completely falls apart, it was still worth it. If nothing else, I got rid of 5 garbage cans worth of stuff in my workspace.