Category: “Getting Things Done - GTD”

It’s Monday morning. You open your laptop and already feel the weight of it before you even read the first email. The feeling that there’s too much to do, that no matter how much you get done today, you’ll still have a lot left to do tomorrow. You’re hard-working and disciplined, so something must be slipping through the cracks.

Within the Getting Things Done workflow, the Someday/Maybe list occupies a unique place. It’s not an action list, even though it includes “potential” actions. It’s something similar to what would be called a reserve warehouse in logistics: a space where you store things that have potential future value, but which, for the time being, don’t require any commitment on your part. In some places, it’s called the incubator.

If you’re a freelancer, a consultant, or run a business with external clients, at some point you’ve probably come across a question that Getting Things Done doesn’t explicitly address: Where do my clients fit into the GTD system?

There’s a habit so widespread among people trying to get organized that almost no one questions it: when something comes up (a task, an idea, a pending call), they write it down directly on the list where they think it belongs. On the “calls” list, the “errands” list, or the list for the corresponding project. Or worse, on a single to-do list. Quick, clean, no middlemen.

After exploring doing fewer things, Cal Newport’s first principle of Slow Productivity, today we dive into the next one: working at a natural pace. This principle challenges one of the most deeply rooted beliefs in modern work culture: that more hours and constant intensity equal better results.