I'll admit that I'm a fan of David Allen's Getting Things Done, however, I'm not a cheerleader. For me, his system addressed two bottlenecks in my own philosophy at the time of reading his book. Since correcting these two flaws over three years ago, I have seen incredible improvements in productivity. His system gives you ability to respond, not react, to everything.

Filtering on Steroids. First, the filtering system of GTD is among the best available. By insisting that "stuff" must be broken down into the very next physical action, you move closer to meeting your objective quickly. It gives you the best answer to the question, "How do you eat an elephant?".

In conjunction with breaking projects down into the "Next Action", the system also recommends grouping these actions into categories. For example, all of your phone calls would be one category, while actions that need to be done on the internet would be another. These different category, or "contexts", enable you to focus on things that can be done when you have time to do them. It also reduces the time spent managing your "To Do" list. Before GTD, my "Master Task List" managed me, not the other way around.

This enhanced filtering process helped me clarify what needed to be done. Without realizing it, my tasks had been ambiguous, which often caused procrastination. For example, my task "Weekly Spreadsheet" was really several tasks. My "Next Action" should have been "Collect Source Data from Managers". With David's system, you do your thinking up front so you are free to implement whenever you want. Learning the GTD process is a little like learning to drive a car. It's an incredibly complex process with many variables; however, once you start doing it, your subconscious mind does most of the work.

Trust Your System. The other bottleneck that GTD enabled me to correct was having a complete system. Having a complete system that prevents leaks is the only way for your mind to have confidence enough to let go of control. The "Weekly Review" gives you a chance to correct any flaws in your system every week and ensure there are no "open loops". The Bubble Planner uses a process called a weekly "Bubble Bath" that accomplishes this purpose. Essentially, everything that needs to be done is evaluated and addressed on a weekly basis. This ensures that you are not missing anything important. There are some things that come off of your "Bubble Maps" and some things that are added. In any case, you are making a conscious decision every week about what's important to you.

What about Purpose. While hard-core GTD cheerleaders will disagree on this point, I have found that the GTD system has not been effective for me in tying in my dreams and visions. One thing that Stephen Covey covered effectively in his classic, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, was living with purpose. No one before or since was as effective as Covey in moving people toward self-actualization. Unfortunately, no system that I've found has effectively combined the Strategic (or effectiveness) aspects with the Tactical (or efficiency). That's why we developed the Bubble Planner. There are six sections that work together providing the most effective and efficient system on the market today: Radar (Goal Setting), Roadmap (Projects), Rudder (Task Management), Register (Calendar), Renew (Habit Development), and Review (Reflection and Reference).