Reddit mentions of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

I hope the things that helped me can help you, then! Brace yourself for a wall of text.

The things I'm about to link are technically "productivity" self-help things, but they've been so helpful for changing my mindset in general that I don't consider them that way. Making big changes to your mental space starts with making teeny, tiny changes to how you deal with life.

Think about this: on good days, you have the willpower and energy to do anything and everything. The only thing wrong at the end of the day is, "gosh I wish I could have gotten more done!"

But when your willpower and energy fail you, you can't even think straight. You resist the simplest of tasks, even things that will take five minutes like making phone calls or looking up something online. All that time is wasted, you feel like you have no control, and you blame yourself for not doing what you should have been doing. You don't deserve rest, because clearly you promised yourself you'd get something done today, and you didn't. You can't even come up with good ideas for the things you enjoy doing. Nothing sounds fun. You pick up your phone and start wasting more time and making yourself feel worse.

The following systems more or less have one thing in common: expect your willpower to fail you when you need it most.

Expect to not have energy now and then. That's part of life. You won't be able to schedule everything, because you don't know what tomorrow will bring. The most important thing you can do when you have energy, creativity, or willpower is to prepare for the times you just don't.

Making decisions on "what to do" and "when" and "how" all take as much energy - if not more - than actually doing the task. If you get bogged down in that decision-making, you won't have energy for the really important things - writing, travelling, gaining new experiences, spending time with loved ones. If you've ever heard of "spoon theory," you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every tiny decision you make every day burns willpower.

(If you don't, you can find it here: https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/ ... the article talks about living with a physical illness that can't be fixed with a self-help book. However, many of us live like this even though we don't actually have to. I think even healthy people have limited spoons, but some have more than others due to external factors. Younger people in particular have fewer and fewer spoons on average as their structured, standardized, sanitized, indebted, socially disconnected environments prepare them less and less for what real life actually looks like. I'm recommending things here that filled that gap for me.)

Without a system that provides you with direction when you don't have willpower or energy, you end up running on zero willpower more or less all the time. You're "always tired." You wish you had more energy, but attempts at exercise and more sleep fail you. You waste a lot of time, and you never get around to the really important things because you're just too tired. You get a spurt of energy and willpower, clean your house, and make a ton of progress, but a week later, the mess returns and you have no desire to work on your book. You think, "If I just worked harder and didn't waste so much time..." but nothing ever changes, even when you work hard enough to hit burnout.

Your system should also provide a time and place for things that have no deadline but are important to feeding your soul - the "fuel of creativity." All those things you want to do "someday"? You can and should work them in. New experiences are just as important as all that "stuff" on your to-do list.

So, what does that system look like?

...

First, some articles that are free online before I get to the books you have to pay money for.

This is an examination of the nature of the problem. I found it helpful to frame my own struggles. Describing your problems accurately is almost as important as fixing them. On the "dark playground," it's a concept that comes from these articles on why we resist and avoid things subconsciously, even things we like doing:

https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html

https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/how-to-beat-procrastination.html

https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/procrastination-matrix.html

...

So, that's all well and good and helps to understand the problem, but it doesn't give much practical advice on how to traverse the dark playground or avoid it in the first place. It gives some good advice, but it doesn't stand up to the grit and detail of daily life very well. The actual "system" to deal with this can be difficult to nail down...but this is the one I use.

This is the most important thing I do. If you do nothing else, take a look at this.

On the "nagging feeling that I should be doing something else," there's a system that helped me more than any other, and that's Getting Things Done by David Allen. It is a book you have to buy, but it is worth it. It's the kind of thing that's pretty motivating to listen to on a commute or sitting at a desk (it also pairs well with tidying up or anti-clutter systems like The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up, which I also recommend for clearing your environment of distractions and emotional baggage - and for fixing bad spending habits).

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01B6WSK5C/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_F1zUDb4WRW7N6

Wait...this is framed as a model for professionals at work, right? Or people with two kids, a dog, a white picket fence, and soccer practice. What's that got to do with writing?

How is this going to help with creativity? By getting all that uncreative mundane day-to-day crap out of your brain and dealt with so you have space for real creative thought.

You'll have room to dream instead of constantly and vaguely worrying about groceries, phone calls, goals that are important to someone else but not you, catching up with that old friend, cleaning your desk, throwing out old stuff in your fridge, organizing things that should really be your sister's responsibility and you're bitter about it - all that stuff that isn't all that important to the most desperate desires of your heart, but fills your headspace day after day. Some of it is stuff that you should do, others are not, others are things someone else should do. None of them should take up as much of your time and effort as they do right now.

GTD the gift of knowing, for certain and without a doubt, exactly what you should be doing at this moment to feel good about where your life is going, and not feel the need to procrastinate.

(part one of two)

"I'm the kind of person that doesn't plan ...." Stop right there. Read this book: Getting Things Done by David Allen. This book will change your working life from chaos and disorganization to smooth working. Written by an engineer. Thin and brief, to the point. The first thing I do when I hire someone is hand them this book. They have to sit down and read it before they do anything else. We then work on a shared to-do list (Todoist app, there are lots of others) and shared google calendar. I won't work with people who aren't organized, and everyone whom I hire is disorganized, even the best of them, seasoned pros with years of experience.

Getting Things Done will change you from a disorganized mess to a competent professional.

https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/B01B6WSK5C/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?hvadid=74079762363212&hvbmt=be&hvdev=m&hvqmt=e&keywords=getting+things+done&qid=1571234271&s=books&sr=1-3

The three things that helped me massively with executive function are:

• Getting things done
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/B01B6WSK5C/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=getting+things+done&qid=1569271349&sr=8-3
  
  
• The time of your life by tony robbins
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Time-Your-Life-ANTHONY-ROBBINS/dp/B001ZGQSX6/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=time+of+your+life+robbins&qid=1569271376&s=audible&sr=1-1-catcorr
  
  
• Studying for the PMP (project management professional) exam
  
  https://www.amazon.com/PMP-Exam-Pass-First-Sixth/dp/0990907473/ref=sr_1_3?crid=AFLJESI1X0QE&keywords=pmp+exam+prep&qid=1569271403&sprefix=pmp+%2Caudible%2C203&sr=8-3
  
  I did these over a number of years and worked extremely hard at it. I also use mind mapping software called freeplane.