Whenever I get back into GTD, as I just have using the surprisingly awesome Todo for iPad app, I always run into the same quandary. It usually beings like this, with a new app and me all excited. Yes, I’m a geek and new toys, even purely digital ones, send my heart a flutter. I add all the important stuff, which essentially is a bunch of job related stuff that I absolutely must accomplish.

Then things get tricky. For example, my life has been a whirlwind the last few weeks and that combined with a lack of GTD methods in my life wreaked havoc on my once blissfully empty inboxes. The question is, do I add something like “empty gmail inbox” to my todo app? I know, this can be broken down into smaller tasks. But let’s start w/ the parent task, shall we.

I’m sure somewhere someone’s mulled this over in detail. But fuckit. I’m going to mull this one over for myself. Mostly because I can’t think of how to phrase the question to get an answer out of Google in the 30 second maximum time I’m willing to spend on thoughts like these. That and, I’m in a writing mood.

The Pro’s of adding the little things to a GTD list:

1. Checking it off. Let’s be honest, this is pretty much the entire reason we make check lists in the first place.
2. Getting it out of my head. This is one of the big GTD selling features and its why they say to write everything down. But I find that at some point this becomes tedious. It is simply not true for me that the benefit always outweighs the cost of writing things down.
3. Scheduling it. This one really gets me. If I schedule it, will it get done faster? Or, will I simply perpetually reschedule the task?

The Con’s:

1. Too many todo’s is overwhelming. I’ve found, in past attempts with GTD, that when todo lists balloon things get forgotten. And the lists themselves start becoming first a source of stress and, eventually, useless.
2. It’s not like I’m going to forget. I’m in my inboxes about 50 times a day, there’s no way I’m going to forget that they need doing.

This time, despite the odds being stacked against it, Con wins. It’s just not worth risking the integrity of the entire system to add things that don’t need to be added. And I think, for now at least, “does it need to be added” will be my rule of thumb.