Comment by andai

>can handle GTD occasionally but reverts to chaos

Same. So I ended up "inventing" what I call miniGTD.

My system got so big and unwieldy, that I threw it away, and just wrote down the most important stuff from memory.

Then I realized that I can just do that every morning. Fill half a page with the most relevant goals and their associated Next Actions. And that's the whole system.

Here's a screenshot: https://files.catbox.moe/jq0u8z.png

It certainly doesn't meet David Allen's criterion of 100%-ing it. But it gives you 80% of the bang for under 20% of the buck!

Rewriting from memory works as a natural filter for priority and urgency. Stuff might slip through the cracks, so when I'm done writing, I just turn to the previous day's page to see if I forgot anything.

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Also, you might want to read Leo Babauta's Zen to Done (ZTD), which fixes most of the issues I've had with GTD. I ended up reinventing most of ZTD on my own, and then smacked myself when I finally read the book, because I had downloaded it 15 years earlier and failed to read it ...

...Also also worth mentioning Scott Young's Weekly/Daily Goals (ZTD has this too) and Cal Newport's system (based entirely around the calendar). They would make David Allen cringe, but they work really well for a lot of people!