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The Rise and Fall of Getting Things Done

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The New Yorker featured an article "The Rise and Fall of Getting Things Done" by Cal Newport.

It's an article that resonates quite well with my personal point of view although I am unsure if I will come to the same conclusions.

Either way, it's a PIM-related article that you have to read.

He spans a nice productivity optimization story that starts with Peter Drucker (the term "knowledge work"), jumps to the personal journey of Merlin Mann (43 Folders, Inbox Zero, Hipster PDA) and embraces the GTD method by David Allen.

The great thing about the article is that it also mentions the downside of this "Productivity pr0n": somehow the work needs to be done. Being an efficient knowledge worker may lead to a dread-mill where external work input is unthrottled for too long.

Another aspect the article covers is the tradeoff between self-organization and independence versus being managed by peers.

In any case, the article is well worth your time if you're interested in PIM or self-management in general.

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