Lunch at Seesmic [en]

[fr] Apparition dans le Seesmic du Jour suite à mon passage dans les bureaux de la startup de Loïc Le Meur hier. Je passe les commentaires sur mon accent vaudois... 😉

I was invited to drop in at the [Seesmic](http://seesmic.com/) offices yesterday for lunch and a chat. Lunch was really nice — sushi in a place where you can tell the chef to serve you what he wants. My dream come true! We need more restaurants like that. Where we don’t need to choose what we eat.

But anyway. Over lunch, Loïc was mentioning that his e-mail had become unmanageable, and that the only way he actually managed to deal with “stuff” was to do things immediately, when he thought of them. There’s something to be said for that — I’ve been doing it more and more with e-mail myself. Anyway, poor Loïc seemed swamped (and Vinvin chimed in with similar feelings), so I asked if they’d heard of/read [Getting Things Done](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done). Yes, they’d heard about it, but had never really investigated.

I heard about GTD for a year before actually heading over to [43 Folders](http://www.43folders.com/), reading up, and ordering the book. Many people had sung the praises of Getting Things Done to me, but I kept thinking “just another over-hyped magical self-help productivity solve-all-your-problems snake-oil method”. I guess one person too much told me about it, and once I read the book, I really kicked myself for not doing it earlier. [It’s changed my life](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/03/11/getting-things-done-its-just-about-stress/), even though I keep falling off the GTD wagon — but one nice thing about it is that it’s a *forgiving* system.

It takes a certain amount of commitment to learn and get on (if you’re not commited enough to read the book, fuggedaboudit), but once it’s in place, it’s not that hard to get back on when you fall off. In my opinion, it can also be beneficial even if [imperfectly implemented](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2006/08/21/bridging-the-gap-between-me-and-orthodox-gtd/) (which is my case: I have an overflowing inbox, my lists aren’t up-to-date, and I never really managed to get the daily/weekly/monthly review thing going — but I strive towards that).

So anyway, Loïc immediately decided he was going to have me talk about GTD on the [daily Loic.tv show](http://www.loic.tv/). Here we are, then, me trying to actually get some information across (not easy with the two French clowns) in [Seesmic du Jour 107](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MwGxSFLeLU):

I got to say a few words about [Going Solo](http://going-solo.net) too, which was nice 🙂

Unfortunately they left out the bit where I hit Loïc on the head with my teaspoon, and nearly whacked him with my MacBook. He spent his whole time interrupting me, and then complaining that I wasn’t saying anything! I actually got him to leave the table so I could say a few words about Going Solo with a reasonably straight face…

Thanks for the invitation!

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8 thoughts on “Lunch at Seesmic [en]”

  2. Tu es la bienvenue chez nous quand tu veux Stephanie! Une des videos les plus droles que je n’ai jamais faite…

  3. When I first heard about the book, I thought the same.. just another ‘magic book’
    But now that I heard your thoughts about it…Ok you convinced me!
    GTD is now among the new books I’ll order from Amazon 😉

    BTW: Hahaha! So funny video! Loved it!

    Andrea

  4. J’ai lu ce livre qui remporte un franc succès, et dont les avatars se multiplient sur le web : GTD avec Gmail, GTD avec Lotus Notes, GTD et tiddlywiki, etc. etc.

    C’est assez incroyable que le créateur du système, D. Allen, gagne sa vie avec ce système d’organisation personnelle, en donnant des conférences à travers les Etats-Unis.

    En résumé, GTD c’est un “workflow “pour traiter les tâches qui arrivent, sous forme de courriels par exemple. Un workflow particuilèrement compliqué, mais que l’on peut simplifier, notamment avec sa BAL électronique en retenant le principe : la boîte de réception doit être une gare de triage, et il ne doit rien rester dedans de manière prolongée. Bref, lorsqu’un courriel arrive, soit on le met dans un dossier “à faire”, ou “référence”, soit on y répond immédiatement, soit on le jette. Voilà ce que j’ai retiré du GTD, et qui est relativement utile.

    Sinon, à mon humble avis, beaucoup de bruit pour rien.

  5. J'ai lu ce livre qui remporte un franc succès, et dont les avatars se multiplient sur le web : GTD avec Gmail, GTD avec Lotus Notes, GTD et tiddlywiki, etc. etc.

    C'est assez incroyable que le créateur du système, D. Allen, gagne sa vie avec ce système d'organisation personnelle, en donnant des conférences à travers les Etats-Unis.

    En résumé, GTD c'est un “workflow “pour traiter les tâches qui arrivent, sous forme de courriels par exemple. Un workflow particuilèrement compliqué, mais que l'on peut simplifier, notamment avec sa BAL électronique en retenant le principe : la boîte de réception doit être une gare de triage, et il ne doit rien rester dedans de manière prolongée. Bref, lorsqu'un courriel arrive, soit on le met dans un dossier “à faire”, ou “référence”, soit on y répond immédiatement, soit on le jette. Voilà ce que j'ai retiré du GTD, et qui est relativement utile.

    Sinon, à mon humble avis, beaucoup de bruit pour rien.

  6. Steph, I currently read the book and I´m amazed. It´s brilliant even though I did not even start to organise my stuff the GTD-way. However, I will soon and until then I think about how to adopt the tips and tricks for me as an online person 24/365, for not having to deal with paper all the time. So my question is: Have you written down some of your tips and how you handle the GTD-way on your Macbook? That would be so helpful, not only for me, but also for Loic and Vinvin and all the people out there.
    Hope to hear from you soon!
    P. S. Is GTD on your Going-solo-presentation-list? I´m not yet registered, but maybe I will.

  7. Pingback: Going Solo in Seesmic du Jour « Going Solo

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