The one thing that put me off GTD initially, was the fact that there was a “system” that needs to be put into place. I’ve tried it yesterday, after buying the necessary equipment from office depot, and found that it wasn’t overly onerous. It was quite liberating actually. You point to a stack and say “be gone”. You grab a handful of manilla folders and your labeler and get to work on a stack. Within minutes, the stack is reduced to no more. Things are a little more organized in my apartment. There is a stack of things in my inbox but at least I know how to deal with it. In fact, it’s helping me unpack the last few boxes from the move.

I can’t say enough about getting a good labeler. I didn’t see the point of one at the start. Clarity of printed text is the only concrete advantage over hand written text. But having the labeler made it “fun” to organize things. Maybe it’s the novelty factor or maybe it’s the formality of typing text. I’m not sure. I got the Brother PT-1950. It was pricey but it came with an AC adapter (the main requirement). With other models, the AC adapter was an extra 20 dollars. Expect a good labeler (with an AC adapter) to cost you at least 70 dollars.

The file cabinet arrives Tuesday. For this weekend, I made do with some cardboard boxes and I’m transferring stuff to the file cabinet when it arrives. The book recommends manilla folders over hanging folders. I don’t see the advantage of one over the other (especially with the cardboard boxes). This may not be true with a proper file cabinet where manilla folders feel faster to work with. For archiving files, I think hanging folders are a big win if you want to use cheap bulk cardboard boxes. You want to keep them around but don’t need fast access to them. Like the memory hierarchy in computer organization.

I’m about a third of the way done. Hopefully I can keep up the pressure and have everything squared away by next weekend. Just in time to take my vacation too.