I have been using GTD at home and work for over a year now. At work, I am basically fully implemented, although I make tweaks once in a while just to fine-tune.

In my personal life, however, I have realized that it’s not working for me. I tend to procrastinate terribly, and somehow GTD has encouraged me to do this. I find myself putting everything I ever need to do on a list, and then I never, ever refer to the lists again. So things sit around for months and months. I am going back to my old, simple system: when I realize I need to do something, I put it down for a specific date. If I can’t figure out a date when I can do the task, I question whether or not I really even need or want to do it.

GTD is a great fit for my job, where I have hundreds of tasks coming in on a weekly basis, effective prioritization is critical, and I have to keep track of multiple complex projects. But my personal life is not that complicated. I email my grandmother, I pick something up at the pharmacy. I don’t carry out long, multi-step projects. GTD was just giving me an excuse to make things more complicated than they really are, which was an excuse to make lists, put things off, and procrastinate.