Ever heard of desire paths? Although the name might conjure an image of the trail of underclothes between the sofa and the bed in a Hollywood love scene, the reality is slightly more prosaic (not to mention less fun).
According to Wikipedia, desire paths are “shortcuts where constructed ways take a circuitous route, have gaps, or are non-existent”. You’ve walked along a desire path if you’ve ever taken a well-worn shortcut across the grass because it led more directly to where you needed to get to than the pavement.
Desire paths have always interested me because are a physical, visible manifestation of a common aspect of human behaviour – the difference between what we originally planned to do (the pavement where it was thought people would go) and what actually happened (the dirt track that appeared where they actually went).
From a productivity perspective, clearly recognising these gaps in our own planning and behaviour – what you really did versus what you’d planned to do – is central to self-improvement. For anyone whose world is out of control, it might only be experienced as a vague sense of frustration at the end of the day, but once you’ve started to be clear on what your commitments actually are, then you’re in a much better place to ‘see’ desire paths and start to close the gaps. Some examples…
Leaks in the system
Finding things you’ve created in the past that haven’t made it into your system might reveal a gap between plan and reality. Actions or ideas from weeks or months ago that show up in an old notebook or notes app, for example. At the time you captured them, it seemed like a plan, but reality proved different. If this has happened to you then you may need a smaller, clearer number of capture points and a more clearly defined (and practiced) process for emptying them and plugging those leaks.
Indigestible actions
Noticing next actions on your lists week after week that are resisting progression can sometimes highlight a reality gap. They were broken down into next actions that you thought would be sufficiently granular to move forward as easily as possible but reality proved different. In this case it might help reduce the resistance to simply break them down into more bite-sized chunks to make them easier to move on.
Survival of the fittest lists
As your GTD® practice develops, particularly in the early days, there will be moments when the penny drops that a list just isn’t working out to be as helpful as you’d hoped. Over time, natural selection exerts its influence and the lists that endure are the ones that attract you because they add value. Your system develops as continual interaction with it generates insights into the reality of how you work and triggers enhancements in a normal evolutionary cycle on the path to mastery.
‘I’ll do it tomorrow instead’
One of the most common places where reality confounds plans is our calendars, and most people have experienced moving the things they planned to do today into tomorrow (or beyond) because today didn’t work out like they planned. All that white space you set aside for completion of X, Y or Z…? As Woody Allen once said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”
In GTD, only using your calendar for genuine, ‘on that day’ activity will help address this problem and start to break the habit of planning pavements into the future, only to end up being led down all kinds of different desire paths.
So watch out for your own desire paths, the places where the feedback you’re getting from reality can help you make a better plan next time and get where you need to be.
Interesting! I remember reading about a university campus or something in Japan that built the buildings but didn’t put any paths in straight away. They waited until all the desire lines showed in the grass and constructed paths where the desire lines were. Hmmm, there must be a way to use this to set up GTD from scratch?
Hi Caroline,
Thanks for your comment. I’m going to see if I can unearth the case you mention in Japan. It certainly makes sense to take that approach and it would be interesting to know more.
Re approaching GTD in the same way – i.e. ‘from scratch’ – one thought that occurs is that in our coaching we’re usually looking to start with the aspect of workflow that most has the attention of the person we’re working with rather than working from a pre-planned template.
To me, this is perhaps also an example of starting with reality.
Best,
Miles
Caroline, I’ve heard that story about the paved paths across McKeldin Mall (the grassy kind of mall, not the shopping kind) at my alma mater, the University of Maryland. Maybe there’s more than one real-world example?
I recently read the book The ONE Thing which introduced to me the concept of time-blocking. I understand GTD’s arguments for having hard edges on what stuff goes onto one’s calendar. However, I could not find a response or comment on the time blocking concept from fellow GTDers.
I would like to your thoughts on time/calendar blocking so I can schedule certain “next-actions” chunks into my time-blocked calendar. Hope this makes sense.
Hi Ridwan,
As a senior GTD person and a GTD Connect member, it is perfectly fine for you to block time on your calendar for focused work. I would resist putting specific actions on my calendar unless they had to be done on that day. But you create “Engage blocks”, or specific project blocks, or even Area of Focus blocks. All you are really doing is protecting your time and putting a personal stake in the ground. Now with all of that said, remember the 3-types of work. The one that can bite you is work that shows up. You have to make a decision if your protected time is more important than what landed on your plate and the latter can wait.
All of this is perfectly within the realm of a solid GTD system. It is what I do.
Best wishes,
-David
Hi David,
Thanks very much for taking the time to respond. Much appreciated.
I tend not to define any particular tasks during my time-blocked sessions. I keep it fairly broad like Goal Tasks, Blogging, Konmari, Exercise etc etc.
I’m glad I have figured it out right. Thanks again.
Best Regards
Ridwan
Thanks, Ridwan, for the question, and David for the comments. I agree with David’s points – ‘timeboxing’ is OK to do if it helps and as long as you retain flexibility to adjust if things changes.
I think I’d add that timeboxing tends to be less effective the further in advance it’s done. If I timebox it tends to be when I’m doing a quick daily review in the morning to get my ducks in a row for the day, as the time is limited for things to then change and I can be more confident that it’s the right choice. Doing that a week ahead of time is harder.
On an additional note, I’ve noticed that timeboxing in the calendar is frequently done in order to block other people from grabbing the time, not just so that it helps with one’s own prioritisation.
HTH,
Miles
Hi Miles, I totally agree with you. I experimented with weekly time-block and found that I tend to move stuff around quite often. Now, I time-block very few chunks like Sleep, Workouts, Random Short Bursts (for quick wins) etc. Much appreciate your response.
I am so glad to see that quotation properly attributed to Woody Allen. I’m extremely religious, and I have to roll my eyes every time someone quotes that line as though it’s a religious proverb. The point is valid, but the source is not that ancient!
Hi Lindsay,
Glad to hear I got it right. I knew the quote but wasn’t sure where it came from so I checked, and when I saw it was Woody Allen it made perfect sense.
Best,
Miles