Google workers listen to your "OK Google" queries–one of them leaked recordings - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/07/google-defends-listening-to-ok-google-queries-after-voice-recordings-leak/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20402070](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20402070)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20413062](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20413062)</comment>


Anyone hear from Highland today? [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://commons.princeton.edu/ciee/files/Highland-Summer-Entrepreneurship-Overview-and-Application.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Decisions were supposed to come today but I got nothing.</comment>


Read This Before You Build Uber for X - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/read-this-before-you-build-uber-for-x/ <comment><USER3> I think this misses another critical point.

The platform owner only retains control of the transactions, if they keep the buyer and seller from getting to know one another.

For Uber, thats easy, because the nature of the service means you want a close car (typically, a different one each time)

But for Uber for local babysitting, why would the buyer and seller not just leave the platform permanently after meeting, and transact directly, saving both the fee?

"Sharing economy platform" commercial success depends on avoiding lasting local human connection.

<comment><USER4> Man, that just kinda feels dirty, but its true. Even for uber! An (ex?)uber driver I know in a semi rural area now just connects directly with locals and runs a charter to and from the nearby city, as those were most of his fares.

It also kinda hurts that the isolation of people is seen as financially viable. I would argue, but with very little to back me up, that there is an intangible (and perhaps a tangible) benefit from closeness to those we associate or do business with, that we are losing.

<comment><USER5> > It also kinda hurts that the isolation of people is seen as financially > viable. I would argue, but with very little to back me up, that there is an > intangible (and perhaps a tangible) benefit from closeness to those we > associate or do business with, that we are losing.

As an introvert, I appreciate that there are services that isolate me from unnecessary contact with people.

Where I live, taxi drivers often try to strike up conversation and get "friendly." Not only that's awkward and uncomfortable for me, here it's also generally not very safe to indulge in chitchat with strangers (you can get marked for scams, muggings or worse.)

<comment><USER6> I'm an introvert as well...plenty are...but I don't think avoiding "unnecessary contact" is really healthy. Introversion is a weakness as I see it honestly...a negative feedback loop of underdeveloped social skills yielding yet more fear, insecurity around social contact. It's not a binary condition like I'm a Leo or a diabetic. Just saying, it's probably better to view as personal challenge than a condition that needs to be accommodated outright.

<comment><USER7> Social anxiety and introversion are not the same thing. I am an introvert, and need a lot of alone time to feel properly refreshed. People, even ones I love, wear me out.

But I have no problem whatsoever interacting, and have zero social anxiety. Need me to talk in front of a group? Sure! Meet new folks? Great! And I genuinely enjoy doing these things. But it burns a lot of mental energy to do so. I need quiet alone time, too, and a lot of it.

I say this not to make anyone feel bad about social anxiety, but rather to try and make people _not_ feel like introversion is a defect. It is not, in any way, shape or form. So seriously, don't beat yourself up about feeling introverted, if that is how you are. Anxiety is a different beast, and working on that will help. And if you get it under control, and still enjoy an introverted lifestyle, that is 100% OK, normal, and healthy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Am I the only one that sees "Uber for X" in a somewhat negative light? In my mind Uber does relate to dominating an industry and getting big, but more in a Microsoft of the 90s sort of way, where there a lot of negative baggage associated with it because of what looks to be unrestrained greed. For example, I'm not sure I would want to advertise my actions as trying to be the next Oracle. That probably only comes across as entirely positive to those that don't know much about Oracle or only care that they make an obscene amount of money.

Is this just me? Or is it perhaps time to retire this idiom?

<comment><USER9> I think Uber for X is a fine term. It's short and conveys the idea unambiguously.

It also filters out people who can't separate their feelings for Uber from the abstract idea being discussed, which tends to be a net win.

The main issue is that Uber for X is very hard to pull off, as the article illustrates. So it doesn't really matter how you pitch it.

Grubhub is Uber for food, for example. Perfect description and no negative baggage.

<comment><USER10> "Uber for food" doesn't convey anything to me.

GrubHub is a food delivery service, isn't it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice timing. We are working on "Uber for Sex" or "Tinder + Buy It Now". On the lower end of the market, it can be a low skilled job in the sense that a lot of people know how to have sex well enough to satisfy a lot of clients. Certainly going upscale or into niche offerings that doesn't hold true. So our system is somewhat split into people primarily booking on cost and schedule, versus people booking on the entire experience. I think we'll manage to handle both acceptably enough for all parties involved.

On-demand? There are a lot of scheduling difficulties. Getting a sex worker on short notice, even in a popular and mostly-legal city is a nightmare. And it runs into the Airbnb-pre-instant-booking issue: You contact several people, they don't all get back right away. Then an hour later, you have several replies, and since you can't book them all, some end up annoyed you're wasting their time. Not to mention any screening issues or other deal-breakers.

And if someone does have some last-minute availability? They can't easily fill that slot. It's hard to just offer sex work in a few hours here and there - you'll spend all your time answering phones.

But it isn't just the "Uber" aspect that we're working. Sex workers lack cohesive unions and shared resources. We'll be able to pool for things like security agents. We can handle client verification one time and be done.

We'll do photography of workers, then advertising and bring clients in. This benefits less entrepreneurial workers that don't want to try to manage an online presence, deal with SEO, try to A/B test their photos and copy, etc.

There are other similarities. Uber had to avoid LE, so do we. Uber has to deal with partial cash payments and reconcile, so do we. Uber offers some insurance, so do we (legal). But we'll be far less sexist than Uber, that's for sure.

<comment><USER12> There's no way you survive the eventual law enforcement issues here. Uber circumvented law enforcement on certain issues by operating in a legal gray zone - you're offering a platform that will unquestionably make you a prime target for an FBI investigation, at the very least.

EDIT: And it's not just the sex aspect of what you're doing. Your business model is going to be so ripe as a target for a money laundering investigation.

<comment> tj-teej Surely this post is Satire...

<comment><USER13> If it is, then it's very thorough. Looking at the OP's profile, there's a link to the site and everything. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction...

<comment><USER11> We're completely serious and have already raised some money (doing a blockchain fundraiser right now to get the rest to open our first market). We're operating as an extrajurisdictional company. De-anonymization is a risk, though we are taking a lot of measures to prevent that and, well, obviously we are OK with the risk.

This is basically the only way someone can actually help sex workers. Disclose your identity and do what we're doing and they come after you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The way I see it, there are three main things that contributed to Uber's success:

1\. As discussed in the article, the service they provide is commoditized making both employee skill and customer to employee relationships irrelevant. If I like the person providing the service, what incentive is there for me to not to continue to work with that person outside of the app?

2\. They connect people who are looking for a service with an untapped market of unskilled contractors who can provide that service. I would never become a full time taxi driver but I might consider driving for a ride sharing service if I needed extra cash. A layperson like me is never going to work for an Uber for massages.

3\. There is preexisting regulatory capture in the market that allows the new entrant to provide a much better or cheaper service than the incumbents (although here be legal dragons).

Ideas like Uber for massages or Uber for housecleaning don't work because they fail all three of those conditions. Companies that meet multiple conditions tend to be more successful. Postmates for example meets the first two conditions while Airbnb meets all three.

<comment><USER15> > while Airbnb meets all three

Heh. Given that AirBnB is a year older, really we should call Uber the "AirBnB for car rides".

<comment><USER16> Perhaps. But Uber found product-market fit faster than AirBnB, which if I remember correctly took a while to grow from being "just for actual airbeds" for concert attendees to offering private rooms.

In the beginning, AirBnB was like Couchsurfer but with payments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article doesn't mention providers dealing directly with the customer to avoid paying a percentage to the app. In any service business like housekeeping where you have a long term relationship between the customer and the provider, this is going to be an issue.

The article indirectly discusses this by talking about how an app can provide value to pros in specialties with various characteristics, but I think that it should have started with by saying "if you think you can take a 30% cut of every transaction in a service business without actually providing substantial value _in every transaction_ , it's not going to happen."

<comment><USER18> If I recall, this is one of the problems Homejoy had. What incentive was there to keep using a matchmaker once you've found your match? It was beneficial for both parties to form their own, direct relationship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm amazed that this article and most of the comments implicitly assume that Uber is succeeding, and therefore useful as a an example of a successful platform startup.

Uber seems to be failing badly so far, losing increasing amounts of money. The ridiculous corporate shenanigans Uber has been generating seem of a piece with a company that had massive investments, with expectations, and no clear path to profitability.

Here's a link to a page that has some detailed, and damning, critical analysis of Uber's prospects.

The gist of his argument is that Uber is gaining market share by substantially selling their product below cost. But they have not found some kind of magic solution to lowering the cost of providing their services by taking advantage of scale or network effects.

The author argues that Uber is actually a high cost provider, in comparison to traditional taxi services.

[http://horanaviation.com/Uber.html](http://horanaviation.com/Uber.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> This is pretty interesting and apt. One thing I'd quibble with is their claim that many professional skills aren't fungible; this is true in general but there are many cases where a non-fungible skill is fungible for a major use case.

In particular I'm thinking of doctors. I care a lot about having exactly the right doctor (a good one, a specialist, etc) much of the time, but there are many medical services where I simply need anyone competent to pass their boards with a prescription pad. (I have been taking the same three or four prescriptions since I was six for a few common ailments--I don't need someone to tell me special information about albuterol.)

<comment><USER21> Right. And there is an app for that called Doctor On Demand which is where I have been getting my Albuterol prescriptions.

There are other similar apps I believe but none that seemed too competitive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The "skill versus urgency" illustration has me wondering if the author foresaw or even intended the resulting arguments over whether or not, for example, web design requires more skill than dog training. It's one way to get people talking about the article, I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER23> Uber succeeded because they can reliable predict demand for services. They have both historical data (rush hours, regular commute, etc.) and also future data (sporting events, concerts, night life, etc.)

I looked at starting an Uber for healthcare when it was getting hot, but I thought again about the problem. It's not possible to predict who will be sick when and where and doctors are very expensive. Having doctors go to people's homes is a lose lose situation because the time they spend driving is time they could spend helping patients.

</comment><comment><USER21> Great article.

Another thing to consider before you build Uber for X: there will come a time, perhaps in the next couple of years, when people stop tolerating having monopoly technology companies as intermediaries for everything. Or they will tolerate some business involvement when it really is a deep value add, but there will be much more competition and the types of fees being charged will have to be much more reasonable.

The reason these companies become so huge so fast is of course because what they are mainly doing is managing basic logistics and information flow (payment being part of that).

The reason we need these companies, or think we need them, is because we do not yet have practical and popular decentralized systems that can replace them. Most people are not aware of the existence of decentralized platforms that could possibly replace the centralized servers and banks.

But these decentralized platforms do exist and more innovations happen every day. Popular examples are Bitcoin and Ethereum but that barely scratches the surface of what is actually already a large ecosystem of peer-based systems with many types of capabilities.

And I know that it will be really hard to convince most people that these services could exist without centralized servers or payment intermediaries. But maybe look into places like reddit.com/r/rad_decentralization or r/Ethereum to start to get an idea.

<comment><USER24> Has that ever happened before in the history of mankind with something significant?

<comment><USER25> Oil. Well, not oil _itself_ , since we're still heavily dependent on oil right now. (Solar and alternatives are shaping up very quickly though!) At the turn of the 20th's century, the oil tycoons like John D. Rockefeller controlled significant percentage of the US GDP. (Google/Apple/Facebook/Snap's billions are a pittance in comparison next to the US' GDP of $18.6 trillion).

Those oil fortunes were achieved via a wide variety of anti-competitive business practices, and those practices are illegal today because the oil tycoons' business practices stopped being tolerated, and US antitrust law largely originates from this era.

<comment><USER24> Companies still control and distribute oil, even if it isn't monopolistic today, it definitely is not decentralized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> the article nailed it: for an "uber for x" to work, it requires (1) commodity, low skill service combined with (2) on demand scheduling.

one thing it's 2x2 matrix implies is that both taxi services and delivery services share a common appropriateness as "good" automatable services. but that's not true. they certainly differ on the scheduling metric - delivery is not nearly as on-demand as taxi service.

but there is another, more important variable that differentiates these two: lcationality.

while a taxi service can start and end anywhere, delivery services are constrained to start at particular locations, which makes logistics and routing the primary challenge to overcome. you have to get vehicles to the pickup point each time, which wastes time and money. delivery companies try to overcome this in a variety of ways:

1) trying to deliver "anything" (deliv, postmates) to approximate a more even geographic distribution of pickup points

2) subsidizing delivery through membership (amazon)

3) making delivery incidental to the core service (instacart is a marketing channel disguised as a delivery service)

i'm sure there are dozens of other ways that companies are trying to overcome this inherent last-mile logistics problem, but it's a real differentiator between taxi and delivery.

</comment><comment><USER27> The solution I think is a little more like what a salon does - a good, shared platform.

I think if somebody wrote a Uber for x _planning_ on the 1 on 1 repeat business, they'd be fine... and how?

1) Provide real value for provider - an easy to use billing platform, scouting out of the upfront work and risk, and classification of the customer and (here's what I think would be the big one) work schedule management.

2)Provide real value for the customer, it be being able to evaluate a provider, get good ratings (and here's the kicker) if the preferred provider isn't available, they don't have to go hunting.

3) Let providers recommend each other. Temper that with user ratings and platform specific ratings. Have users report when a job isn't done right, or another visit needs to be made, etc. But the provider peer ratings are like "I have too much work to provide x, you should try John, I trust his work."

4) The categorization of work could have meaningful use to the providers - <USER2> lets providers specialize further than they normally could otherwise, and provide a platform to fall back on.

</comment><comment><USER28> > The reason for this high failure rate is most founders underestimate the > intricacies and nuances of the specific service industries they are trying > to uberize.

(tongue in cheek) So build a platform which allows startups to build Uber for X. The real market is a desire to emulate Uber with lots of VC money pouring in. This is not unlike selling shovels during gold rush.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is a decent writeup because it defines what "an uber" is and what it means to be a business like that.

How many "Uber for X" businesses label themselves that way because of interactions like this one, where customers and investors are so focused on Uber as some kind of canonical startup that there's attempts to squeeze unrelated business models into it?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syoqjYLDs48#t=19m31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syoqjYLDs48#t=19m31) (specifically 21m56s and 24m9s)

This video is four years old, so it's good to know that claims of "Uber of X" are getting long in the tooth. It'll help to start agreeing on definitions and get away from the buzzwords.

</comment><comment><USER30> This article is excellent.

It takes a common idea (Uber for X), puts it through a simple but appropriate 2x2 lens (skill & scheduling), and produces a valuable insight with broad applicability (most markets are not like taxis).

Thanks to Sam Madden for writing it and to you for sharing it.

</comment><comment><USER31> The fascinating thing about this writeup is that it's even necessary.

The analysis it presents is a pretty straightforward one. It's the kind of basic contemplation of product-market fit I'd expect anyone starting a new business to undertake before spending a significant amount of time or money on it. In other words, it's a simple sanity check.

What makes this one fascinating is that apparently so many people out there have tried to start "Uber-for-X" businesses _without even doing a simple sanity check first_ that it's necessary for a third party to do it just to prevent even more lemmings from marching off the cliff.

</comment><comment><USER32> >Technology cannot necessarily miraculously make the pro more skilled at their job

Well, in the case of Uber that's exactly what it did. Uber wouldn't be possible at all without consumer GPS routing apps, that's one of the reasons (at least ostensibly) for regulating taxis. Cf The Knowledge, London taxi drivers' training that is so extensive it actually can be detected on a brain scan.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom#The_Knowledge)

</comment><comment><USER33> "It worked great for local transportation services, so why could it not be applicable across all types of industries?"

Dit it really work that great for Uber? Are the drivers doing all right? Did the company make the world progress? Is it even profitable? Are the clients happy about Uber's service? These are important questions to consider before trying to replicate their model, and I'm pretty sure not everybody feel the same way about this success.

</comment><comment><USER34> "It is rare that one plans their day around transportation" \- it wasn't the main point of the article, but that's not my experience. Many of the people I know who, like me, commute into New York from the suburbs plan their day around the train (when is the express train, when is the last train that runs every 30 minutes instead of 60 minutes, and so on).

</comment><comment><USER35> Apologies for an unrelated question but, what is the formal name of this chart indicated in the blog? Scatter plot?

[https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/08/Befo...](https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/08/Before-You-Build-Uber-For-X-Chart-1024x731.png)

<comment><USER36> Yeah, it's a 2d scatter plot.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Submitted this article as I'm curious about what the HN community has to say. Apologies if this is a re-post

<comment><USER37> You can use the search form in the footer to determine whether a post has been submitted before. In this case, it was submitted two weeks ago, though it garnered very little attention.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15042817](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15042817)

In general, it is good to check to confirm whether it's a dupe. In the case of submissions that haven't had much discussion, it's okay to resubmit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think urgency should be driven by lead time (when i want it - when i get it).. for e.g. Getting a web design guy may take you upto 3 weeks or more or 45 days if you hire but if you get the same guy in a week or less then the model still works.

Comparing Web design urgency with taxi doesnt make sense.

</comment><comment><USER39> What is an example of an on-demand, app-mediated service that is actually profitable, regardless of whether labor is contract, etc.? Is any one in this space actually making money off customers?

</comment><comment><USER40> Minor side-note, but I think that 'skill vs urgency' graph underestimates the skills required for delivery service providers. Source: I work for UPS.

<comment><USER41> I assumed delivery in this case meant local delivery like food.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Web design is less skilled than life coaching?

<comment><USER43> And dog training.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > It is rare that one plans their day around transportation

I do this pretty regularly as do many people who rely on public transit.

</comment><comment><USER45> I only build the Netflix of Ubers.

I seriously hate these phrases. It's OK to use adjectives, nouns, verbs and to say the word "app".

I was talking to a guy at SBYP once that said he was building "the Netflix of snacks" and I asked the guy how he planned to digitize said snacks and he looked at me like I was the asshole.

I get it but use some words to describe your thing, man.

</comment><comment><USER46> Way to demotivate other startups!

<comment><USER47> I've actually been working on something that this article applies to and it was refreshing to step out of my comfort zone and reanalyze how things might work out with a fresh perspective. I found it helpful to think through the new challenges that were created by the change in viewpoint and I feel reassured that I have solutions ready.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Insightful article, but a bit hard to distill the distinct points. From my own experience at an Uber for X, there is one overarching theme that dictates the whole dynamic that I think isn't addressed. The article makes the following points.

1\. "The more skilled the service, the harder is to gain traction, because quality in service isn't reliable." This is true to some extent, but there is a bigger underlying dynamic, namely that the fewer people can offer that service, the harder it is to gain traction, because it takes longer to get that service on demand (e.g. 20 mins instead of 1 min), which decreases the user experience.

2\. "There are services that require more time for for scheduling and some require less." The article doesn't really say which one is better, but the latter is better, because it makes it more spontaneous, people can make the decision to demand the service easier and do it more often.

3\. "Maximizing conversion through services where no sales pitch is required, because quality is almost always the same (taxi)." This goes back into point 1, where low skill all have the same quality. It adds the factor that when quality is the same, people are less picky and make more purchases.

4." Maximizing profits through retention to get repeat customers." I didn't understand this point, since critique for Uber for X is that repeat customers would bypass Uber for X, in order to avoid fees, such as it happened with Homejoy, Plumbers etc. This can be prevented through making ratings valuable, i.e. giving pros incentives to not bypass the platform.

The overarching themse is critical mass. All of the mentioned points explain what factors prevent critical mass form being accomplished. Summing up these are

1\. The more skill you need, the less service providers you can get per square mile, the longer it takes to fulfill a service, the harder this makes it to get traction.

2\. The shorter it takes to schedule the service, the more people will make the decision and book the service.

3\. The less the quality is a factor, the less people will worry about making the purchase.

4\. Repeat customers is where the money is. Make it easy for the consumer and pro to maintain these relationships, BUT, keep them on the platform.

5\. This point I add myself, it is locality and it is the most important point. It means that you have to figure out a way to get traction in a new city in a scalable way, because you can get traction in SF with masseurs and clients, but you need to do it all over again in Fresno, Seattle, London, etc. There is some traction that comes from other cities, but it is little. For some services, traction in a handful city is enough and you cna be a $100m company, but for most, you need to be able to get traction in several dozens of cities quickly.

</comment><comment><USER49> Uber's main success was to take something that already existed (taxi services) but then found a way to work around local labour laws on a technicality.

Because Uber drivers are all self-employed, they're not unionised or protected in any way. Thus, Uber pays its drivers a pittance, and is able to undercut and undermine existing taxi services who are forced by unions and law to pay drivers a living wage.

That's the key to being Uber for X. Ask: can I use the internet and shady business practices to exploit workers to undercut a business that previously workers were protected in?

If the answer is Yes, then you can be Uber for X.

<comment><USER50> The Taxi medallion system is more exploitative of labor than Uber, forcing poor people to prepay for the right to work. It's as close to indentured servitude as you can get.

<comment><USER51> The medallion system seems to be a US peculiarity.

In the UK you have to also pay fees up front (and pass certain tests) but the fees are relatively modest[1] and the tests include things like knowledge, medical fitness and criminal records, which all seems reasonable. This legally applies to Uber drivers too, although whether it is enforced seems to be in doubt[2].

(I'm not talking about London black cabs which operate on a slightly different system)

[1] The fees for my local council are in section 10 here: [http://www.dacorum.gov.uk/docs/default-source/licensing- docu...](http://www.dacorum.gov.uk/docs/default-source/licensing- documents/licensing-fees-and-charges-2016-17-\(pdf-418kb\).pdf?sfvrsn=17)

[2] [https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/uber-may- face-21m-...](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/uber-may- face-21m-minicab-licence-fee-a3518996.html)

<comment><USER52> > The medallion system seems to be a US peculiarity

The equivalent system existed in Ireland until 2000, with taxi licenses changing hands for over $100,000. I'd be surprised if this doesn't persist in other European countries and cities.

<comment><USER53> In France, licenses have been given for free in limited numbers, and with the right to resell them on the market. So their price have increased up to 200-350k€. So some people made a lot of money there (and they one accept cash, so you know what can happen with the taxes). Recent buyers are in a bad position because they get it for a high price and now risk their value to drop because of the recent competition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> X11 is getting a rideshare service?

 _Sigh_ well I guess it has modules for everything else

<comment><USER55> Getting remote display working can be a major pain. An app which handles the work of bringing together your X server and a remote client could really be valuable!</comment></comment>


Getting Things Done – Revised 2015 - <AUTHOR> https://gettingthingsdone.com/store/product.php?productid=17035 <comment><USER2> I was on an America West flight to Phoenix in 1999 when David Allen sat next to me. The passenger compartment was bare bones -- no overhead vents, for example -- and I was in a pissy mood. Allen was not. He immediately struck me as the most seasoned, at ease traveller I had ever seen. After he got himself adjusted I asked him if he travelled a lot. He smiled and showed me his United frequent flyer card. It had his name, and "Five Million Miles" embossed on it. I asked him what the hell he was doing on this crappy America West flight. He was flying from Geneva to his home in California, and had missed his connection, so United put him on the next available flight.

He was a "CEO coach" at the time and, while I normally don't badger strangers on planes with questions, we ended up talking for a good part of the flight. When his book came out, I recognised his picture on the jacket, and wrote him an email. He remembered me, and offered to get together for a glass of wine when he was in Boston.

Of course I got his book, and of course it changed my thinking. I wouldn't be writing this if it hadn't. I have ADD, and am also deeply suspicious of self- help literature. I couldn't stomach the moralizing of Stephen Covey and his ilk. But GTD, and Allen as a person, work just great for me, and work with my ADD. I've tried variants, electronic and paper, but everything that works for me is within the GTD ecosystem.

<comment><USER3> So, what is the current system that you are using for GTD? I need to be more organized and productive but I really don't have the time/patience to read the book. So, if you can give the tldr; of your system or a web app that forces one to use GTD without all the theory would help as well.

<comment><USER4>
        > So, what is the current system that you are using for
        > GTD?

Back when I had a job with responsibilities (team of 40), I did the following...

First of all, I used "Things.app", for the iPhone and for the Mac, although really any of the many tools should do - the important thing for me though was that anywhere I could read email - or have a random thought - I needed to be able to access my organization system; I wanted to get it out of my head and out of my Inbox in to a real organization tool as QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE so I could stop thinking about it.

I'll talk about three separate places here: Email Inbox, Things.app Inbox, and Things.app Today.

At the beginning of each day, I would go to my email inbox, and scan through. Normally about 100 items:

* 50% could be deleted because I was CC'd, but there was no action item for me

* Anything that could be done in under two minutes, I'd do; this was generally Yes/No type answers, or quick clarifications

* Anything that would take longer, I would - IF AT ALL POSSIBLE - attempt to delegate. Quick two minute email to someone else, trying to get them to do it, and then I'd add a todo list item: "FOLLOWUP: Did John send Dave the RFP for Acme corp", and then ask Things.app to schedule it to remind me (by placing it in Things.app Today) in x days, where x was task-dependent. Trying to get new managers in my team to delegate ruthlessly was always very difficult - but if they couldn't do it, they'd get swamped quickly, and no-one would win.

* Anything that would take longer that I couldn't delegate, I would add a Todo item for today with a brief summary of what it was to Things.app's Inbox list; incidentally the Inbox list is also where I'd put absolutely anything that cropped up during the day - my boss asked me for something, I remembered I'd promised someone something I hadn't delivered yet, or I had an idea that would take 6 months to do but was worth thinking about.

All email would be archived in this process.

This process would get me to Inbox Zero, but I would still have items in Things.app Inbox - generally about 8 - 14 items - that really needed my personal attention. First pass I'd try and make sure each was actionable; "Sort out team development plan" not in the least bit actionable. However, giving it 10 seconds though led me to realize that our HR Business Partner could probably help, so he got a quick email "Please could you schedule some time with me to sit down and talk about team development?", at which point, it becomes a "FOLLOWUP" item as above. This generally got rid of 4-5 items. Remaining items I would then drag to the Today list. These tasks could be pretty diverse: "Reread James' email about data governance", "Fill out ATR for new DevOps person", "Disabuse Neil of the idea that we should be using Docker".

The Today list was often 3 - 15 items long; generally about half were "FOLLOWUP" items, as per the above, and these could be ticked off very quickly by hitting reply and sending a slightly more urgent or threatening message, and I'd then reschedule the "FOLLOWUP" item to the next day.

Of the remainder, I would attempt to sort them in order of importance. Anything that was a multiple hour task, I would create an appointment in my calendar to do it, as well as a "FOLLOWUP" scheduled to make sure I'd done in - "Prepare salary review spreadsheet" was going to take 5 hours, so I'd block 5 hours off, book a meeting room where no-one could find me, and then forget about it until the appointment came up.

Of what remained - generally 30m - 90m tasks, I'd then take all but the top five, and reschedule them to the next day. This was a struggle to get my managers to done - people are hopelessly optimistic, and think they can get through more administrivia in a day than they can. If you restrict yourself to 3 to 5, it'll force you to delegate more aggressively, and you'll also be surprised how many items that keep getting kicked down the road take care of themselves.

The process up to this point took 20m to an hour depending on how conscientious I'd been in keeping up to date with it.

I'd then try and blast through the top five, generally managing two or three of them. I would attempt to get ALL of these things done in the morning each day, and set aside the afternoons for important meetings and for large blocks of work that needed doing.

The key features of this:

* You need a system where you can TRUST that if something goes in to it, it won't fall back out of it again. The scheduled FOLLOWUP tasks for me were that

* You need to be able to add items to this super easily - whenever you think about it. That way, you're not carrying around items in your head, which is when you get snowed under

* Your email Inbox is a very shitty Todo system, and it'll stress you out. Get items out of your Inbox and in to a real Todo system as quickly as you can. If you're stuck on Outlook, and so don't have an Archive function, create a folder where a copy of every email gets duplicated to so you can aggressively delete from your Inbox and still go back to emails that had important information in.

<comment><USER5> Good point about delegating. My filter chain for all incoming tasks is: Discard -> Delegate -> Delay -> Do. Works nicely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This may sound rather trivial but honestly the biggest problem I had with the previous book was how targetted it was towards the "traditional" higher- management executive in its language and examples. A lot of them were things that I had a very hard time relating to: preparing for the staff meeting, going over regional sales figures, working on your golf swing. I was sort of hoping he'd write a version "for the rest of us" with more down-to-earth examples.

Given his clientele the previous focus made sense, but since it became sort of viral I was hoping if it were revised it would become a little more all- encompassing. I'd be curious to know if the previous focus was still the case in the new version. (Probably not enough to buy it to find out, though; as I said that was my biggest problem with the previous book and it's not that much of a problem...)

</comment><comment><USER7> In my experience, GTD is overkill and managing things that way is a time consuming task in itself. I converged on something simpler: I have four lists. One that contains everything that absolutely needs to be done. Then there is a list for things that can be done but are not essential. This list is a pretty amazing collection of ideas and when I have some time left, I pick an item that looks appealing in that situation. Then there is a reading list and a list for completed tasks. All lists are stored in one org-mode file (along with tons of other things). The list with important stuff is frighteningly long. At first this bothered me but I got used to it. Now I see it as a resources. There is always something on that list that I'd like to work on. Once a week I go through this list and move some items to the non-essential list. If something stayed long enough on the important list and nothing bad happened, it's probably not important.

<comment><USER8> Sounds similar to the 4-quadrant system of important / not important and urgent / not urgent. I forget the name of that, but it always seemed like a decent idea for guiding prioritization (if used as a hard rule, it would inevitably lead to not-urgent-but-important things never getting done).

<comment><USER9> You are referring to the Eisenhower Method: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management#The_Eisenhower_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management#The_Eisenhower_Method)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I adopted GTD back in college (around '08-'09) after learning about it from Merlin Mann and reading about it in the book "Dreaming in Code." If it taught me one thing, it taught me to learn how to say no to commitments. Sure, I'd like to work on this fun software project or go to this hackathon, but then I think of all the work it will take and the existing work I'm committed to. At that point, as much as I'd like to do otherwise, I say no to the proposed commitment. GTD is core to my life. All my commitments are consolidated and up to date in my Things app. I honestly couldn't imagine how I could have been productive without it.

edit: I also recommend those familiar to GTD to listen to Merlin Mann talk about it on his Back to Work podcast: [http://5by5.tv/b2w/95](http://5by5.tv/b2w/95)

Helps you rediscover some principles about GTD.

</comment><comment><USER11> I haven't read it, but I always liked the piece of advice from GTD about 5 minute tasks. If a task takes less than 5 minutes, do it _now_. During the day I usually accumulate small tasks and realizing that they take almost no time at all does wonders for staving off procrastination.

<comment><USER12> This was my starting point to GTD. It's not even 5 minutes, it's the 2 minute rule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are important concepts I've learned from GTD--for example, the mental strain of open loops and the importance of getting them out of your head--but I have never been able to implement it in full over the long term. Trying to go through the process consistently and in full every day is itself very time- consuming. Much like a dieter who has one cookie and decides, "Fuck it, diet's over," and eats all the cookies in the jar, if I failed to fully complete the GTD process for a single day then I would tend to never do it again.

<comment><USER14> Cherry-pick. There are a lot of good ideas. I found some of the sorting of tasks really useful. There are people who can sort, and people who can't. Give me ten things and I'll find 10! different ways to classify them. Other people seem to "just know" what makes the most sense. I found the classification scheme in GTD extremely actionable and simple. Most of the rest wasn't so useful to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> My story goes like this. I listened to the messages, heard other variations, and still struggled with this concept. I'm not obsessed about the topic but for whatever reason, I struggled to 'catch' the idea.

I tried calendars, mail clients, to do lists, etc. Nothing seemed to help. Until I had someone teach me time management, in about 30 minutes. I'm not sure how, I'm not sure why but...it all finally clicked for me.

I've been using Things for about a year but I had it for like six years. It's my #1 application. I've been able to manage an 'inbox zero' for the past year.

My advice to newbies: Learn time management but start small. GTD isn't an all in one solution, it wasn't for me, but it's a great skill to learn. Do one thing, do it well, then build on that. If you ever overwhelm yourself with tasks, take steps back (ask yourself _why_ you are doing these tasks). There is satisfaction to GTD filing system but don't let that guide you, it's your tool. Remember start small. A long journey always began with one step.

<comment><USER16> I have the same story as you, except, once I downloaded Doit.im, I could never look back.

For about 2 years now, I have been on the GTD wagon. It's become an obsessive need at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I found this free ebook to be a good (and significantly shorter) introduction to GTD.

[https://gtdfh.branchable.com/](https://gtdfh.branchable.com/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I am curious to hear what HNers have to say about this book. To be honest I always thought that these kind of books (i.e personal growth / motivational) were BS but that is problem a hasty generalization I made.

For those out there who read it, did it improve your project throughput or productivity? bonus if you have ADHD

<comment><USER4>
         > To be honest I always thought that these kind of books
         > (i.e personal growth / motivational) were BS

I feel I've had a huge amount in my life out of self-help books, on a real variety of subjects. There's a lot of obvious bullshit out there (like The Secret), but also plenty of gold. Scanning through my notes, and in no particular order, I have extensive notes from (and thus enjoyed):

* 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

* Beyond Chocolate

* Driven From Within (Michael Jordan biography)

* Get Altitude

* How To Make Friends and Influence People

* Iron John (Robert Bly)

* Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)

* Never Eat Lunch Alone

* Psychocybernetics

* Pulling Your Own Strings

* Ready For Anything (same author as GTD)

* The Dip

* Ten Days to Self Discipline

* The Power of Now

* Personal Power (Tony Robbins)

* Warrior King Magician Lover

Some were easier reads than others, and I suspect I am unusual in that I have a pretty rigorous system for making sure I regularly review my notes, and implement exercises and ideas in the books, but I feel I'd be a very different person for the worse without the value these books have added to my life.

<comment><USER19> Meditations is hardly self-help...

I'm not going to deny the fact that it changed the way I look at the world though.

<comment><USER4>
        > Meditations is hardly self-help

That it wasn't intended as such doesn't really change the fact it's essentially a series of koans, much like many self-help books.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I tried doing the whole works but the only lasting things from GTD were:

1) start each item on your todo lists with a verb

2) get lots and lots of folders and just keep creating new folders in a flat hierarchy to organize things all the time. Even easier on a computer on a computer.

A shredder is also good.

<comment><USER21> > _get lots and lots of folders and just keep creating new folders in a flat > hierarchy to organize things all the time._

That's the most persistently useful thing I got from GTD. I have a cabinet full of plain, labeled paper folders for filling. 90% of them I don't really check at all, but I whenever I need that random document, booklet, photo, or whatever, I can always find it there quickly.

<comment><USER20> Yeah! So create a folder called "reference" or something on your computer and do the same... so helpful!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have visions of David Allen writing _Getting Things Done_ and then the next year thinking "I really should revise this". 13 years later a second edition is published.

</comment><comment><USER23> Are there any important changes to the system here, or is it just a new presentation?

After a few years using mGSD, I'm now using CueKeeper ([http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2015/04/28/cuekeeper- gitting-t...](http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2015/04/28/cuekeeper-gitting- things-done-in-the-browser/)), which I wrote based on the first book. Any new ideas here I should incorporate?

</comment><comment><USER24> I finished reading(well listening) to GTD last week and started implementing the system this past week. Though I've basically taken a bunch of ideas from it and changed it to fit my work and lifestyle(I also switched to time based contexts over location mostly). I kept the processes the same. I also almost never have paperwork so I ignored all the stuff about labellers and filing cabinets.

The community around the book is seriously full of weirdly obsessive people though. I've read discussions where people talk about how they've been studying it for 3-6 years and just now feel like they are starting to really get it and if you haven't put that much effort into it you won't get it. I constantly feel like I'm missing out on something because I just didn't find it that hard to understand?

The new book apparently drops all the talk about palm pilots which I'm sure is nice but from what I've read if you read the original you probably won't have much to gain from reading this one.

<comment><USER25> 3-6 years? Sounds like someone who is in love with preparing for the actual work. I know this situation - whether it is setting up your development environment, getting the proper running gear if you want to get in shape or researching the best controller for your DAW (I used to work in audio production)...or reading books on how to get things done. These are tasks that easily provide a feeling of accomplishment, without ever tackling the actual work, the hard problems.

Don't get me wrong - it's good to prepare and I appreciate being organized, but it's very easy to fall into the trap of an endless preparing cycle. At some point there aren't any remaining benefits and all that is left to do, is the actual doing.

<comment><USER26> > it's good to prepare and I appreciate being organized, but it's very easy to > fall into the trap of an endless preparing cycle.

I fall into that trap very often. If I'm learning a new programming language, I'll read every book and article I can find about it, try to learn best practices an architecture approaches, before even thinking about starting to write an experimental program in it. Sometimes I think I should just dig in, and research things on the fly. The worst is that I tend to repeat that mistake :-) It seams hard to change person's nature/mindset.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is the revised edition worth picking up if I've read the original. I've been a die hard GTDer for a 5 years now.

<comment><USER17> This Amazon review suggests not

[http://www.amazon.com/review/R3604ULQ9IPQIK/ref=cm_cr_dp_tit...](http://www.amazon.com/review/R3604ULQ9IPQIK/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0143126563&channel=detail- glance&nodeID=283155&store=books)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> FWIW I listen to the audio book every year and each time I learn something new. For me the author's concepts of the natural planning system, cranking widgets and rapid inbox parsing have been key to my work and personal life for many years.

</comment><comment><USER29> Has anyone come up with a solution for the problem of doing important tasks that require blocks of time measured in weeks? I have projects that I need to get to, but they need me to pencil in a few weeks of 100% time dedication to get them done (they are the sort of projects that are so complex that you can't do anything else while working on them). I find that I just can't carve out the time to get them done as I have too many urgent and must-do-today activities to be able to block out the time.

<comment><USER30> Large projects are just a sequence of inter-related smaller tasks. GTD is exactly for learning how to deal with these kinds of problems. Oh, and if you have too many urgent and must-do-today tasks, learning to delegate and learning how to say "no" will change you life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> My experience: I read the book, learned the concepts. It was great, and I even setup OmniFocus (Apple only) on my iPad and iPhone. Life was great, and then I changed employers and I was back to Windows and BlackBerry. It completely broke my workflow and I spent (WASTED) months trying new tools and finally dropped it. I am now using the ToDo templates in OneNote which is a much simpler approach, but still use many of the concepts.

</comment><comment><USER32> Another book that I've found great about this is "Eat That Frog" it deals with some of the more stubborn tasks in GTD.

</comment><comment><USER33> Some ten years ago I got hooked on GTD while at United World College. I thought it might make me a better student.

Today I am more careful and would steer clear of GTD simply because it doesn't help me do the things I don't want to do. And the things I want to do, I'll do anyway. While the things I don't want to do will be put off.

<comment><USER26> I think we sometimes subconsciously hope that some system will do the things for us. Then we get disappointed. I know the feeling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It is not clear the format. Paper, epub, mobi??

</comment><comment><USER35> If everything I need to do and keep in my head at a given time doesn't fit in a mess of bullet points on a single letter sized sheet, then I'm simply doing too much. No need for a system. Just recopy over the sheet by hand every few days without the scratched off items, and add in some new stuff that comes to mind. I have difficulty imagining a life so busy that a page of terse notes couldn't suffice to keep on top of things.

</comment><comment><USER36> Straight spam for a revised edition of an old self-help book.

Thanks, I don't see enough ads online.</comment>