Should you spend 40 hours customizing your e-mail solution? Probably not.
Should you spend 1 hour and get it to an efficient state? Why the hell not. It'll save you some time later on.
This article is an overcorrection to a problem which stemmed from a lack of balance. The thing itself is not bad (engineering systems for your life), the imbalance of over-engineering was bad.
So yes, lifehacking to the extreme such that you spend more time working on systems than using those systems is probably a bad thing. But living your life as though no system could aid it is just as bad.
If you read GTD with the idea that David was a very eastern-religion influenced guy and studied martial arts and meditation, you sort of get this intuitively. There's a limit; a zen about it.
Don't over-engineer your life. Balance it using the tools available to you, so your tools just work and you don't have to think about the tools anymore. If you're spending too much time on the tools, you're doing it wrong.
Comments
As with most things, there's a balance to it.
Should you spend 40 hours customizing your e-mail solution? Probably not.
Should you spend 1 hour and get it to an efficient state? Why the hell not. It'll save you some time later on.
This article is an overcorrection to a problem which stemmed from a lack of balance. The thing itself is not bad (engineering systems for your life), the imbalance of over-engineering was bad.
So yes, lifehacking to the extreme such that you spend more time working on systems than using those systems is probably a bad thing. But living your life as though no system could aid it is just as bad.
If you read GTD with the idea that David was a very eastern-religion influenced guy and studied martial arts and meditation, you sort of get this intuitively. There's a limit; a zen about it.
Don't over-engineer your life. Balance it using the tools available to you, so your tools just work and you don't have to think about the tools anymore. If you're spending too much time on the tools, you're doing it wrong.