There are few things as stressful as trying to get everything all done before you leave for vacation. Except perhaps coming back from one and trying to catch up with the hundreds of emails and dozens of projects you blissfully managed to forget about while you were away.

Thank God there’s Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders to remind me of a saner way to function.

If you are a follower of David Allen’s Getting Things Done system as I am, you’ve probably fallen off the wagon under stress. When things get hairy, all those lovely lists seem to go down the tubes and we revert to our tried and trusted task management system: panic.


But, sooner or later, that gets sufficiently uncomfortable that it’s time to get back on the horse and ride through the tricky passes and steep slopes that constitute our job. That’s when this article will help: Back to GTD.

(By the way, do you know about Instapaper? If not, get hooked up here for free. I read this article over lunch on my iPhone. Almost as good as a Kindle and a lot smaller!)