Thanks for a thoughtful response. I read GTD ages ago, might take a look at that again.
Your second point is well taken... maybe the real problem with the genre is that it's much easier to deliver a system that handles discrete tasks, whereas dealing with larger goals or aspirations is too open-ended to design a product around.
I thought GTD had a good idea regarding stuff you can't get done by shoving it in a circular file, and maybe that's what I need to do. Not abandon it, but it's better to not worry about it for a while and come around to it in time.
GTD's emphasis of getting thing out of your head is particularly good. Both BJ and index cards (I'm somewhere between POIC and Zettlekasten) do that for me.
I'm looking at tools such as vimwiki / orgmode, possibly task-warrior or renind (both CLI task managers) for longer term/repetitive stuff.
On my (linux) desktop I've got a set of general information displayed via xrootconsole, and having reminders there might be useful w/o being excessively distracting.
A script sets up multiple "panels" of information for me -- (randomly selected) RSS feed, weather, essays-in-ptocess (a large part of my To Do), and systems monitoring. That's usually obscured by open windows (and I don't use a desktop file-browser, so this isn't cluttered by file or app launcher icons), but I can check quickly by hiding open windows/reveal desktop.
With CLI reminder/calendar tools, ant term window can show wahat's pending / manage tasks.
Your second point is well taken... maybe the real problem with the genre is that it's much easier to deliver a system that handles discrete tasks, whereas dealing with larger goals or aspirations is too open-ended to design a product around.
I thought GTD had a good idea regarding stuff you can't get done by shoving it in a circular file, and maybe that's what I need to do. Not abandon it, but it's better to not worry about it for a while and come around to it in time.