GTD should not be stressful

I am, as usual, beating myself up about a failure to do something perfectly. (”Must get A. OK, A+ works, too.”) I have been warned by friends and colleagues, coached by professionals, and reassured by family members that it is OK to NOT to do everything to the nth degree, OK not to be perfect. Rumor has it that there is a RANGE of acceptable performance on various endeavors. Who knew? Apparently that range is NOT, as I have always maintained, A to A+, but rather there are other options, including B and C!

So what am I stewing about now? Getting Things Done. I read it (OK, well almost all of it) and I worked to put it in place and yet I have not systematized this, I am still struggling. What should I do? Renew my commitment to this program? Quit?

[This is how it is for perfectionists, BTW, you either do it perfect or you quit ’cause you are not doing it perfect.]

Turns out lots of people struggle to GTD and that it is OK to do something different. According to the author, David Allen, I need some version of “collect” so I can externalize all the stuff spinning in my head and I can get the bandwidth to be productive. In an interview about his new book, he says “It takes a couple of years for most people to really, really, really begin to integrate that so that that builds the consequential and sort of cruise control kinds of behaviors.” Years. I don’t have to quit, I just need to make it OK to not get an A+, OK to not know how to do it in the first month, OK take the time it takes to systematize. I can do that, right?