Garden Report* The Threefold Nature of Work/GTD* Year-end Questions from Courtney Martin*

Garden Report

I harvested this beet recently.  I grew a single one -- starting it in the Aerogarden months ago.  I am surprised at how big and healthy it is.  It is, so far, the biggest result of this year's gardening.  In June I was picking greens each day for a dinner salad.  Before going to Door County, I chopped a basil plant for pesto.  Below there's a picture of the far-more-modest harvest of the rest of my garden -- a few ripening tomatoes, several handfuls of peas and (very small!) raspberries.  Next year I want to increase the beets - starting them in the Aerogarden seems like a good idea, though I could also directly sow others... or start them by a window inside.  Would they grow in a garden box?  My peas are almost done -- I should pull them out this week.  My green beans are starting to produce.  I'm babying my cucumber plants, which are beginning to bloom, but growing modestly.  

All of this pales in comparison to the garden plots at my parent's retirement community.  Mom's plot is filled with flowers (both perennials and annuals, rudbeckia, salvia, zinnias, many others) and veggies: several varieties of tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, carrots.  The tomato plants are huge - human-being sized - and filled with developing fruits, long arms of cherry tomatoes.  Her garden is surrounded by dozens of others, each with personal preferences (okra, zucchini, rhubarb, on and on).  And there are several stories about this friend who provided mom with either plants (this pineapple tomato) or produce (spinach, raspberries) or ideas (I asked him if he thought that spinach would grow this late, he said: "we'll see").  The vegetable world is thriving, the human world is thriving, even if mom has told me the same story about the man who makes smoothies with spinach and water ("I asked his wife what he was going to do with the okra and she said "probably smoothies").  

Three-fold Nature of work GTD

In Getting Things Done (GTD), the “threefold nature of work” refers to David Allen’s framework that describes the three different types of activities we engage in during our work:

**1. Predefined Work**

This is work you’ve already identified and planned - the actions on your lists, projects you’ve committed to, and tasks you’ve scheduled. It’s the “doing” of things you’ve already decided need to be done.

**2. Work as it Shows Up**

This is the unexpected, unplanned work that emerges throughout your day - interruptions, urgent requests, emails that require immediate attention, or crises that demand your focus. It’s the reactive work that pulls you away from your planned activities.

**3. Defining Your Work**

This is the often-overlooked but crucial work of processing, organizing, and reviewing - essentially the work of figuring out what your work actually is. This includes processing your inbox, reviewing your projects, clarifying next actions, and maintaining your trusted system.

Allen emphasizes that most people spend too much time on the first two types while neglecting the third. The key insight is that without adequate time spent defining your work (processing and organizing), you’ll struggle to make good decisions about what predefined work to focus on, and you’ll be constantly overwhelmed by work as it shows up.

The GTD methodology is designed to help you balance all three types effectively, with particular emphasis on building robust systems for defining your work so you can make better choices about how to spend your time.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

 Year End Questions from Courtney Martin

Recently I included Austin Kleon's question: "what do you want to learn more about"? and Gregg Krech's mid-year questions.  Kleon said that he was answering Martin's questions and that she had posted some different ones the year before ("Taking Stock")

1. What are you craving to learn more about next year? How might you go about it—an online class, a mentor, a book?
2. What was a really nourishing practice for you this year?
3. What did you shed, let go of, or give up this year? How did you get lighter?
4. What do you want to savor more in the year ahead? 
5. What was the most overhyped experience you had in 2021?
6. What writer, filmmaker, musician really moved you this year?
7. How has your body been this year—resilient, tired, vital, healing? How would you like to change your relationship with your body in the year ahead?
8. Who made you feel most heard this year? Who did you learn to have better boundaries with?
9. What did you learn about your own capacity for uncertainty this year?
10. What completely ordinary thing are you most grateful for right now in your life?

Here's the following year's questions:

1. What was the best adventure you had this year?
2. What was the best book you read, TV show you watched, or podcast you listened to?
3. What “current event” really broke your heart this year?
4. What are you missing most about the smaller life you led in the throws of the pandemic? How might you bring that smallness back in some nourishing way?
5. What did you shed, let go of, or give up this year? How did you get lighter?
6. What are you grieving? How could you carry that grief more collectively?
7. How did your body love moving this year? How could you integrate that more into the year ahead?
8. Who made you feel most heard this year? Who did you learn to have better boundaries with?
9. What was a thing you had a hard time admitting to yourself this year?
10. What completely ordinary thing are you most grateful for right now in your life?

On This Day (07/08):

• 2025-07-08: Garden Report* The Threefold Nature of Work/GTD* Year-end Questions from Courtney Martin*
• 2024-07-08: Gottman - Build Love Maps
• 2023-07-08: On Scarcity & Plenty
• 2022-07-08: There is magic in this place
• 2021-07-08: Natural Selection after The End of Nature