The idea here is that almost everything you acquire must be paid for twice: Once using money to purchase the item and a second time to make use of the item. If you purchase a book, you have to spend time reading the book. Otherwise the book becomes an unread burden staring at your from the bookshelf. If you purchase a piece of software, you have to spend time becoming proficient with using the software. Otherwise it sits wasting space on your computer. Until you’ve paid that second price, you fail to receive utility from the initial purchase. Modern, industrialized life has given us a wealth of opportunities to pay that first price while our ability to pay the second time has not correspondingly increased.

Everything Must Be Paid For Twice [Raptitude]

This article struck me particularly strongly when considering the philosophy of Getting Things Done (GTD). I’ve long believed that GTD is the best productivity method available for my brain, but I find that I am able to capture far more tasks, projects, and ideas than I have time to work on. In a sense, I am paying the initial price of spending effort to capture these tasks and ideas, but then I fail to pay the second price of acting on what I capture. Instead, I carry around the ever-increasing debt of a bloated inbox and project folders that never get opened because they have too many tasks.

For a long time I have recognized that there is a problem with my GTD system. Considering this problem in light of paying for everything twice makes me realize that I need to focus on paying the second time and avoiding paying for so many things the first time. I can continue to capture ideas and tasks, but I need to focus my attention on what I can/want to get done right now. Everything else should go into a database tool like Notion instead of my task manager OmniFocus for later recall. I’m still a new user on Notion, so I haven’t quite fully paid that second price yet. We’ll see how this effort goes…