This is a few months old, but interesting.  Paul Smalera at Slate asks if Obama is the Getting Things Done (GTD) president.  Anyone who works in IT or knows someone who works in IT is familiar with the cult (I mean that in a nice way) of productivity guru David Allen and his GTD system for managing work flow.

Smalera asks whether Obama is being too much of a checklist president , focused on moving legislation off his to-do list instead of focusing on fewer bills that would forward a progressive agenda.

To be fair to David Allen, he does talk about conducting a weekly review where you, in personal development speak, adopt a 50,000 foot view of your goals.

My take is that presidents need to be GTD focused in their first six months.  I envision a 2011 State of the Union address where President Obama  can spend 60 minutes ticking off accomplishments from his first term….taking a page out of Bill Clinton’s playbook.  Think about Bush 43’s legislative agenda in his first term which included the Medicare Prescription Drug legislation and No Child Left Behind.

The big question is why we prefer our presidents to be able to rattle off a laundry list of accomplishments.  I think is goes to our core American ethos.  GTD is so popular because it provides people with a manual for fitting into American norms….kind of like The Protestant Work Ethic for white collar workers.