Complice: Beyond Getting Things Done

Some years ago, I invented a new system for doing stuff, called Complice. I used to call it a “productivity app” before I realized that Complice is coming from a new paradigm that goes beyond “productivity”. Complice is about intentionality.

What is Complice?

Complice is a new approach to goal achievement, in the form of both a philosophy and a software system. Its aim is to create consistent, coherent, processes, for people to realize their goals, in two senses:

• realize what their goals are
• make their goals a reality

Virtually all to-do list software on the internet, whether it knows it or not, is based on the workflow and philosophy called GTD (David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”). Complice is different. It wasn’t created as a critique of GTD, but it’s easiest to describe it by contrasting it with this implicit default so many people are used to.

First, a one-sentence primer on the basic workflow in Complice:

1. Clarify your goals: what matters to you on the timescale of months/years?
2. Set intentions for today: how can your day be in service of your big-picture vision?
3. Take action: work on what feels meaningful, whether the intentions you set or other emergent opportunities or challenges.
4. Review, reflect, reorient: did you do what you set out to do? Is it actually moving the needle? Go to 2.

There’s a lot more to it, but this is the basic structure. Perhaps less obvious is what’s not part of the workflow. We’ll talk about some of that below, but that’s still all on the level of behavior though—the focus of this post is the paradigmatic differences of Complice, compared to GTD-based systems. These are:

• choosing & doing, over organizing
• goals as fundamental, rather than tasks
• aliveness, instead of exhaustiveness
• proactive, rather than reactive

Keep reading and we’ll explore each of them…

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