Source-Grounded 30-Day Empirical Test

Productivity System 30-Day Survival Simulator

Grounded in Sarath S's 5-month experiment: simulating why Getting Things Done, Time Blocking, Kanban, Eisenhower, and Ivy Lee survive or collapse under realistic interrupt friction.

System & Workload

Daily Incoming Items 18 items
Unplanned Interrupt Rate 35%
Weekly Review Discipline 60%
Maker vs Reactive Mix 70/30
30-Day Survival
Collapsed
Abandonment Day
Day 19
Completion Rate
62.4%
Maintenance Tax
24.5h
Critical Bottleneck
Reflect (Weekly Review Debt)
30-Day Cognitive Friction & Backlog Trajectory Inspecting Day 30
Scrub Day: Day 30
Did It Survive Without Forcing Yourself?

Analysis loading...

Recommendation: Transition to lightweight Time Blocking or Kanban with Work-In-Progress caps

GTD 5-Step Friction Analysis (The Source Rule)

GTD runs on five steps: Capture, Clarify, Organize, Reflect (Weekly Review), and Engage. When unplanned interruptions spike or a review is skipped, capture backlogs double cognitive debt, triggering collapse around Days 14–21.

Step Operational Burden Observed Bottleneck Risk Status in Simulation
1. Capture Writing every thought into inbox Low resistance, high volume accumulation Active (18/day)
2. Clarify 2-minute rule + actionable triage Friction compounds when interrupted Tax: 22m/day
3. Organize Filing next-actions, waiting-for, projects Micro-decision fatigue across lists Tax: 15m/day
4. Reflect Weekly deep review of all lists Fatal failure point: 60% discipline skips reviews Backlog Overload (Day 19)
5. Engage Execute actionable next task Paralysis when list contains stale debt Throughput degraded 38%

30-Day Comparative Maintenance Tax (All 5 Systems)

Comparing total hours spent maintaining each system (pink) versus productive work completed (indigo) across identical workload parameters.