Monthly Update #29 (May 2025)
How magicians can overcome their magpie tendencies with GTD, atomic habits and a little bit of advice from Mary Poppins!
Well, here it is—the delayed May monthly update for Marty’s Magic Ruseletter! One reason these updates are often late is that I tend to take on more personal projects than I can comfortably manage. It’s a bad habit that I’m trying hard to curtail. This one is quite a few weeks late—sorry about that. I hope it was worth the wait!
Do you find yourself constantly chasing the latest magic download, deck or device while existing ideas for half-finished routines occupy your distracted mind? You’re not alone! Like magpies attracted to anything shiny, we magicians accumulate tricks faster than we can practise them. This month’s update examines how to tame that impulse and turn sheer curiosity into steady, meaningful progress—using David Allen’s Getting Things Done framework alongside James Clear’s “atomic habits” approach. If you’re ready to spend less time collecting and more time creating, read on…
In my day job at a small UK university, I spend most of my time managing and delivering small educational projects. To keep things on track, I use a modified version of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology—a personal productivity system based on common-sense principles. I’ve been using it in a professional capacity, in one way or another, for over ten years.
I’m not usually a fan of self-help books. Most contain one or two good ideas, but the rest is recycled filler, dubious life advice or unsustainable productivity hacks. Getting Things Done, however, is different. I find myself returning to it regularly. And each time I do, I uncover fresh insights and strategies that genuinely help me manage my commitments more effectively.
“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” - Dave Allen
For that reason, it’s the only self-help book I wholeheartedly recommend—especially if you, like me, sometimes struggle to make meaningful progress on your creative or magic-related ambitions!
Going All In on GTD ✅
Until recently, I mostly used GTD to manage work-related tasks in higher education. But as Allen emphasises, it isn’t just for work—it’s designed for your whole life. He even goes so far as to describe GTD as an “integrated life-management system.” The system was first introduced in his best-selling 2001 book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Although the book was initially aimed at the business world—specifically, knowledge workers—the methodology has been applied by a diverse range of individuals, including students, clergy, artists, and even retirees! Given the complex and multifaceted nature of magic as a hobby (or career), the system is a good fit for magicians who want to be better organised and less overwhelmed.
So I’ve decided to apply the methodology to everything—from my day job to my hobbies, family life, and magic projects. That includes this newsletter, my blog (Marty’s Bag of Tricks), and the magic books I’m working on.
To support this shift, I’m re-reading the 2015 revised edition of Getting Things Done, and I’ll be sharing how I’m applying its ideas to my creative life over the coming weeks and months.
If you’d like to learn more about GTD, I highly recommend reading the book. If buying it isn’t an option, this 22-minute TEDx Talk video provides a decent overview, although it skims some of the deeper ideas in the book, such as cultivating a “mind like water”, which is where the system really shines.
The official Getting Things Done website has links to a healthy collection of free resources. David Allen has also recently launched a Substack on GTD, where he will share his most recent thoughts, ideas and refinements on his GTD methodology.
My Magic Projects (and How I’m Managing Them)
One of GTD’s core principles is that any multi-step activity is a project. David Allen defines a project as “any desired result that can be accomplished within a year and requires more than one action step.” That means even something as simple as “Buy a new deck of cards” or “Learn a new magic trick” might technically count as a project. For example, if you already know you want a deck of Bicycle Rider Backs, then “Buy a new deck of cards” is what David Allen calls a “next action step”. However, if you need to conduct some research and make a decision about what type of deck you want to purchase, this task instantly becomes a project. (In this situation, I’d most likely treat this as a “next action” in GTD language, even though it involves more than one step, but hopefully, you get the point I’m trying to make.)
Honestly, this is the one element of the GTD system that I’ve struggled with the most because, at first, it feels decidedly odd, over the top, and even self-aggrandising to label much of what you do as a “project”. However, I’m learning that this approach is one of the most powerful aspects of the GTD system.
According to GTD, you should maintain a comprehensive “Projects List” of all active, multi-step commitments and review it every week. The goal is to ensure no loose ends fall through the cracks. But here’s the problem: if you’re like me, that list gets long fast. And once it’s too long, you start avoiding the weekly review, or, in my case, I ignore my magic-related projects in favour of other more important or urgent commitments. Which kind of defeats the purpose of the list.
To combat this issue, I’ve started categorising my GTD projects in a way that reflects the amount of effort involved. Here’s the labelling system:
Small Project (S) ✅ - A small multi-step job that I can complete within a week, usually in one sitting. These are the fabled “quick wins”. For example, learning a new magic trick would be a small project. It’s not a task because it involves more than one step, i.e., choose the trick, study the method, practise the mechanics until you can perform it without thinking, and rehearse some basic patter (or, better yet, draft a simple script).
Medium Project (M) 🗓 - Any multi-step task that can be finished within a month. For instance, adding a new magic trick to my working repertoire (and, therefore, making it performance-ready) would qualify as a significant project. Why? Because it involves writing a polished script for the trick, then practising and rehearsing it with intention—something that would be impossible for me to do in a week, especially considering I have three daughters and a day job, but is achievable within a month.
Large Project (L) 🏗️ - These are more involved projects that take weeks or even months of effort (but less than a year) and involve multiple stages, materials, or moving parts. For example, developing a new magic act would fall into this category.
Never-Ending Project (NEP) ♾️ - Finally, this is a distinct project that continually generates smaller sub-projects or tasks. For example, my magic blog, Marty’s Bag of Tricks, and this newsletter are both Never-Ending Projects. You don’t want too many of these. However, they still need to be considered and thought about during your weekly review (therefore, they need to be included on your Projects List). Never-ending projects aren’t necessarily bad, but having too many of them can cause significant problems! These projects are similar to another concept in GTD called “Areas of Interest” (or Areas of Focus), but they’re much broader and all encompassing, e.g., “family”, “work”, “health and fitness”, “finances”, “hobbies” and “personal development” are all common areas of interest.
I’m still refining this four-tiered approach, but so far, it’s helping me better track my creative work without causing me to drown in life admin! By separating small wins from big ambitions—and recognising the infinite nature of some commitments—I’m finding GTD more useful than ever.
If you’ve been meaning to get more organised with your own magical practice (or just life in general), GTD might be the tool you’ve been looking for. And if you already use it (or something like it), I’d love to hear how you customise the system to suit your creative processes. Leave a comment or reply to this newsletter—I always love hearing from readers.
Here’s a list of my current, active magic-related projects:
Study the magic of Pipo Villanueva (M)
Learn “Four Kings Opening” by Pipo Villanueva (S)
Write, publish and promote Easy Does it: Pipo’s Perverse Production (S)
Write, publish and promote Tricks, Tricks & More Tricks #4: Soulmate Sorcery (M)
Write, publish and promote Developing Daley: Volume 1 (L)
Exploring Erdnase Book Club (L)
Marty’s Bag of Tricks (NEP)
Marty’s Magic Ruseletter (NEP)
You’ll notice that the first three projects on the list are related; the two smaller sub-projects were derived from the first, as I discovered this trick while reviewing some digital downloads I bought from Pipo several years ago. The purpose of studying his magic is to push me to decide whether I want to include any of his material in my working repertoire (I’ll be adding “Walkaround Wildcard” and “Perverse Silver” to my A-List). While doing this, I also modified his four-of-a-kind production routine slightly, giving it a “perverse magic” theme, similar to other routines by Pipo Villanueva. This generated another small project (to write, publish and promote this variation in the Easy Does It column of the Ruseletter).
This is the real benefit of treating most things as a project: it forces you to focus on what “next action” will propel you forward as a writer, creator, or performer.
New on MBOT: Well Begun or Half Done?
Reading time: 8 minutes
On a related note, this month I published a blog article on an old Latin proverb:
“Initium est dimidium facti”
I discovered this aphorism when reading a recent edition of James Clear’s 3-2-1 Newsletter (3-2-1: On how to handle idiots, pushing toward growth, and two types of choices in life). James Clear is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Atomic Habits. While GTD is a ground-up task management system, Clear’s approach focuses on habit formation (and maintenance). It emphasises how small, incremental changes—or “atomic habits”—lead to greater success over time. When combined, GTD methodology and the development of atomic habits can yield remarkable results. Both systems emphasise the importance of action:
“You can’t make time go faster or success come sooner. The only thing you can control is the next action.” - James Clear
The well-begun-is-half-done mindset highlights the importance of simply starting, as a strong beginning greatly influences a project’s overall success. It promotes thorough planning, positive engagement, and a confident attitude when laying the foundations of future progress.
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”- Zig Ziglar
After writing this blog article, I was reminded that Julie Andrews uses the phrase in the classic Disney film, Mary Poppins. She plays a game of “Well Begun is Half Done”, also known as “Let’s Tidy Up the Nursery”, with Michael and Jane. This occurs just before she begins singing the iconic song “A Spoonful of Sugar” and employs her particular brand of nanny magic to straighten up the room!
The Myth of Magician’s Intuition
We all have them—those deeply-held beliefs about what makes a magic trick effective, such as “Active participation increases amazement,” “Make the magic happen in their hands,” or “Let them name any card for a truly free choice.” We repeat these sayings like gospel, passing on this tacit knowledge to younger, more impressionable magicians. But what if we’re wrong?
A new paper, “Challenging Magicians’ Intuitive Insights” by Wincza and Kuhn (published in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts), puts these core beliefs to the test. The results may well prompt you to reconsider how you perform your next magic trick.
The study’s research team surveyed 201 working magicians to confirm three common pieces of magical wisdom:
Active participation enhances a spectator’s sense of wonder, making the experience even more amazing.
Naming a card feels freer and fairer to a spectator than physically picking one.
Magic that happens in a spectator’s hand is automatically more impressive than effects that don’t.
The research team then conducted two live-performance experiments with 134 laypeople. Surprisingly, the study’s findings consistently contradicted the intuition of magicians.
Does participation increase wonder? No, not really. Being an active participant didn’t make the trick feel more amazing, surprising or enjoyable than just watching it. It did, however, make the spectator feel more engaged and, interestingly, sometimes more confused and anxious—this probably has something to do with the mental pressure of having to remember the name of a chosen card, or introverts’ dislike of being the centre of attention.
Is naming a card perceived as freer and fairer than picking one? No, the opposite appears to be true. Spectators reported feeling their choice was less free and more likely to have been influenced by the magician when they merely named a card. They rated the trick as more impossible when they made a physical selection from a spread of cards. Why is this so? We feel a greater sense of agency (control) when a physical action is connected to a decision.
Is “in the hands” magic stronger? No. A card changing in the spectator’s hand was rated as no more impossible or amazing than the same effect happening under a card box on the table. (This finding really surprised me.)
However, the study does have some significant limitations, which the authors acknowledge in the paper. The most obvious one is that they used an extremely narrow range of tricks. Both experiments relied on traditional card effects (the Invisible Deck and a basic version of the Two-Card Transposition). The same results may not apply to grand stage illusions, propless mentalism, or even other close-up card effects.
Additionally, I would prefer to see a trick like the Sponge Balls or Sponge Bunnies used to test the real power of magic that occurs in the hands of a spectator. Something tells me that, with this particular trick, the findings might have been quite different. The paper offers some strong initial evidence, but further research is needed. Any future studies should employ diverse tricks, techniques, audiences, settings, and measurement methods before we overhaul all our performance rules.
We typically rely on intuition to hone our performance strategies, but when our assumptions are tested with empirical research studies like this one, they often tell a different story. We must stop assuming we understand what influences our audiences based on performer logic and, instead, base our art and craft on evidence of what truly engenders a sense of impossibility and wonder.
The paper demonstrates that magicians often misperceive how spectators experience agency, choice, and amazement. We think naming a card feels freer (it doesn’t), we think “in the hands” automatically amplifies impact (it doesn’t), and we believe participation increases wonder (it mostly just increases engagement and anxiety).
The deeper message? The audience experiences magic through their psychology, not ours. What seems meaningful from the magician’s perspective often doesn’t register with the spectator. This kind of research should both humble and inspire us to question our beliefs rather than continue to pass down conventional, unproven wisdom.
The authors of the paper highlight a spectator’s sense of agency as the critical factor. People trust their bodily actions more than their thoughts, which they believe could be vulnerable to manipulation by the magician. The research strongly indicates that we should be more sceptical of our long-held assumptions. The “why” behind a spectator’s feelings of astonishment might be different—and more complex—than we have previously believed.
I encourage all magicians to read the full paper; although its intended audience isn’t us, the insights it shares have many practical applications for both amateur and professional performers.
Three Videos Worth Watching 👀
This month, none of the videos have anything directly related to magic. However, they’re still very much worth watching.
David Allen TEDx Talk
Duration: 22 minutes
Interested in learning more about GTD? This classic TEDx Talk by David Allen is a great place to start. You’ll notice that David Allen often uses water and sailing metaphors to clarify his system. Watch this short video to discover how to become the “captain and commander” of your own magical boat! ⛵
1% Better Every Day by James Clear
Duration: 25 minutes
Here’s an excellent keynote presentation by James Clear, which covers the main ideas from his book, Atomic Habits. This approach, when combined with GTD, creates a powerful system for personal productivity.
TikTok Is RUINING Reading, Coloring & Every Hobby It Touches
Duration: 28 minutes
Finally, here’s a video that appeared on my YouTube homepage recommendations this month. Even though it doesn’t reference magic at all, I feel the topic is very relevant to magic as a hobby, as overconsumption of magic products is something that’s been bothering me lately. This links to the “magpie tendencies” of many magicians, myself included, that I mentioned in my most recent blog post.
Well, that’s it for another month. Look out for the June monthly update in your inbox soon!
Yours Magically,
Marty