Allen (2001) proposed the "Getting Things Done" (GTD) method for personal productivity enhancement, and reduction of the stress caused by information overload. This paper argues that recent insights in psychology and cognitive science support and extend GTD's recommendations. We first summarize GTD with the help of a flowchart. We then review the theories of situated, embodied and distributed cognition that purport to explain how the brain processes information and plans actions in the real world. The conclusion is that the brain heavily relies on the environment, to function as an external memory, a trigger for actions, and a source of affordances, disturbances and feedback. We then show how these principles are practically implemented in GTD, with its focus on organizing tasks into "actionable" external memories, and on opportunistic, situation-dependent execution. Finally, we propose an extension of GTD to support collaborative work, inspired by the concept of stigmergy.

In this philosophical paper, we explore computational and biological analogies to address the fine-tuning problem in cosmology. We first clarify what it means for physical constants or initial conditions to be fine-tuned. We review important distinctions such as the dimensionless and dimensional physical constants, and the classification of constants proposed by Lévy-Leblond. Then we explore how two great analogies, computational and biological, can give new insights into our problem. This paper includes a preliminary study to examine the two analogies. Importantly, analogies are both useful and fundamental cognitive tools, but can also be misused or misinterpreted. The idea that our universe might be modelled as a computational entity is analysed, and we discuss the distinction between physical laws and initial conditions using algorithmic information theory. Smolin introduced the theory of "Cosmological Natural Selection" with a biological analogy in mind. We examine an extension of this analogy involving intelligent life. We discuss if and how this extension could be legitimated.

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Philosophy lacks criteria to evaluate its philosophical theories. To fill this gap, we introduce nine criteria to compare worldviews, classified in three broad categories: objective criteria (objective consistency, scientificity, scope) subjective criteria (subjective consistency, personal utility, emotionality) and intersubjective criteria (intersubjective consistency, collective utility, narrativity). We first define what a worldview is and expose the heuristic used in our quest for criteria. After describing each criterion individually, we show what happens when each of them is violated. From the criteria, we derive assessment tests to compare and improve different worldviews. These include the is-ought, ought-act and is-act first-order tests; the critical and dialectical second-order tests; the mixed-questions and firstsecond-order synthetical third order tests; and the we-I, we-it and it-I tests. Then we apply these criteria and tests to a concrete example, comparing the Flying Spaghetti Monster deity with Intelligent Design. As another application, we draw more general fruitful suggestions for the science-and-religion dialog.