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January 11, 2006
Making stuff manageable - really just kid stuff?
Tim Noyce, a senior ING consultant, just shared this with us:
Just a fun thing. You can do a simple sort of GTD really early in life... I made tidying up bedroom floors a lot less stressfull by teaching my two oldest sons (5 and 7) to put EVERYTHING they could not immediately put away (i.e. Lego goes straight in the lego-box) in a crate. When the floor is clear, it is much, much easier to take things out of the crate one by one and put them away. It makes it much less daunting for them as they often got overwhelmed by the mess that a couple of hours of play creates.
Indeed, defining work makes it a lot easier to get it done.
Posted by David at January 11, 2006 12:11 AM
Comments
Excellent!
Posted by: Marianne Powers at January 12, 2006 11:30 AM
Amazing! my mother taught me a similar way growing up (put it all in the middle of the room, or a pile and work from there). I've used the same strategy again and again in my professional life. Somehow it really is less daunting when it's all collected in one place.
Posted by: Sadie Northway at January 12, 2006 02:08 PM
What a great tip! Makes perfect sense to me. Now maybe David should start writing a book about "Getting things done with your kids". ;-)
Posted by: Oyvind Solstad at January 13, 2006 02:43 PM
That is terrific advice! I am sure this will help my 7-year-old with her clean-up troubles. I'm pretty sure I am need a crate of my own, as well!
Posted by: Marie Caulfield at January 19, 2006 08:59 AM
I tried this on my kids, but now there's no more room in my 9-year-old's closet for crates of unsorted junk. :-)
Posted by: Joe Ganley at February 8, 2006 07:48 AM
Of course having the crate full is just step one. Generating the motivation in a child to empty the crate is a matter of presenting an agreeable outcome if he gets on with it and threatening some "next steps" if he doesent... ;-)
Posted by: Tim Noyce at February 8, 2006 12:20 PM
Just the thought that I came looking for a 'contact me' for David on his website and thus via to this blog. I will address this to David, but my crazy thought was, can David's GTD system be modified a tad and have it made suitable for kids. (I have a 7yrold (potential GTD-guru) and an a 10yr old(already a GTD-disaster!!!) Worth giving a GTD system a whirl with kids??
Posted by: RJ at February 14, 2006 08:15 PM
