Simply GTD with Kelly: Starting Small

September 28, 2006

Starting Small

Even though organized is just one piece of the GTD system, it's often one that brings great satisfaction. I don't know anyone who doesn't get some sense of completion and freed-up attention from having an organized space.

I spent 5 minutes this morning deleting some of my browser bookmarks. I'd gotten a little overzealous lately on creating bookmarks for websites that interest me. That list had grown to over 2 pages and every time I tried to get to the ones I use the most I had to wade through a long list. It became an annoying drag on my system. They had become the electronic equivalent of books on my night stand that I "might" like to read. I whittled the list down to a third of what it was. What a simple, easy thing to do and it wasn't on any to do list.

Next time you find yourself with a weird window of time, see what you can do to free up your attention from something that's been nagging at you. Clean a file, delete or archive some old email, get rid of those unused icons on your desktop, enter a business card that's been hanging around into your address book or donate the 67 soy sauce packets from your desk drawer to the kitchen.

Get organized doesn't have to be an all-day, rainy Saturday adventure. When is the last time you really felt like doing that anyway when that opportunity showed up? 5 minutes here and there can make a great difference in the space and your attention right now. Start small.

Posted by Kelly at September 28, 2006 03:54 PM

Comments

I created folders for categories of my Favorites (bookmarked) links. For example: Financial, Blog Roll, Check Daily, Check Weekly, Home Management, Shopping, Travel and Recreation, Professional, etc. So I have tons of bookmarks but they all fit into the screen length because many are inside folders. My rule is, once there is overflow and I need to scroll down to get to a bookmark I have to clean up. This makes it easy to find the links when I need them and focuses my surfing time.

Posted by: Beth at September 29, 2006 02:55 AM

Have you considered using del.icio.us to manage your bookmarks in the future? If you haven't tried it you might want to take a peek.

Posted by: CynicalGeek at October 3, 2006 12:23 PM

Thanks CynicalGeek. I will check it out.

Cheers,
Kelly

Posted by: Kelly at October 3, 2006 02:39 PM