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January 10, 2007
What's your quit point?
I was asked a phrase this morning in an exercise class that's been intriguing me: "What's your quit point?" During physical exercise, it's easy to convince myself to quit when I get tired, especially if the place I'm going is further than I've ever gone before. That further point can be subtle in a sport like yoga (pivot my foot one inch to the left) or obvious in running (run one extra mile.) Learning to recognize my quit point in whatever I'm doing gives me the power to move beyond what I think I can or can't do. It can become like a game where I win no matter what.
What are the quit points in your workflow? Here are some typical ones I've certainly been guilty of at times:
- Opening an email, scanning it and closing it because it just seems like too much to handle right now. If I'm really feeling clever I'll mark the email as unread or print it, as if that will somehow bring divine inspiration about what to do.
- Doing the Inbox shuffle with hard copy stuff looking for the easiest ones and throwing the rest of the stack back into In.
- Trying to plan a project in my head based on one thought, idea or meeting and reacting with next actions rather than leading with an outcome.
If I'm really applying GTD, no matter what I'm dealing with often takes less time, effort and brain power to figure out what to do than I think it will.
You need to think about your stuff more than you think, but not as much as you're afraid you might. - David Allen
One of the most valuable GTD keys for this is the Fundamental Process with any input:
What's the outcome? What's the next action?
Deciding what to do doesn't mean I need to do it in that moment. If my quit point is to close an email because it seems to unclear, overwhelming or vague, do I need more information? Am I clear what the outcome is? Is this part of my job? Am I trying to rush through my Inbox without giving things the proper attention they deserve? What would support me best here in this situation?
Coming back to that Fundamental Process demystifies whatever I'm dealing with. Two simple questions I can use no matter how complex something seems.
Posted by Kelly at January 10, 2007 12:46 PM
Comments
Kelly,
You touched on something that I have been struggling with...leading withOUT an outcome. I have been doing GTD for a while now.. but just yesterday I took a fairly mundane/easy project and went through the phases of the natural planning model, I was amazed at how putting the outcome out there, brainstorming it, organize the sections, and then defining the next actions really worked! I always thought that this planning was too formal and rigid to use for "smaller" things. I also thought that the extra 3 minutes that I invested would just be wasted time. It was amazing to see the pay off when I added over 10 next actions to 3 contexts... It turned this mundane project in to a real cooker that was in control in a matter of minutes, on the front end!
Thanks for the reminder.
-Erik
Posted by: erik m at January 11, 2007 06:47 AM
