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October 21, 2007
The belt that keeps the pants up
For as hard as travel can be--I log about 100,000+ air miles per year--there is one huge benefit: I get long stretches of uninterrupted time to get my system clean & current. I relish a cross-country trip where I don't have any new input coming in and can do those things that if I were in my office mode doing "real work" I probably wouldn't as easily take the time to do. I'll do things like clean out old stuff from my laptop, get to my nice to read stuff, process my paper and email inboxes to zero and most importantly do a Weekly Review.
If you've been around GTD for a while, you know that this time for your own processing, especially the Weekly Review, is really the belt that keeps the pants up. It's what David Allen calls your Defining Work time. And, it tends to be one of the harder habits to create, despite that part of you who knows how great it would be to have total confidence that your stuff is clean & current and you're doing what you want and need to be doing.
If you don't have built-in time like I do on a plane, here are some other things I've heard can work to create that time for yourself:
* Come in before anyone else or stay later than everyone else. Not always a fun one, but sometimes it's the only way to plow through stuff.
* Block your calendar for your own processing time. I heard of someone going so far as to put "Meeting with CEO" on her shared calendar so people wouldn't overbook the time.
* Do your Reviews in a place you know you won't be interrupted, like a local coffee shop, at home or in a conference room.
* Give yourself a goal you can win. If some part of you is staying you need 2 hours of uninterrupted time to do a Review or get your Inbox to zero, and you can't remember the last time you had that kind of time, well then you're setting yourself up to fail. You'll never "see" 2 hour windows of opportunity. Pick a smaller chunk of time. I figure 15 minutes of focused review time is better than nothing. Clearing out 100 old emails from your Inbox is better than nothing.
In order for me to be able to do this virtually anywhere, my system is pretty portable. I have a couple of key folders that are always parked in my travel briefcase:
In
Action Support
Waiting For Support
Nice to Read
Out
I also sync all of the lists on my laptop to my handheld so that I can be updating my lists whenever I feel like it, and don't have to be chained to a laptop. If a handheld is not your thing, print your lists.
Of course, there are plenty of times too when watching the world go by at 20,000 feet is the best use of my time, and that's OK with me. The lists will still be there.
This is a view looking down on beautiful Santa Barbara, California.
Posted by Kelly at October 21, 2007 12:53 PM
Comments
Maybe your "In" box should rather be called "Stuff". For some reason the name "stuff" is so generic that I find it easier to just "plonk" stuff in.
Posted by: Bruce Harrison at October 22, 2007 07:51 AM
Absolutely Bruce. In=Stuff. Stuff=In. Nearly everything lands in your world as Stuff until you figure out what it means to you (outcome & action.) Either word could work as long as you know it serves as a collection bucket for the things to be processed.
Cheers,
Kelly
Posted by: Kelly at October 22, 2007 08:13 AM
I picked up GTD about two years ago now and have yet to make a habit of the weekly review. I suspect part of the problem is that my lists have literally thousands of items on them. Even if many of them are someday/maybe items, I found when I got everything collected that I had way over-committed myself, and I probably subconsciously dread adding anything more to my lists until they're manageable.
So for now I tend to review about once a month or two, or after I've finished a major project/milestone and I'm deciding what to tackle next. Otherwise I tend to spend too much time fussing with the lists rather than making them smaller, which I think is one way I procrastinate.
I need to get to the point that I feel like I'm actually making headway and not over-committing myself yet again when I review and decide what's next before a full weekly review is feasible, I think.
Posted by: Michael Kirkham at October 22, 2007 07:41 PM
I am not sure if I expressed myself clearly in the first post.
I think the point I was trying to make is that inbox sounds like you have already let the item into your world whereas stuff doesn't.
I readily admit that this could be a personal opinion and not generalizable onto large portions of the population.
Warm regards
-Bruce
Posted by: Bruce Harrison at December 13, 2007 12:04 AM
