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November 03, 2008
Best & Worst Practices of Process
This is part two in a five part series on the best & worst practices of GTD: Mastering Workflow. This week we're covering stage two: Process. Also known as the decision-making, defining or clarifying stage, this is where you are making decisions about the "stuff" you've collected in your Inboxes. There are a few key questions that get asked when you are processing something:
Best Practice: make decisions about your stuff when it shows up
Worst Practice: make decisions after it blows up
Here's the big, obvious best practice of Process: You're going to have to make a decision eventually, why not make it with the least amount of effort and attention when you first handle it? I'm not talking about intuitively holding on something before making a final decision (should I do this or not?)--there are times when holding off on making a decision is the best thing to do--I'm talking about those decisions that don't go away just because you close the email and go on to the next one.
Tips & tricks for Process:
- The biggest improvement opportunity I see with people around Process is giving it enough time. It takes about 30 seconds, on average, to process each piece of stuff/input you get. If you get 60 emails a day, you're gonna need 30 minutes just to Process it. It won't get to zero on it's own. Most execs I coach need about an hour to an hour and a half per day just for processing.
- Get super clear on your next action. The clearer the better to reflect your very next physical, visible step. If you capture you're next action as "Talk to Bill" but you know you need to update the proposal before you can talk to him, "Update the proposal" is what goes on the next actions list, not Talk to Bill. If you really need to capture Talk to Bill as the next sequential next action, store it with project plans, just not the next actions list.
- Don't give more time to things than they deserve. If you can complete something in less than two minutes, handle it when it first shows up.
- Decide before you organize is a good rule of thumb. If you haven't decided your next action on something, organizing it into a neat pile won't free your mind of it. Your brain will just have a neater pile to stress about.
Next up...best & worst practices of Organize.
Posted by Kelly at November 3, 2008 08:41 AM
Comments
Hello Kelly! Thank you so much for your posting and for encouraging all of us GTD fans to do things better. I've been lurking on the blog ever since I read GTD this summer, and wanted to let you know that I always enjoy reading the posts. Keep 'em coming. Thanks! ~Heidi
Posted by: Heidi Reimer-Epp [Botanical PaperWorks] at November 3, 2008 10:57 AM
Your last two posts have made a significant difference in my understanding of how GTD is supposed to work. These shortened versions of the steps in the book are great! Thank you!
Posted by: John at November 3, 2008 06:01 PM
Hi Heidi & John
I appreciate the comments and encouragement. It's motivating for me to know people are getting value from my blog.
Cheers,
Kelly
Posted by: Kelly at November 11, 2008 06:09 PM
Kelly, in your Day in the life Podcast with David, you mentioned that you take about 30 minutes in the morning to process email. You also mentioned that you get about 100-150 emails per day. How many are you typically processing in that 30 minute period? Tell me you are not ripping through that much correspondence in so short a time! Can you expand on your success tips for handling email? It's one area that I feel is holding me back.
Posted by: Phil at November 24, 2008 07:23 PM
Hi Phil,
Your comment inspired my latest post about Plowing through Email. Hope that helps!
Kelly
Posted by: Kelly at November 28, 2008 10:03 AM
Hi Kelly
Thanks for your terrific blog posts! I'm now about a year with GTD and I really enjoyed reading your posts, it helped getting back to GTD and rethinking my habits.
One thing I always wanted to ask a "GTD Pro" is about making decisions. I once read (quite sure it was in the Book) that "making a decision about sth." is not a next action. And it also says that in most cases we need more Information, which I totally agree with.
The problem is that I can't always identify the information needed, there's a lot of intuitive things going on "behind the scenes" if I make a decisions about something like that, which I can't capture in my GTD system.
I especially means these "should I do this or not?" decisions. For Example: "Decide if you want to buy a new mac", "Decide between the two books about AppleScript that Phil proposed" or "decide which courses to take in the next term at university"
Greetings from Switzerland, Simon
Posted by: Simon Taennler at January 22, 2009 07:40 AM
Hi Simon,
Great question.
There are times, of course, when we "intuitively hold" on something. But in my experience, more often a decision is not waiting for my intuition to decide the better choice, but instead, there is a part of me that just doesn't feel like it has enough information for my intuition and logic to even know what the best choice is. Or, it's really a Someday/Maybe, and forcing the decision right now would be a false choice and I haven't made that conscious yet. I am just simply not there yet in my need for it.
So let me challenge you on "Buy a new Mac" if I may? If we walked into a Mac store this afternoon and they all of the models you are considering, would you buy one? Are time or money factors? Are you clear on purpose of why you are considering getting one?
Kelly
Posted by: Kelly at January 23, 2009 04:18 PM
