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Julie Ireland
The Power of “Someday/Maybe”
Years ago, when I first started learning and implementing the GTD methodology, I couldn’t quite grasp this concept of “Someday/Maybe”. Putting things on that list somehow felt like I was writing them off as someday = never gonna happen (or as my friend from the UK says “someday = not bloody likely”). I see this trepidation in many of the clients I work with. Most people are already maxed out with their current Next Action and Project lists, so the idea of actually ever getting to something on a Someday/Maybe list seems a bit ludicrous.
What I am discovering as I work with GTD in my own life and with my clients is that there is great power in the Someday/Maybe list. It means that I truly want to do those things, but at this moment in time, for whatever reason (I don’t have the bandwidth, my travel schedule is too hectic, etc.) I’m not committed to a Next Action. It’s really that simple. Most people I work with are very creative and have many things they’d like to do. When we are in the midst of processing and organizing their “to do’s”, I always drill it down to that question – are you committed to a Next Action, and if not, put it on the Someday/Maybe list. It doesn’t mean “out of sight, out of awareness”, it simply means that this is a list of things that they could move on at any given moment. When you review your Someday/Maybe list during your weekly review, you just never know when you’ll get the inspiration to move forward with something.
Recently I was coaching an attorney. By the time we were done processing and organizing, she had dozens of projects and hundreds of next actions. She also has two active teenagers and does legal counsel for a local non-profit. She was reticent to move anything to Someday/Maybe, because she felt that by moving anything to that list somehow meant that they were of less importance. I encouraged her to let go of that association, that things on Someday/Maybe aren’t of less importance, just that RIGHT NOW, given everything on her plate, she simply doesn’t have the capacity. We ended up recategorizing some of her projects and many of her next actions, and she felt a sigh of relief knowing that her action lists were an accurate representation of what she was able and committed to do at this time.
As part of this exercise I showed her my Someday/Maybe list, which is quite extensive. At the top of my list is to read “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (which has been there for quite a while…..I know…..I’m ridiculously behind the times!). She was absolutely appalled that I hadn’t read it, and that it was on Someday/Maybe and not “Read & Review”. I went back to LA and bought the book. I’m finally getting to it…..consider me “out of pocket” for the rest of the summer….I’m hooked!
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