Too Many Daily Tasks

[cwoodgold]

Why1942: you might consider adding these books to your reading list:

"Eat that frog!" by B. Tracy

"Willpower" by Baumeister and Tierney

The basic idea of "Eat that frog!" is something like this: choose the one thing that's
your highest priority and/or the thing you least feel like doing. Do that first
at the beginning of the day. Do more-or-less what you feel like the rest of the
day. (I'm not sure if I have that last part right.)

[why1942]

Many of those things are projects rather than daily to-dos, which is where you're getting stopped up.....Get that list down to widgets.

This is exactly what I have changed. I realized that I was adding NAs without them be directly created/tied to a project/goal. Once I went back and started with my main Goals, then drilled down, I was able to attach all my NAs correctly. This removed 95% of my Checklist items.

There is absolutely no way to accomplish all of those things in one day. It takes me about 4-6 hours to knock out a Gladwell title

Yeah, never occurred to me that the an item like "the tipping point" could be seen as "do it all in that day." It was never my intention. As you stated, on the checklist I meant read a little bit from it each day. I think what I discovered was I kept putting all of these actions on the checklist (daily to-do list) so I could keep track of them, or at least feel like they were not slipping through my fingers, simply because I did not have my Goals and Projects adequately formulated. I also think having it on a checklist, if I were to read a chapter and then check it off, only to uncheck it at the start of the next day, the list ended up becoming futile and boring, hence I wasn't getting much done. Now that most of the actions are moved over to my NA list, progress is much better.

Also another major challenge I was having was finding a digital package for my GTD. I've tried several programs and none of them worked the way I wanted. I have since found a small notes program that has just the right options. My GTD is nestled right in with all my other data, but GTD is on its own tab and i can quickly and easily add, delete, move from all my different lists, as well as sort by priority. Now it seems to be working quite well.

why1942

[nick_ross]

None of your books are essential daily tasks.

As others have said - your list seems more 'want' than 'need' to do.

When I'm putting together my Actions for the day, I've started asking myself "If this doesn't get done, will I lose money/ lose clients/ lose respect/ break a commitment/ cause the world to end" - if the answer is no (or even probably not), then I un-tag the item from my TODAY list and it goes on the Next Actions list

[Jonassam]

Hi!
I am still struggling a bit with the same issue. But one of the conclusions I have made which I think applies in this case is that you, as I did, mix actions with things that rather should be scheduled.

Actions are things that has no extension into time. That is, they can be performed without specifically allocating time for them. One you start them, you should also be able to finish them. For example book a meeting, make a phone call, or as I will clarify in a moment schedule time for something.

On the other hand, you have things that will require a continous block of time. Those should not be actions but rather allocated slots in you calendar. For example, investigate something, write a chapter for a book, read a chapter in a book and so on.

If you identify the need to read a chapter in a book, the action for that should not be "Read chapter in book" but rather "Schedule time for reading chapter in book". That is actually the next step for moving such a project forward. And the action, the actual scheduling, can be done in a minute.

The point is the need to distinguish between things that can be done in a short time, actions, and things that needs allocated time, which is not actions.

I think with your particular problem this will make a significant improvement.

Cheers,
Jonas

[Noel]

First, the list above seems to be an amorphous thing to me. If other people can't tell what the outcome or next physical action is then that might mean that information is still in your head. And if it's still in your head it means a thorough assessment hasn't been done. So first thing I would do is start at the bottom, at the actions/project level and really define your successful outcomes (what does wild success look like?) and the very next physical action (if you imagine yourself doing it, what do you see?). Once that work is clear then you need to go through your higher horizons (areas of focus, goals, vision, purpose) and really have a conversation with yourself as to what matters to you the most, where you want to be in a few years and why. This higher level thinking is critical if you want to get rid of that day-to-day feeling that you're not working on the right things.