About 18 months ago I stumbled across a book called "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. It talks about how you can organise yourself in ways that allow you to keep your mind uncluttered. The concept of having a 'mind like water' particularly appealed to me. This is where you can be so on top of things that any new input, rather than causing chaos, can be dealt with appropriately and easily. The metaphor is that of throwing a rock or pebble into water and seeing how the water responds - neither over nor under-reacting.
I have been implementing GTD ever since, gradually tweaking my setup with time. The result has been gratifying, to say the least. Two elements introduced in the book have been particularly helpful to me: the 43 folder 'Tickler File', and the whole concept of Next Actions.
A tickler file simply consists of 43 folders which are set up in such a way that on any given day, all the paperwork and reminders I need pop up in my system. For example, if our library books are due on a certain day, the library slip will appear in my tickler file the day before they are due as a reminder. See setting up a tickler file for more detail if you're interested.
The centre of my GTD system, however, is my "next actions" hub. This is where I keep lists of every single thing I have to do next (hence the name) according to the context in which I do them. For example, I have next action lists for when I am at the computer (online and offline), for when I'm running errands, for when I'm making phone calls, for when I'm meeting certain people and so on. I currently have eight different contexts for my next actions. Within each contextual list, I keep reminders of all the things I need to do.
The trick to making this work is keeping 100% of what I need/want to do in my system. I am getting better at this, and the more I capture in my system, the more motivated I am to approach that 100% mark. Why? Because I am truly getting things done, I don't stress about what I'm not doing, and because I trust my system to hold all my information - thereby leaving my mind free for other things.
1 comment:
This sounds great Tamara - right up my street. I shall buy the book - so much of what we have to do takes up, as Nigella Lawson says "psychological space". I can see how freeing your mind of things to do you are free to do the things on your list!!! That's what I love about Flylady - I just do what's "on the list" and everything gets done - sometimes!!!
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