Satisfaction
I would sum up Getting Things Done in two points:
- Write everything down.
- Everything is work.
The first is the most important for actually getting stuff done. As I've said before, if it doesn’t get written down, it doesn’t happen.
The second thing may not have actually been a point in the book, now that I think about it, but I've started seeing everything that needs to get done as a piece of work: I have to take out the trash and do laundry and book a hotel for that one weekend and make a shopping list and send an old friend an e-mail and research an API for a project I want to do. To me, things don't fall into categories like household chores or personal projects - everything is a task that needs to be processed at some point. It's not "work" in the traditional sense of the term, but they are things that need to be worked on.
I used to get so stressed about all the stuff on my todo list that wasn't getting done, but now I realize that there will always be more stuff on my todo list. It all needs to get done, sooner or later. As long as I just keep chugging along, as long as I keep being productive, I will be content. I no longer get worried about all the things that need to get done, but I do get anxious if I feel like I've been slacking off and haven't at least accomplished something every day.
4 Comments
My copy of GTD is somewhere
My copy of GTD is somewhere under this mess on my desk but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. How do you take deadlines and priorities into account with your lists?
(posted on LiveJournal)
I used to have a "due date"
I used to have a "due date" column and a "priority" column on my to do list. That way I could scan it and tackle what was most important first, then get to the other stuff. There was also an "approximate time it will take" column, so if I knew something would only take 5 minutes and I had only five minutes to kill, I would do that, no matter what the priority of the other stuff was. (Not that there are many five minute things out there, but you get the idea.)
(posted on LiveJournal)
Higher priority goes at the
Higher priority goes at the top, and my task management app (Things) has a field for due dates. In general, anything with a due date is a high priority, since I've got plenty of stuff that just needs to get done sooner or later (for example, scanning old photos). Work stuff mostly goes into the task tracking system we use at the office, Jira.
(posted on LiveJournal)
[...] see everything as
[...] see everything as work. Everything. I have written before that this is the foundation of GTD, as far as I’m concerned, but I’m becoming [...]
Post new comment