I don't have any advice, but if anyone else figures this one out, let me know.

What I do, regarding personal actions in work time, is:

* Set aside time each day (during my lunch hour) to work on any personal actions that need to be done in office hours.

* Also check my personal actions at the beginning of each day for anything that's urgent and might not get done in this allocated time (or needs to be done at some other time of the day). Anything of this nature I then manage as a work action.

aef

I think my down-fall is not allowing enough time for the things that need to get done that are not "office" related. I've thought about setting aside a "longer period" of time twice per week for personal actions during work time, and just queue them up. But, not everything can wait until the next day or two.

Good advice, I will have to give that a try.

Sorry for the long rambling post. I think I make a point or two in here somewhere.

If you're position is anything like mine Scott you'll probably need to tackle it in two parts.

About 8 months ago I moved off of a second shift IT job that was very much a "cranking widgets" sort of gig (to use the GTD term). My new job is 7-4, and a whole lot more complicated.

When I was on the old job I had a bunch of side projects that took up spare time (and I may or may not have occasionally worked on them while I waited on things to process at the "day job"). For that old job I was able to run it almost entirely on auto-pilot brain mode, and easily kept most of the side project work in my head. The new job is more complicated by orders of magnitude (multiple projects, multiples layers within each of those projects, etc), and I've still got all those old side projects running in my "spare" time (not to mention all the family things that a wife and three kids brings to the table).

After about 3-5 months at the new job I realized things were getting more and more complicated and out of my control and that I wasn't doing a very good job of managing them. However it has only been in the last month or two that I've been looking at GTD as a way to organize those things and get them into a system so I don't have to keep it all in my very tiny brain.

Soo.... getting back to your question and the point. I've got the issues of:
A) I have things I need to get done that have to be done during the normal business day. How do I handle that?
B) I have so many more things period that need to get done. How do I handle THAT?

I certainly don't have a pat solution here. But what I'm working towards, and seems to be working thus far, is setting up two GTD sub-systems: A work one for all those projects and items on the mind, etc; A home one that handles all those side projects AND all the bills and home repair items that need to get tracked as well so when I'm home and not working on them I can just focus on the munchkins and enjoy them. To sync the two up I'm tracking them all digitally (that method is being tweaked and worked on... currently on my iBook using VoodooPad Pro, though not sure if it's going to be the final solution to the problem).

I'm about 75% there with the work system. The home system is only at about 25% as all that I've got working there is the digital part and nothing for the paper bills and magazines and such. There is something to be said for having all the projects/tasks out of your head and into a system of some kind. I'm not organized by nature, and I'm not organized enough yet to say "I'm so much more productive thanks to X or Y", but I am making progress by getting the day job stuff organized so I can at least leave it at the office.

Part of the solution for you may be (and if you?ve read this much of my ramblings you?re probably not TOO ADHD) to schedule yourself for only ?-3/4 of your day and allow that time. One of the suggestions I?ve seen elsewhere on productivity is the 48/12 rule where you work diligently for 48 minutes on one focused task (or maybe a couple smaller focused tasks) and then take 12 minutes to get up, go get a cup of coffee, do some exercise, or just change scenery. So applying that to your problem may look like 48 minutes of day job and 12 minutes of taking a checkbook and stack of bills to the break-room, or after you get up and walk around for 2 minutes sit back down and take 8 minutes to call the mechanic about your brakes before walking around for another 2 minutes before getting back to the next task.

Somebody else mentioned this as well, take your lunch break and plan half of it to eat (because you?ve got to eat man!) and the rest to take care of those personal items that can?t wait. To some degree it may mean changing the way you time your workday and planning in an extra half an hour to handle those things in the middle of the day ?off the clock?.

The other part is probably going to be in improving your estimation of completion times. The rules of thumb I?ve heard is anywhere from double to triple the amount of time you expect to take for a project and use that for scheduling. This is going to apply to work projects and personal ones. If you think you?ve got 5 hours of work planned for the work day, then don?t try and fill in the other 3 with more work because you?re just setting yourself up to fail when the 5 hour project takes 10 instead.

Yes, we seem to be in almost the same situation.

My second-shift job was auto-pilot the entire way and being it was second shift, it was not as busy and I had plenty of side project to fill the void. Then when I started my new gig, I had a full plate (and then some), not counting all those side projects and not to mention, home, house and family.

That transition, while exciting, was hard. I realize, that 3-4 months into it, that I had to learn to set priorities and to really focus. And, as you said, what I thought would take 5 hours, took 15. I got the point that I would bid on projects to take 3 times longer than I thought they would, and on occasion, I was wrong, so I came out ahead, but typically I was on target or still short. Although, I still find myself, blurting out my "gut response" to how long things will take, and then stress over the fact its taking longer, not getting done... and that is enough to immobilize me. In a effort to keep moving, I tackle other projects and next actions, that have no real priority, and while I am indeed productive, just not productive in my priorities.

The "timer" thing is interesting, and actually something I have been thinking about doing, although I had not clue where to begin with it. I downloaded an "egg timer" widget for dashboard and you can set the time for as long as you want, and then when it gets done, it jingles just like an egg timer. It is very simple and kinda cool at the same time. The 2-minute rule, I understand in concept, but I can't see myself setting at timer every 2 minutes, cause that would stress me out. I have taken the 2 minute rule concept and applied it to incoming email and that has been very productive.

I like the 48/12 rule. I could probably go as far as hammering out some of those 12 minute periods before hand. I wish tomorrow wasn't a weekend, cause I'd like to give it a try.

Scott

The 48/12 method has been good. It actually buts a TIMER on my day, and allows me to take advantage of break things up into time contexts. So, if I have 10 minutes left in my 48 min period, I can choose a 10 minute or 5 min context item to tackle in the time left.

It also gives me "hope" of working on other tasks throughout the day, allowing me to mentally put things off until those times.

However, the 48 mins go really fast typically, and the 12 mins seems kinda long, but there are times where it seems short. I have on many occasions, just renewed the 48 min period again skipping the 12 min break. Not sure the 48/12 is a good time frame, might do a 60/15 or so, will have to play around.

Found a great timer application for Mac. (might have a pc version on their site, I don't know).

http://www.phg-home.com/index_mac.html

Works PERFECT for a timer.

just testing new account srry no input here… errr 48/12 rules!!!