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GTD @ home

I'm still ploughing through the GTD book, trying to get a handle on things, trying out little ideas here & there [did my work drawer/space/desk the other week & pleasantly surprised at the difference it's made so far, even so early on, very encouraging].

What has occurred to me is that the majority of my life that needs 'GTD-ing' is actually @ home, where I have personal stuff 'filed' in various places [*lots* of various places], along with things that do keep nagging my brain 'to be done, don't forget me, oh what about this' etc etc etc. Hence the reason GTD seemed so attractive!

Looking at it this evening, the 'gathering everything to be processed' does look pretty daunting, especially as I open more cupboards & drawers and am faced with more stuff that isn't quite right & needs sorting. I read that one technique would be to capture things like 'sort out spare room' on a single sheet of paper & chuck that into 'in' for later processing. Would it be better to go round & capture absolutely all these items to 'in' before starting any processing at all, then slowly work my way through 'in' ? [from reading, this is what I understand]. What I'm concerned about is that all these things are going to take a long time to get from 'in' to 'processed' [certainly not in one full day - maybe a week if I could devote that much uninterrupted time to it].

What are peoples experiences re 'gather & process' ?

Do people find that once absolutely everything has been captured to 'in' then they get through it fairly quickly or are concentrated bursts needed over time ?

Is it acceptable to do it in shorter bursts like that & not be concerned about the volume to be done - as long as it's captured in 'in' then I know it *will* be done [eventually] ?

Anyone manage to 'collect & process' all in one massive blitz ?

Any comments appreciated, ta.

sonia_simone's picture

My take is that you...

My take is that you need to get everything to "in" and then everything processed, so your spare room that needs sorting is a project (or it's a someday/maybe) and it has an NA associated with it. So yes, I'd start with just writing that on your scrap of paper and dropping it in the in box, and then move from there as the book directs.

I think one issue is that GTD is not terribly explicit about great techniques for managing repeated tasks, and repeated tasks are 90% of keeping a house running well.

 
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