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Newbie implementation Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt...lol
Lucas K Allmon | Feb 7 2008
Ok, for your reference file, this is the context in which these questions came about. http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/personal-effectiveness/14905-30-day-trial-getting-things-done.html I am attempting to learn and implement as much of GTD in 30 days as I can. I figured I would ask these questions here as this a forum more geared to GTD Geeks and Gurus...I appreciate everything! The first week of GTD was kind of kind of on the overwhelming side, what with trying to start without reading the book. While I recieved my copy on tuesday and have gotten through it most of the way, the book really breaks it down into things that can get confusing as I am sort of not implementing things in a straight up manner. For instance, Allen talks about looking at your contexts to do things when you are within a certain set of tools and resources, but is he refering to just Next Actions? If you do next actions out of order, then you are kind of screwing up something, right? So I drill down to contexts of just Next Actions...right? I shouldnt be calling someone just cause I am on the phone if I am supposed to have waited for someone else..right? On that note, I have a project called errands...should I further define these actions as parts to projects, or only if they need another step. For instance, I need those little plastic rings that go around you keys to color coordinate them...theres really only two steps....go to Office Max and get the key labels...so should I just leave it in there, or should I make a "trip to Office Max" project and see if any other errands need to be done there? Thats what my intuition says. Is it wrong for me to have quickly processed my inbox (I had over 300 items in my digital inbox and another 100 in my physical) and now be looking at the next actions of individial projects and clearing everything up, defining next actions, rearranging actions to correct projects and correcting contexts? I feel lighter, so I must be doing something right. Right? As for a trial, I can really see the appeal of this methodology, I feel like this is defined well. I want to give a nod to Nozbe as well....while my 300+ Inbox slowed it down a little, its a pretty flexible little system. Google calendar rocks and the Hipster PDA coupled with Jott is great. I chose good tools, thats for sure. I am going to be setting up my general refernce file and my physical filing system this weekend...which seems tough. 4 Comments
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 I wouldn’t describe myselfSubmitted by labête on February 11, 2008 - 6:23pm.
I wouldn't describe myself as having any kind of real handle n GTD, but I would advise you to go with your intuition. If having a project for going to that store works for you then go for it. As for doing next actions in the right order my take on that is that you have the important tasks for the day on your calender or similar. These are the thing that have to happen that day or else. If you find yourself with 20 minutes to kill and you at the PC then you can look at the @computer list or whatever and start cranking widgets to fill that time. Literally just going down that list and knocking stuff out. If you know there is something that is more urgent then I see no problem in doing that first. I probably do that 20-30 times a day, often in response to changing priorities (boss panics). Even without that there are things on my list that when I get to I just decide are not that important. They tend to get thrown back in the inbox to be revisited next review. As an example I had 15 minutes free today waiting between meetings so I took a quick look at my @phone list and saw half a dozen calls I needed to make. I know that first one on my list not that important (To call about upgrading my TV) so I spent the 15 minutes doing some useful networking with an ex-colleague (the next one on the list). The aim is to make sure you are confident that what you are doing at any given moment is the right thing to be done then. I was happy to be calling my colleague and not the TV store because the TV store is less important. That call will either get made at some point this week or I may, at my weekly review, renegotiate that commitment to myself and stick it on the someday/maybe list or drop it all together. » POSTED IN:
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