“If it’s on your mind, it’s probably not getting done.”
So says David Allen in Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life
I remain astonished at all of the half-baked ideas, assorted ephemera, myriad widgets, nearly useless crap, and occasional flashes of brilliance that daily comes out of my head and onto my notebook or into the voice recorder. On the one hand, it means that I’m not dead yet. On the other hand, how was I managing before I started to write everything down?
GTDers know the answer to that question: not very well. Here’s David Allen again:
Many years ago, I decided that either your head is the place to hold something or it’s not. How can you intellectually justify halfway in between? And though most people, when they think about it, would say, “No, your head is probably not the best place to keep something in a trustworthy fashion,” they still keep over half their life there. A ton of woulds, coulds, shoulds, need-tos, ought-tos, and might-want-tos would be jammed into one place.
Left only in the mind, these self-commitments create infinite loops that make no progress and produce inner conflict and stress. As soon as you make any sort of commitment with yourself, not completed in the moment, your mind will demand and take psychic energy until it’s resolved. That is mental karma. “I need milk” and “I need to decide whether to buy this company” both tie up space in psychic RAM.
The solution is simple. Write it down. Look at it. Do it or say to yourself, “Not now.” And trust that you’ll see the option again whenever you need to reassess. Give it to a system superior to your mind, so your mental energy can move on to bigger and better work. (page 27)
I’ve written a lot of things down since that seminar. Some of them are:
- Take scissors out of purse [before air travel].
- Show Mr. Cuccu that house I really like.
- Take vitamins.
- Clean out purse.
- Call Maverick.
- Complete car pool log.
- Buy two more SpaceGlider units.
- Check air pressure in tires.
- Show Marina my ING Direct setup.
It’s just as likely that something will end on on my Someday/Maybe list:
- Explore that business idea.
- Read Nouwen.
- Read Kirkegaard.
- Replace glass in picture frame.
- Contact Marie [my mother].
- Contact Sue [my ex-stepmother].
Most days I have nearly a full page of notes to process by the end of the day. Some of it is stuff that comes up during the day, but a good portion of it is stuff that’s been floating around in my head a while. There’s no sign of abatement. In my case, “mind sweep” is a misnomer. It’s more like hiring a storage facility.
The offer mentioned here is still open.
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Most days I have nearly a full page of notes to process by the end of the day. Some of it is stuff that comes up during the day, but a good portion of it is stuff that’s been floating around in my head a while. There’s no sign of abatement. In my case, “mind sweep” is a misnomer. It’s more like hiring a storage facility.Posted by ugg on Monday, October 18, 2010 at 10:30 PMugg deutschland
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