G.T.D. Review query

[Boxy07]

Hi all,

Just a quick query...

With the G.T.D. Review should I use the review process to do all of my identified G.T.D. actions or allocate these to my calendar/future/specific time? The reason I ask is because I find that I am more undertaking the 'doing' role which takes up a lot of my G.T.D. Review time as opposed to allocating items to do in the calendar/future/specific time.

Looking forward to your responses.

Regards,

Boxy07

 

[Gardener]

If I understand your question correctly, the answer is "neither".

The only actions that GTD directs you to "do" during the review are actions that take two minutes or less. I don't follow this rule--I find it too distracting to do any 'doing' at all during the review.

However, that doesn't mean that you schedule the other actions, at least not in the sense of, "I'll do this between 2pm and 4pm on Tuesday. Then I'll do that between 4 and 5. Then...." There are debates as to whether GTD actually objects to you doing that, but I think there's general agreement that it doesn't require it, and I haven't heard anyone arguing that all, or even most, actions should be scheduled--I think that the debate is usually whether it's dandy to schedule some, or a bad idea to schedule any. The calendar should reflect meetings and hard deadlines, and it's up to you whether it includes some other actions.

The review probably does include some scheduling, the review is also for other things. You process rough thoughts into actions and projects. You look at your active projects and decide whether some of them should be Someday/Maybe. You look at your Someday/Maybe projects (or a subset of them) and decide whether some of them should be Active. Some projects may be deleted entirely, some may be split into multiple projects, some may be combined.

You're generally reorganizing your work, creating a coherent picture that will guide you in doing that work over the next week. But "guide" doesn't mean "tells you exactly what to do every minute."