humblepie;72115 said:
thats what i used to think. but alot of people will procastinate on thinking stuff since if u dun have a good idea how u are going to start, you tend to defer it. it becomes like what happens if we don't define a task in an actionable way.
That's where you are missing some of the power of GTD. You need to not only think about what the next action really is as part of processing but then you actually have to DO the actions.
Best way to avoid procrastination is to get a really clear specific next action item.
For example the thinking part of my job can end up with actions like these:
Brainstorm possible crops for lower pear orchard field for fall forage for sheep. (We did that one, tried 2, discovered we have soils that can't stand plowing and are now back into improved permanent pasture.)
Brainstorm ways to create multiple small bits of shade evenly spread over the winter ram pens. (This one has resulted in a project to build some solar PV "trees" for shade and to offset our electric use. The brainstorming included planting real trees, building various forms of both permanent and temporary shelters, and then as an aside why not a solar array that does double duty. )
Similarly when I have an action or a project that is not moving forward, which I discover at my weekly review time, I spend an extra bit of time re-doing the workflow model with that item or project. I usually uncover that the thinking has not been done. Once I get clear on what I want, the outcome, and really break it down I can get to more actionable items. Procrastination for me is almost always the result of incomplete processing of an item.
Current example from my world:
I had an action to cull out 15 ewes before breeding season. I thought it was a next action, but the reality is I have to identify which 15 are to go first. And I couldn't do that until I had their physical evaluations done. So with help we did full evaluations on all 75 ewes. But the act of putting names on the slaughter list still wasn't happening. So I re-evaluated and I realized I had a bunch that were all equally good and could not choose between them for keep for breeding vs dinner. Realized that part of the procrastination was not knowing which were critical bloodlines and which were over-represented. So I evaluated the genetics of the ewes for kinship and inbreeding coefficients. That helped put a few on one or the other list but I still did not have my 15 selected. Then realized that the real issue is that I didn't know which sheep were more likely to produce lambs worth more money for me. So I had an action to figure out whether breeding stock, meat or wool is our most profitable product. That involved reviewing the financial data on income by product. Discovered that meat is a big part of our profit but that wool is the most important criteria used by buyers of new breeding stock and breeding stock sales are the the most profitable. So then I realized that what I needed to do was pick the best wooled sheep with the meatiest bodies to keep and butcher the others. I'm still not done, but I have more on my keep and go lists now and a smaller pool of sheep in the undecided category. Right now my action item on this project is check loin length of Rhan, Barb, Adeyrn, Aelwyd, Aelwyn, Carol, Moreen and Banon. I have a similar list of sheep to inspect wool on. It was a very long process. Thankfully with a regular weekly review I figured out the stuck project in time to collect the additional data I need to make a good decision. The thinking hadn't been done up front and that slowed me down. If I had spent more time processing I'd have started with the next action of checking loin length but I skipped on the thinking early on and the entire project is taking a lot longer than it should.
) but I sometimes have to choose among really good sheep. Then it becomes harder. If I am doing my job right, over time, with years of selective breeding the job becomes even harder because there would be no bad sheep. It's the lot of all farmers that your job is to work to make your job harder from year to year. No other business has such an immediate the better you do your job the harder it becomes correlation.
