How to stay on the wagon?

[AdrianHolmes]

This is my first post on here so most importantly... Hello.

I've been fascinated by GTD for almost a year now. Initially, I used the Internet and podcasts as my main research tool. However, my first attempt to learn GDT wasn't very successful so picked up David Allen's book which I can honestly say is a must.

I'm now 4 months into my second attempt and it's going much better by I'm still falling at the first hurdle.

The tools I'm using are Trello and Evernote with several IFTTT recipes which copy cards from Trello board to board or board to Evernote. It's still a work in progress and I'm in the 'learn how to use your system' phase.

I'm a seasoned Web Developer and perfectly happy in a purely digital environment.

My initial goal is to master the capture, clarify and organise skills. However, I keep 'falling off the wagon' when it comes to capturing. I'll start by capturing everything then, as time goes by, I capture less and less until one day when I'll realise I'm not capturing anymore. It seems the old habits just don't want to go away. Of course after a month when I suddenly realise I'm not capturing I'll sit down and empty my head again.

Perhaps this is the learning curve? Maybe the month will become 3 weeks, 2 weeks, 1 week, none?

This very much feels like a reprogramming habits problem. Capturing isn't physically difficult for me. I have a Trello 'Inception' board with an 'Inbox' column among others. This is my digital inbox. I also have a physical inbox for none-digital media. I'm at a computer pretty much 16 hours a day and when I'm, not I can quickly capture any thoughts via the Trello app. I can also capture a web page or tweet in a single click.

As a side note, I'll detail my system in a new post in the near future, I suspect the community feedback would kick start a flood of ideas.

So finally the question. has anybody else gone through the same issues when starting out with GTD? What did you do to drop the old habits?

Confession time. I suspect the very act of submitting this post could be one possible solution to my problem. I'm wondering if the reason I keep reverting to old habits is because I don't have enough GTD conversations in my life. Maybe you fine people

 

[Nursefriendly]

I am new to GTD, about three weeks in. I do think that it is a learning curve to successfully change a habit. Good luck to you as we learn together. I have an app that I can use but I find that writing things down helps me more.

 

[TesTeq]

Hello.

Why do you need GTD?

If you can keep everything reliably in your head, if you don't forget about anything important, and if you're not stressed out... you don't need GTD.

People with good memory and a high-performance brain often have the problem that you describe. They can manage their life without any external devices. But they are missing one important thing: how much of their potential is wasted on remembering about trivial tasks.

Capture because your high-performance brain is too precious to remember. It should have plenty of free space to create!

 

[Oogiem]

My initial goal is to master the capture, clarify and organise skills. However, I keep 'falling off the wagon' when it comes to capturing. I'll start by capturing everything then, as time goes by, I capture less and less until one day when I'll realise I'm not capturing anymore. It seems the old habits just don't want to go away. Of course after a month when I suddenly realise I'm not capturing I'll sit down and empty my head again.

Perhaps this is the learning curve? Maybe the month will become 3 weeks, 2 weeks, 1 week, none?

This very much feels like a reprogramming habits problem. Capturing isn't physically difficult for me. I have a Trello 'Inception' board with an 'Inbox' column among others. This is my digital inbox. I also have a physical inbox for none-digital media. I'm at a computer pretty much 16 hours a day and when I'm, not I can quickly capture any thoughts via the Trello app. I can also capture a web page or tweet in a single click.

Welcome, GTD can be life changing but it won't happen overnight. You say you've got capture down but I'd ask you to really be sure there is no resistance to capturing at all. I personally tend to capture mostly on pen and paper but some electronic. When you start up again after falling off the wagon try to really notice if there is any time lag or delay or resistance. It can be something as simple as I can't capture via voice because my environment is too noisy now (happens to me, so I have multiple capture tools available at all times) or I can't capture into my digital system because I'm in a meeting (so find a way to discretely save a note on paper or some other way) or I can't capture when I'm driving (voice recog. systems can work well in this situation). If all is good then it's just a matter of training yourself that no thought it too small or insignificant to capture.

 

[TesTeq]

When you start up again after falling off the wagon try to really notice if there is any time lag or delay or resistance. It can be something as simple as I can't capture via voice because my environment is too noisy now (happens to me, so I have multiple capture tools available at all times) or I can't capture into my digital system because I'm in a meeting (so find a way to discretely save a note on paper or some other way) or I can't capture when I'm driving (voice recog. systems can work well in this situation). If all is good then it's just a matter of training yourself that no thought it too small or insignificant to capture.

In my case this resistance comes from the fact that my memory is very reliable. So why bother to write anything down? The obvious GTDish answer is to make space for creative work. But you cannot suddenly feel this free space and increased creative power. You only feel an inconvenience of writing down, processing and organizing of every idea that you have.

 

[AdrianHolmes]

Capture because your high-performance brain is too precious to remember. It should have plenty of free space to create!

I love this quote, it expresses one of my main reasons for adopting GTD principles

 

[AdrianHolmes]

If all is good then it's just a matter of training yourself that no thought it too small or insignificant to capture

I think this underlines one of the hardest things for somebody new to GTD, certainly for me anyway. When an thought pops into my head, internally I'm not saying 'I'll capture that in a bit'. The problem is that on occasion I'm not saying anything, I simply forget.

 

[AdrianHolmes]

Thanks for your input so far. All really interesting stuff.

As of today I'm introducing a new rule with my partner. While we're eating our dinner we're going to ask each other what we have captured that day. I think this would be great way to introduce GTD to our children while also keep the capture process in the forefront of our minds.

I'm also going to sit down once a week and see if I can pull anything else out of my brain to capture. I would hope to see this list become smaller over time until I capturing becomes a natural response to any input.

 

[acc.mcpherson]

If you can find 15 minutes every day to just sit you will find lots of stuff will come to your mind to capture. Meditation can be a blessing and a curse for me as that's when so many things pop up.

 

[Oogiem]

I'm also going to sit down once a week and see if I can pull anything else out of my brain to capture. I would hope to see this list become smaller over time until I capturing becomes a natural response to any input.

If you haven't already set up a checklist for your weekly review I'd do that. There are several version but the guided weekly review on GTD Connect is a great place to start. Explicitly include time to capture any stray thoughts.

Soon you'll want capture tools everywhere, I use them at night when I wake up, and have even used soap to write something on the shower door so I didn't forget it when I had a thought in the shower, other people have waterproof pens and paper for such occasions.

 

[TesTeq]

I'm also going to sit down once a week and see if I can pull anything else out of my brain to capture.

CHAPTER 8! CHAPTER 8! CHAPTER 8! (of the GTD2015 book)

Chapter 8. Reflecting: Keeping It All Fresh and Functional
-- Section "Updating Your System"
---- Subsection "Get Clear"
------ Paragraph "Empty Your Head"

The Weekly Review is the Critical Succes Factor. If you're not doing the Weekly Review you're not doing GTD.

Please forgive me that I was shouting but... don't force me to do it again... ;-)

 

[Cpu_Modern]

When an thought pops into my head, internally I'm not saying 'I'll capture that in a bit'. The problem is that on occasion I'm not saying anything, I simply forget.

But is that a problem? It's only a problem, if it's a problem.

Why should you capture? Just because you had an idea? Maybe.

Do you know how many ideas you have per day?

What are your criteria for saying "OK, this such an awesome thing, I definitely do not want to miss it when the time is right, I has to get onto my SdMb list?"

Do you capture every thought?

Yes, we capture "everything", but what is "everything"? It surely is not everything?!

 

[rachelp]

I found when I started out I was not capturing all the stuff in my head that needed dealing with -- especially in the car. You mentioned IFTTT -- that's a great tool. I use an IFTTT recipe which gives me a phone number that sends to my Evernote Inbox. I put that in my phone as "Bob IFTTT". Then anywhere I can say "call Bob" and capture handsfree.

 

[AdrianHolmes]

Chapter 8. Reflecting: Keeping It All Fresh and Functional
-- Section "Updating Your System"
---- Subsection "Get Clear"
------ Paragraph "Empty Your Head"

The Weekly Review is the Critical Success Factor. If you're not doing the Weekly Review you're not doing GTD.

It's a 300 page book and there was 3 lines in there which would have solved my problem. Anyway turns out I've come to the same conclusion as the book

Just goes to show the importance of re-reading the chapters. Unsurprisingly I'm currently thumbing through chapter 5.

I am doing a weekly review... Badly by the looks of things. Defiantly the next subject to brush up on.

 

[AdrianHolmes]

Yes, we capture "everything", but what is "everything"? It surely is not everything?!

I agree, it's not everything.

What I'm specifically referring to is the difficulty in re-programming your habits so capturing is a natural reaction when having an 'important' thought.

 

[AdrianHolmes]

I found when I started out I was not capturing all the stuff in my head that needed dealing with -- especially in the car. You mentioned IFTTT -- that's a great tool. I use an IFTTT recipe which gives me a phone number that sends to my Evernote Inbox. I put that in my phone as "Bob IFTTT". Then anywhere I can say "call Bob" and capture handsfree.

I'd love to use that when I'm in the car this but I'm in the UK and its a US number £££

I did use the text message to Trello board system for a while but my phone bill went up by £20 a month. A recent change to Android and the speedy Trello widget solved that problem.

 

[AdrianHolmes]

If you can find 15 minutes every day to just sit you will find lots of stuff will come to your mind to capture. Meditation can be a blessing and a curse for me as that's when so many things pop up.

Wow that's a tough one. I guess you don't want to break your meditated state so you'll need to do a mind sweap later
​​​​​​

 

[Oogiem]

If you can find 15 minutes every day to just sit you will find lots of stuff will come to your mind to capture. Meditation can be a blessing and a curse for me as that's when so many things pop up.

I get a lot of capturing done while I standing around waiting for water tanks to fill. Fastest for me in that situation is to tell Siri to take a reminder that then goes directly into my OmniFocus inbox for processing later.

 

[Oogiem]

I guess you don't want to break your meditated state so you'll need to do a mind sweap later

OTOH you could consider that you are making space in your mind and just stop to capture then and go back to your meditation afterwards.

 

[kelstarrising]

Welcome AdrianHolmes, NurseFriendly, and anyone else lurking who is new!

In case this helps, here's the 2/2/2 model we often share:

You can understand the basics of GTD in 2 minutes, which is knowing the 5 distinct phases of mastering your workflow (Capture, Clarify, Organize, Review, Engage). Setting up your system takes about 2 days. And we’ve found that it takes about 2 years to get to a place where you’re practicing GTD so naturally that you no longer have to think about it.