Psychology of Procrastination
- Thread starter Tom.9
- Start date
Oogiem
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I would say that it is not at all accurate for me. I have a lot of projects that got planned or initially thought of as many as 30 years ago that didn't get started for 10-20 years and are complete now. I have existing projects in someday/maybe that I thought of 20 years ago but time is not right to start them. I don't know for sure how many will get completed but I know from my own history that it's way more than 1%. It all depends on how long I look forward.and backward in time. So far I've completed something like 98% of the projects I start and that represents about 80% of the projects I initially put into someday/maybe. Most of my projects don't get started in the same week I think of them often not in the same year or longer.
There are a variety of ways to look at the original statistic. It could instead be written up as
"People are prolific generators of ideas, but they're good at narrowing based on interests and priorities. The average person has one hundred ideas that they discard, per each idea that they pursue to completion. Often, that favorite idea is the one that generates so much excitement that the person starts work on it within days of having the idea."
"People are prolific generators of ideas, but they're good at narrowing based on interests and priorities. The average person has one hundred ideas that they discard, per each idea that they pursue to completion. Often, that favorite idea is the one that generates so much excitement that the person starts work on it within days of having the idea."
kelstarrising
Kelly | GTD expert
Tom.9 said:
I cannot confirm it. Never heard that and would doubt its accuracy. I would say though that if it has any validity, it certainly makes the case for Weekly Reviews to stay clear and current!
Ahha -- a light may be turning on!
At a weekly review, I sometimes see next actions that have been sitting there for a few weeks. It often turns out that priorities or schedules have shifted since those next actions were defined, and I put them on someday/maybe for a while. Sounds like you don't do that.
At a weekly review, I sometimes see next actions that have been sitting there for a few weeks. It often turns out that priorities or schedules have shifted since those next actions were defined, and I put them on someday/maybe for a while. Sounds like you don't do that.
Oogiem
Registered
ArcCaster said:
No, I've never put actions into someday maybe and certainly not for that reason. What I do when I find that I have lingering actions is I either take the time during review to do more project planning or put the whole project on hold. Usually the reason things haven't been moving along is either that the "action" is really a project in disguise, or that the other parts of the GTD workflow haven't allowed me to actually do that action, I may not have had the time or the energy or been in the right context. Also remember that I keep all projects active that I could work on in the current 3 months because I like large lists with lots of choice. Also remember that, for me, a project may be so seasonally dependent that if I don't get a chance to move it forward during the season I can do that action the entire project may go on hold into Someday/Maybe for a year. Individual actions may also be seasonally dependent and that is one reason that for me some projects take more than a single year to complete. For me a priority change always affects the project as a whole, never single actions, because if the project is still something that I need or want to have active and I've planned it right the next action is the next action period. I may choose to put an action item into pending, giving it a future start date, as a tickler ,but that is not into Someday/Maybe. Pending is a clearly defined category of projects and actions that can't be done until a certain time.
I have one of those right now. The project is Weigh Lambs at Post-Weaning. The timing is such that to collect accurate weights and scrotal circumference the lambs must be at least a certain number of days old and not older than a different number. I have 2 batches of lambs, early and late. The dates for the different batches have just enough overlap that if I wait until the late lamb is ready to weigh I still have a few weeks before the early lambs are too old to weigh. It makes sense to do it at the same time to save hassle on running the sheep into the handling facility twice and the extra labor to collect the data. So the next action to take post weaning weights has a start date of the earliest date for the late lamb group and a due date of the last date for the early lamb period.
