The travel is killing me

[Skip151]

I have been using GTD for 6 months now and really struggle with it due to my travel schedule. I'm generally on the road three days a week (meetings, customer calls, dinners, etc.) and use my office days for just pure catch up. Unfortunately, it's more time on the phone and less time organizing and prioritizing.

So, I invested in the GTD Add-in hoping it would rally me around the cause. I struggle with what to do with everything, I know read the book! It's more than that; it's @Action vs. @Defer vs. Snooze! Where does it all go?

I need to figure out how to work around my hectic schedule. I probably need a lot more than GTD! If I sound desperate...., I am.

Help!

 

[Walter]

One thing at a time

My primary suggestion would be to take your time implementing. Keep your current work going, keep the travel going and your current responsibilities and work GTD in as you are able.

You may have to schedule a couple of weekend hours over the course of the next couple months to work with it some.

It took me a couple weeks to get my email under control, another few weeks to get my files in shape and I am still finding projects to add and other things. I haven't even started implementation at home yet and I read the book 3 months ago.

Get the CDs and play them while you travel. Even if you don't implement yet, listening to them several times will help you stay motivated and get the ideas into your brain so as you implement you won't need to keep referring to the book to refresh yourself. In other words you can use the travel time to learn the system without implementing it just yet.

As you listen or read and learn the system, I would them pick the pieces that you think will give the most immediate bang for the buck and implement those first. For me it was processing my email - I started with 1,980 emails and got that under control first and turned into action lists. My files and "stuff" could wait - email was the biggest bang so that's what I tackled first.

What would give you the most relief from stress to get out of your mind and into the GTD system first? That would be the question I would ask myself. It might be as simple as your travel list and reading file to take with you when you travel. If so, start there.

Also, you can implement on new stuff as it comes in. Anything new that comes in, use GTD on and work on the existing stuff you already have as you have time.

Cut yourself some slack and don't worry about getting it all in place at once. That would be my advice.

Walter

 

[Anonymous]

I agree with Walter. The CD's would be a tremendous help, especially if you have alot of car time already!

Unless your amount of travel time is going to change signficantly in the near future, you just have to take that as a given and work around it. I think a fully implemented GTD system, tweaked to suit yourself, will relieve alot of the stress you're feeling. BUT, you're going to have to make the time to really tackle this upfront, in order to get it up and running (at which point it will become much less time consuming.

Take a weekend day (or full weekend) if you can, or wait for a slow time if you're job has one (i.e. President's week, Spring Break week, etc.) and do a thorough collection/dumping. Take another day or weekend and process all that stuff, and you'll be 75% of the way there.

 

[Anonymous]

Another few ideas...

You're not alone...

You may want to check out Anne's Coach's Corner essay... It's about doing the Weekly Review on the road and staying current while living out of a suitcase... Here's a link:
http://www.davidco.com/coaches_corner.php?id=4&article=6

And the ultimate in implementation is going through the Building Consistency telecoaching program. That's why we created it. It helps deepen the value of this process by getting it pristine and current. There's more info on our website, http://www.davidco.com/telecoaching.php .

Hope this helps.

Jodi
Jodi@davidco.com