Tracking priority items

[Michael Woods]

I am pretty disciplined about putting things that have to be done on a certain day on my calendar and other items on my next action lists to be done "ASAP."

However, there are certain items that I have that are more ASAP than others. I see this as an improvement area for me personally, and wanted to get some advice from the coaches and pros out there on how to handle these.

E.g., phone calls that I need to return, info someone is waiting on from me, errands I really want to run tomorrow if I have time, etc.

Some thoughts I have had are to create a separate list that is a "Punch List" for items that I really want to get done today as time allows. The pros of this is that it is easy to find those high priority items when I have time in the day vs. going through all my other lists. The cons are that this would be something I would have to update daily and may also mean that I am not looking at my other lists as much.

I use Outlook for my system and have also toyed with the "high priority" feature where I can mark these items on the lists so that they stand out and can set up a filter so that I can just review the high priority items. Pros are that this keeps these items organized under context. Cons are that priorities change day to day, so there is still a manual aspect to this.

Another temptation is to put these items on my calendar, but I worry that I am breaking the rules if I have items that are technically not due on a given day...

I've also been thinking "What would David Allen do," and I wonder if I am making this too complicated. The GTD book classifies things as ASAP or due on a certain day, so do I really need to even worry about this?

Always open to suggestions and ideas on how to improve my GTD approach!

Mike

 

[mcogilvie]

However, there are certain items that I have that are more ASAP than others. I see this as an improvement area for me personally, and wanted to get some advice from the coaches and pros out there on how to handle these.

E.g., phone calls that I need to return, info someone is waiting on from me, errands I really want to run tomorrow if I have time, etc.

Some thoughts I have had are to create a separate list that is a "Punch List" for items that I really want to get done today as time allows. The pros of this is that it is easy to find those high priority items when I have time in the day vs. going through all my other lists. The cons are that this would be something I would have to update daily and may also mean that I am not looking at my other lists as much.
...
Another temptation is to put these items on my calendar, but I worry that I am breaking the rules if I have items that are technically not due on a given day...

There's nothing wrong with any of your ideas. It's perfectly ok to schedule time for high-priority "meetings with yourself." Some people also like to have a Most Important Things list visible. Like a lot of people, I flag items that I plan to move on today. There are dangers with all of these. One bad thing is to stop looking at your other lists, to only look at flagged or high priority items. Another bad thing is to overload your "Punch list" with too many things. At that point, your old lists are now someday-maybe and you are actually worse off. One solution is to keep things with elevated priority on your regular lists, with some sign of raised importance. You just need to look at your lists often enough to have confidence that you are doing the right things.

Errands that you want to run probably don't deserve heightened importance unless they are truly critical; if you want a reminder, your calendar is one good place to put "Errands?" but you can also assign a date with a question mark on an errands list if that works for you- basically you are setting a tickler.

 

[Michael Woods]

Very helpful tips... I think you are absolutely right about my other lists becoming "Someday/Maybe." I think that I am going to use the flag idea so that I am forced to check them more regularly. I also thought about something that was said on one of the recent webinars - that the things that go on the calendar are not always the most important things, but instead the things that absolutely have to be done on a certain day. Thanks for the tips!