When Some Day Maybe Becomes Priority #1

[sholden]

I posted a topic of potential interest to this group on my blog:

http://sholden.typepad.com/weblog/2004/08/unexplained_com.html.

In summary: having stuff on my Some Day Maybe list that then becomes Priority #1 is less stressful then my "old ways" of a single To Do list where everything was effectively critical, must be done negative energy.

It is interesting to note that something as simple as putting something where it belongs and categorizing it has had a signficant impact on my "mood" and "stress" level.

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Someday becomes Priority

Great point, great experience. Awhile back, I allowed myself the luxury of imagining, in detail, the Successful Outcome of overhauling our pantry-mudroom area. I had seen the perfect adaptation of a comparable space at a charity designer show house on vacation. It then was filed as "Someday/Maybe." UNTIL my husband announced to me TWO DAYS AGO that the work crew was set to start FOUR DAYS FROM NOW. Instead of panic, I have the joy of knowing I'm going to get the room I dreamed of.

May I add, too -- especially for Forumites who feel they take one step forward and two steps back -- that in the last month, I am finally seeing the interplay of the Ubiquitous Capture Tool, Next Actions in @Context Lists, defining Successful Outcomes, and maintaining a Projects Index. I had never drafted the last one -- I only "felt" as if I had. LOL. It makes all the difference. I imagined that maintaining these separate documents would be utterly redundant. I kept trying, unsuccessfully, to picture a funnel, of sorts -- why couldn't I pour all my Captured ideas in the top and have them funneled out into the right categories, like a coin sorter? The real process is 3-D, just as David Allen describes it.

The process also reinforces a very positive way of thinking, about everything from launching a new agency, to preparing for a vacation, to menu-planning -- and, more important, as another Forumite wrote about so poignantly in a recent thread -- about our most precious family relationships. They can suffer from lack of attention just like a work project or a room -- but with much more serious consequences, obviously. Sorry for a wordy post.