Getting Things Done with People You Care About?

J

Jimhardie74

Guest
Hey guys,

The situation: I have two sets of lists that are concerned with people in my life: Agendas (things that need to be done when I am with a specific person) and something I've temporarily dubbed 'Someday/People' (things that I might like to do someday with people that I care about, but arent 'urgent' agenda-type items).

The basic problem is this: I keep forgetting to look at these lists whenever I am actually with the person.

I've not found a solution for this yet. If I keep agenda lists next to the door (so that I can grab them on my way out to meet that person) I find that I will just go numb to it, because of all the other times that I walk out my door and don't need them. Too often I go out to meet that person and only on my way back I remember that I should have taken the list with me. The closest solution that I've come up with is anytime I arrange to meet with a person, I also put a note on the calendar to take the appropriate list with me.

I would love to know if any of you have had the same/similar issue, or if you have a current way of dealing with this.

Best

James.

Ps. I've been following the the GTD methodology by the book for probably about 18 months.. I have got pretty much every aspect of the book down apart from one thing that keeps evading me.
 

TesTeq

Registered
What about (heresy ahead) writing the agenda items in your smartphone's contact database in the "Notes" section of each person you care about?
 

mcogilvie

Registered
You need something to store those lists that you habitually take with you, like a smartphone or small notebook. Put it where your keys and similar items are kept.
 

patrickkamin

Registered
Couple of suggestions
  • if you use a smartphone app for your lists that supports location-based reminders, create a location-based context set to the place where you meet that person
  • Set a smartphone alarm ( with a specific label for the reason ) to 5-10 minutes into the meeting with that person
  • Text / Email that person upfront that you want to talk about some stuff and have her remind you that you want to talk about your agenda items :)
 

RS356

Registered
f I keep agenda lists next to the door (so that I can grab them on my way out to meet that person) I find that I will just go numb to it, because of all the other times that I walk out my door and don't need them. Too often I go out to meet that person and only on my way back I remember that I should have taken the list with me. The closest solution that I've come up with is anytime I arrange to meet with a person, I also put a note on the calendar to take the appropriate list with me.

I totally understand the whole "going numb to the lists by the door" feeling. If I don't write things down, I habitually forget them. My wife tried to put post-it notes that I'd see on my way out the door to work. This lasted about a week. :)

In my workplace, we use Outlook to track our meetings. It's a common practice to add agenda items to the meeting notes so that all involved are kept up to date. This works great for 1-on-1 appointments and recurring staff meetings. It seems like this is working well for you, and if so, keep it up! Heresy or not, I like @TesTeq's solution of keeping an agenda with the person's contact notes. I'd imagine this would be helpful in situations where a log of what was discussed is important, such as sales or client work. I did something similar prior to GTD and the advent of social media.

Although the orthodox advice is to keep the agendas as a set of lists, if you're not being reminded of them when needed, they are not very useful. This is still a challenge for me, but I've had the best success with building the agendas into the tools I'm already using than trying to engineer a new solution.
 

treelike

Registered
I've come to realize that a big part of this game is coming up with new ways to outsmart my tendency to go numb.
I'm the opposite. I live in a cuckoo bananas world full of potentially meaningful distractions that if I did not go numb to I would go cuckoo bananas myself! My GTD system is a (relative) oasis of calm.
 
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