After reading this thread, I have a couple of thoughts.
It might feel like 3 years is a long time, but consider that you are still a beginner with the GTD methodology. Its a path of mastery, so try to be patient with yourself as you keep learning how to implement GTD in your world.
Some practical thoughts:
Slow down, especially in the first 3 phases (capture, clarify, organize). Most of us come upon GTD because we already have a lot to do and are motivated to do more. Hence I think we envision everything in GTD happening
super fast (after all, the book is titled
Getting things done...).
So we
capture fast, we
clarify fast, we
organize fast... and then we find ourselves repelled by our lists because they are too long or irrelevant or unclear. Realize that GTD is as much a way of thinking about your work as a way of doing or organizing your work. Learning a new way of thinking takes time. Give yourself permission to slow down.
Slowing down while capturing means
really emptying your head on a topic, project, or task, before tossing that note in the inbox. Capturing isn't about speed, it's about
completeness.
Slowing down while clarifying means deliberately walking through the questions in the flowchart and allowing yourself to think it all the way through before deciding what, if any, action is needed. After years, I still keep a laminated copy of the flowchart at the bottom of my inbox for reference during clarifying, because it helps me slow down.
Slowing down while organizing means really considering where the best place to park your reminders will be. this is often part of clarifying, so slowing down there helps you with this step also. Many things are not obvious - for example, if you need information from someone, are you going to call them, email them, or text them? The best answer for that is going to depend on the situation, your own preferences, and your knowledge of the other persons communication style. If you jump straight to
"call Jim" but you aren't fully comfortable with that mode of communication (either in general, or with Jim, or about the topic...) you will resist calling Jim and it will just hang out on your list and bother you. Or maybe you realize after that you actually need more information before you can call Jim, or maybe you need to spend a few minutes and jot down an outline of what to say, so the call is
not actually the next action. Slowing down in this phase is so critical. Clarifying and organizing is
not about speed it's about effectiveness.
The more complete your capturing is, the more you will trust your system.
The more precise your decisions in clarifying and organizing are, the smoother it will be to
review and
engage with your work. So really try to
slow way down in those early phases.
Consider how you are using your calendar. Remember that your calendar is actually a next actions list - just one that's tied to dates and times. I struggled for a long time putting things on next action lists that really belonged in my calendar, because they required a certain amount of time to complete. This is especially true if you work in a high-meeting environment. Theres a misconception that David discourages scheduling actions on the calendar. As long as that decision is intentionally made in the clarifying process, its totally consistent with GTD. Some frequent posters on the forum are big advocates of time-blocking, like
@Longstreet.
A few things to consider with your calendar:
1.
Do you have enough clarifying time daily? - most people need at least 1 hour to 90 minutes (cumulatively) of free space each workday in order to process inputs effectively
2.
What kinds of things do you need to be scheduling? given the pace of my workday, generally I consider scheduling any task that requires more than 30 minutes of uninterrupted time, or a special degree of mental focus. If i have to cancel these "self-appointments", they move to my next action lists as a "schedule xx hours for [task]", rather than simply getting deleted.
Optimizing your use of calendar can offload some key things from your next action lists.
Hope it helps