Overwhelmed by Next Actions List

[Ackoska]

I had been tinkering with GTD for about 18 months...doing collecting, organizing and processing and the 2 minute rule, but not fully engaged in the system...no weekly review, no horizons of focus, etc. About 2 months ago, with some major life changes and my life being really out of balance, I decided to re-read the book, listened to the new audio book and have immersed myself in GTD connect listening to podcasts, etc. I have now collected every single open loop in my life, put them in my system (Outlook) and am really working to spend the 1 hour or so it takes each day to process and organize new inputs, etc. With all my lists (NA, projects, someday maybe, ticklers, etc) I have over 550 items. It's impossible to weed through 500 items every day trying to figure out what I should be working on. I am completely overwhelmed and am more stressed out now than I was before. I know that the open loops and the incompletes were always there causing underlying stress but now that I can see them all stacked up now, I am in panic mode. I'm thinking I need to move a lot more things to someday/maybe because it's just not realistic to complete them, even though I have the commitment to do them and want to do them, if they are not life/business critical I may need to move them, because I just don't have the time to complete them. I also have a lot of backlogged projects. I need like a month sabbatical to try to catch up, but I know that is not feasible. Appreciate any advice from anyone.

 

[Gardener]

Someday/Maybe, IMO, doesn't mean "maybe someday", it means "not now." It's a mix of things that you absolutely intend to do, and things that you only might do.

So, IMO, absolutely do move more things to Someday/Maybe. I would in fact suggest that you move EVERYTHING to Someday/Maybe in your next weekly review. Then pull a very modest number of projects back out--like, say, six. And by "projects" I don't mean things like, "Complete PhD thesis," I mean small projects, which may be sub-projects of big projects.

Live with that for a few days--work that six. When an action is checked off, go on to the next action for its project, or if the project really doesn't have another action, maybe maybe you'll allow yourself to go back to the ocean and pull out another project.

When you get to the next weekly review, if six projects seemed trivially small, then allow yourself a dozen. If six projects seemed like as much attention-splitting as you want, then don't add more, and in fact consider reducing the number.

Some people are OK with having hundreds of active projects. Some people (and I'm in that group) would in an ideal world have only one. The goal here is to find out which kind you are. It sounds like you're not the "Hundreds" kind, but you may be fifty, or a dozen, or two.

And you may also find that your tolerance for attention-splitting varies. A year ago, I could tolerate more. Right now, I have trouble tolerating much of anything at all--I'm in a job-burnout state and debating my entire career. Once I figure that out, I might have higher tolerance. So while you're in overwhelm you may need fewer items; when that's settled out and you've healed up a little, you may be able to tolerate more.

 

[bcmyers2112]

Hi, ackoska1. Up until recently I had the exact same challenge, so don't feel bad. I'm happy to share my thoughts and I hope you find them helpful.

First, you don't need to review everything every day. In fact, the only things you need to review daily are your tickler, calendar, and if you have discretionary time, your next actions lists. DA recommends you review your other lists at least weekly to keep them current.

Second, if you're overwhelmed by the volume of your next actions lists I would guess you have over-committed yourself. I had the same problem, and it caused me to avoid looking at my lists. They became a painful reminder of all the things I thought I should be doing, but couldn't.

My solution was simple: I decided to recognize the reality that I couldn't do everything and made some tough choices about my commitments, both those made to others and my internal ones. I pruned my lists, shunting a number of things to Someday/Maybe and deleting others entirely. Now when I review my calendar and NA lists, I only see things I am committed to doing now (calendar) or as soon as I can (next actions). Anything else is safely tucked away in someday/maybe for re-evaulation (at least once per week). Those things aren't lost, and I like being able to bring them back to the surface when my intuition tells me the time is right -- and not before.

Ultimately I'm glad I stuck with GTD. Clarifying and writing down my commitments gave me the impetus to make some difficult choices, and I'm now making progress in areas where I hadn't previously. It's also caused me to re-evaluate what it means to be productive. It's not just about efficiency, although that is important. It's about making choices regarding what to do, and when. Effectiveness doesn't just mean doing lots of things -- it means doing the right things at the right time.

 

[jenkins]

Now when I review my calendar and NA lists, I only see things I am committed to doing now (calendar) or as soon as I can (next actions). Anything else is safely tucked away in someday/maybe for re-evaulation (at least once per week).

Well said.

 

[TesTeq]

Someday/Maybe, IMO, doesn't mean "maybe someday", it means "not now." It's a mix of things that you absolutely intend to do, and things that you only might do.

So, IMO, absolutely do move more things to Someday/Maybe. I would in fact suggest that you move EVERYTHING to Someday/Maybe in your next weekly review. Then pull a very modest number of projects back out--like, say, six. And by "projects" I don't mean things like, "Complete PhD thesis," I mean small projects, which may be sub-projects of big projects.

That's my advice too. Someday/Maybe is your best friend! It doesn't mean NEVER. It means NOT NOW (or NOT THIS WEEK).

 

[Oogiem]

With all my lists (NA, projects, someday maybe, ticklers, etc) I have over 550 items. It's impossible to weed through 500 items every day trying to figure out what I should be working on. I am completely overwhelmed and am more stressed out now than I was before.

BTDT Hang in there you now have a map but you need to decide which paths to take to get to your destination.

Someday/Maybe is really your friend. I've been tinkering with my S/M system and now have it in several pieces. I use Omnifocus and so only those projects I realistically might be able to or could work on in this season are in that system. If I can't see myself working on it soon that project has an on-hold status. The thousands of other ideas of everything from blue sky bucket list type stuff to things that can only be done in a different season are now stored as notes by area of focus in my note reference system DEVONThink. That is my real Someday/Maybe list. While I understand the need to focus only on things that are critical to your business I also think that you need at least a few active projects that are for you alone. Projects that feed your soul or give you pleasure. GTD isn't about just work but your whole life. Even in the busiest times of the year I try to have at least a few active projects that are just for me and my pleasure or education not directly related to immediate needs.

If 500 items in your next actions lists is too many then I'd first look at your contexts. Can you split them into more contexts so that any given list has a number of potential actions that you feel comfortable with looking at? I'm running with 34 contexts right now even though I live and work at the same place. My biggest context has about 50 actions in it and that I can easily review before deciding what to work on.

If you contexts are clean then you really must weed out the active projects to get down to a numebr you feel comfortable with. I personalyl like large lists and lots of options. But if that is not how you prefer to work then limit the active projects to only those you will work in between now and your next regular review. You might want to review more often than weekly for a while but generally weekly is good enough. So take a bit more time at review and put on hold or in someday/maybe every project that you can't work on this next week.

Look at whether you might be able to drop completely or delegate some of those projects. I usually can't delegate much of anything but lots of people have that option and you might as well.

Hope that helps.

 

[Gardener]

I personalyl like large lists and lots of options.

Oogiem, when these discussions come up, you are the person that I think of when I force myself to accept that, yes, there ARE people who function effectively and productively with a very large number of options.

And I've been thinking of why I am able to tolerate fewer and fewer and fewer projects myself.

And I suddenly formed a theory: You're your boss. You're in charge of your work. Yes? That's not to say that you don't have partners and colleagues and customers and regulators and regulations to deal with. And I'm sure that there are still a ton of complexities and prerequisites.

But when you're facing, "To do A, I have to first do B and C, and C requires successful completion of Q and K, and...." I'm betting that every singe one of those steps doesn't require asking PERMISSION to even start taking action, and in fact asking permission to ask permission to seek approval to ask permission, all with the underlying knowledge that when someone with budget authority throws the budget dice, odds are that the whole thing will be disapproved anyway, and meanwhile someone over in left field is FURIOUS because you asked for that budget because they misunderstand what the budget was actually for...

Anyway.

Maybe.

And that is suddenly my theory as to why I can't handle more projects.

And why I'm burned out.

I rattled on, but I guess my point is: Maybe more autonomy over your work leads to more tolerance for complexity.

 

[TesTeq]

And I suddenly formed a theory: You're your boss. You're in charge of your work. Yes? That's not to say that you don't have partners and colleagues and customers and regulators and regulations to deal with. And I'm sure that there are still a ton of complexities and prerequisites.

But when you're facing, "To do A, I have to first do B and C, and C requires successful completion of Q and K, and...." I'm betting that every singe one of those steps doesn't require asking PERMISSION to even start taking action, and in fact asking permission to ask permission to seek approval to ask permission, all with the underlying knowledge that when someone with budget authority throws the budget dice, odds are that the whole thing will be disapproved anyway, and meanwhile someone over in left field is FURIOUS because you asked for that budget because they misunderstand what the budget was actually for...

Anyway.

Maybe.

And that is suddenly my theory as to why I can't handle more projects.

So what about me? I am boss for myself. But I hate long active lists. I prefer to focus on a small number projects that I want to move forward today and this week. Everything else is Someday/Maybe.

 

[Ackoska]

Thanks everyone for all the tips. Been working all weekend on GTD system. Had a 4 hour meeting with my husband to clarify a lot of items that upon review we had really not made decisions on (we own a family business and work together)...so a lot of personal and work decisions that were not really agreed upon and clarified, so that helped a lot. Moved a lot of stuff to someday maybe and divided my someday maybe into multiple categories...business, home improvement wish list, personal/family, and me (like Oogiem suggested).

I'm using outlook, so I also set myself up some different views of the task list so I'm not constantly seeing stuff that I'm not planning on doing anything about, projects on hold, etc. Will look at those during weekly review, but no need to see them every day while I am working through next actions.

One of favorite quotes from listening to DA is when he said that he once had a seminar attendee state that her list was "an amorphous blob of undoability." I thought I had been doing pretty good with clarifying and putting quality, defined, clear next actions on my list, but they were not. Really need to focus on that...especially when it relates to things that have to be discussed and agreed upon with my husband for business. We have very limited time to discuss big picture stuff for our business since I also work a 40 hour week job, so I need to be really clear on stuff before I put it in my system. We have started using travel time to do reviews together. We took a 7 hour trip to Virginia several weeks ago and talked the entire way, reviewing our projects, someday maybes, next actions, etc. I printed out the entire system and we just got to work. Just going to need to do that more often I think. Thanks again to all of you. I'm feeling much better!

 

[Oogiem]

And I suddenly formed a theory: You're your boss. You're in charge of your work. Yes? That's not to say that you don't have partners and colleagues and customers and regulators and regulations to deal with. And I'm sure that there are still a ton of complexities and prerequisites.

But when you're facing, "To do A, I have to first do B and C, and C requires successful completion of Q and K, and...." I'm betting that every singe one of those steps doesn't require asking PERMISSION to even start taking action, and in fact asking permission to ask permission to seek approval to ask permission, all with the underlying knowledge that when someone with budget authority throws the budget dice, odds are that the whole thing will be disapproved anyway, and meanwhile someone over in left field is FURIOUS because you asked for that budget because they misunderstand what the budget was actually for
....
Maybe more autonomy over your work leads to more tolerance for complexity.

Interesting thoughts.

There may be some truth to the notion that having more control over your work leads to accepting a larger number of things in my lists. I do know that in the end it's me and my husband making the decisions. Sure we have government regulations, budget constraints, and can't forget weather and sheep attitudes but by and large we can decide what we want to do and how to do the work. I think the difference isn't as much control as it is whether you like choice vs not.

When your actions have no bearing on what choices you can make I think that is more the problem than having a large number of choices.

I wonder if the issue isn't more that you can't affect your work, outside influences do not understand your concerns or don't care. They act as if you are less than a cog in the wheel so having a bunch of those things on your lists is soul-sucking. If people listened to your concerns and incorporated them into the project plans would that make a difference? I don't think you have to be the boss but I do think you need to have input in your work.

Then again, rememebr I came out of a very entrepreneurial work environment. Even though I worked for a large corporation it was really a loose collection of thousands of tiny businesses. Each employee had to find funding for their own job and create their own business plan. Made for some inter-company competition but overall fosters a sense of ownership. Plus at the time I was there it was a 100% employee owned corporation, not public. That has since changed and IMO the company went downhill as soon as it became public. I was glad I was out of there.

 

[bcmyers2112]

I'm feeling much better!

Glad to hear it!

 

[pgarth]

Hi ackoska1:

I'm impressed with all the great responses you've received, as it's helping me with a review of GTD.

A couple words jumped out at me - "tinkering" and "not fully engaged in the system".

My response is from my perspective of my own self-observation over the years, so don't think I'm projecting these comments onto you, but it might help...

Two words come to mind -- Trust and Courage.

I'm intimately familiar with the structure of GTD, and have an effective system built within Evernote.

Where I fall down is realizing that I'm not "Trusting" my external system, as my ego gets in the way. The curious observation I have, when reviewing my stuff is, "Wow... That's wild that I had thought of that project or wrote that -- I can't remember doing that!". What happened is that I had effectively captured something and processed it, and then didn't implicitly trust the external system so that I didn't have to think/process it again. If I'm surprised by what's in my system, and think it's good stuff later, then a part of me isn't trusting it in the interim. If I can get in the zone of completely trusting, then my mind goes all "warm" and is just in a state of flow -- OK! That sounded weird, but I think you know what I mean...

The second place I fall down is having "Courage" to actually be "IN" the context (based on time, energy) etc. If my agreement is @Computer, then I must have courage to work the actions in there without question -- this relates back to Trusting the system. There was a really good In Conversation that DA did with a guy from Siemens where he talks about Courage.

Hope that helps.

You're in good hands with everyone here on the forum.

Paul

 

[Ackoska]

Thanks again for all the help back in July. Been humming along making changes to my setup and now am at another crossroads where I have confused myself..or am maybe overthinking. Have 4 questions:

1) I have 200+ recurring ticklers – have them as outlook tasks organized by context – but I'm thinking that maybe should they all be under one category like ticklers? Things like – pay sales tax by 20[SUP]th[/SUP] of the month, pay estimated taxes, clean out the vacuum filter, change air filters, pay payroll liabilities, call to schedule annual physical, call carpet cleaning company (twice a year), arrange window cleaning. Should I keep them in context categories like @ home, @ computer, @ call, etc. or lump together as a different context?

2) My digital reference is a mess. I have emails that I have saved as reference, a reference outlook category that are marked on some of my tasks and reference items in the Notes section. So I'm looking all over everywhere for reference items. If using outlook, what is the best practice for where to keep this stuff?

3) Currently have someday maybe as tasks with category of someday/maybe. Is it better to keep these in the outlook notes section so I'm not cluttering up my task list with them?

4) I often receive emails with links to articles, info, etc. that I want to repackage into my client email newsletters or share on social media with my clients. Not sure what the best way to keep all the information together and know what I have used already and what I can still use. Thinking maybe a @Content to Share category would work and then I can check them as completed once I use them? But maybe I will need them later as reference.

I realize that the answers to these questions are all opinions and everyone has a different way of doing things. I just wanted to see what others are doing so maybe it will spark my brain into figuring out what will work best for me. Thanks!

 

[Scott Allen]

I had a serious "ah-hah" moment about managing lists and horizons recently. What I realized is that a list is not a "thing" -- it's a view of a collection of things with a common attribute.

On paper, a list really is a thing. It's a physical piece of paper with a list of items written on it. The items on the list have no life of their own apart from the list. An electronic spreadsheet isn't much better -- it just continues the paper paradigm. So we have to create the horizon lists and constantly review them to move items from one list to another.

In the world of databases, this is a wrong paradigm. We don't move an item from one horizon list to another. The item isn't a property of the list; the proper horizon, or time window, is a property of the task or project, and our horizon list is simply a view of all the tasks/projects with the same time window.

That's an important distinction. What pushed me to this was a frustration that I was feeling like I had to spend so much time every day re-deciding from a much-too-long list of next actions what my priorities were. If my system is working right, I shouldn't have to re-evaluate just to get my list of top tasks for the day -- it should tell me, and then I can adjust if I feel the need to.

So now I tag all next actions as such, and set an appropriate horizon for each task. Now I start each day and the system already shows me all the next actions that are overdue (i.e., I haven't done them yet and haven't renegotiated the commitment), those that are targeted for today, and those targeted for this week. Most days, other than my usual reminders -- gym, meds, fitness log, etc. -- that list is usually pretty short. As such, I'm finally getting to the point where not only do I trust my system, but it's actually useful in terms of narrowing my focus and reducing the number of choices/decisions I have to make on a daily basis.

 

[Old-Monk]

Someday/Maybe, IMO, doesn't mean "maybe someday", it means "not now." It's a mix of things that you absolutely intend to do, and things that you only might do.

So, IMO, absolutely do move more things to Someday/Maybe. I would in fact suggest that you move EVERYTHING to Someday/Maybe in your next weekly review. Then pull a very modest number of projects back out--like, say, six. And by "projects" I don't mean things like, "Complete PhD thesis," I mean small projects, which may be sub-projects of big projects.

Live with that for a few days--work that six. When an action is checked off, go on to the next action for its project, or if the project really doesn't have another action, maybe maybe you'll allow yourself to go back to the ocean and pull out another project.

When you get to the next weekly review, if six projects seemed trivially small, then allow yourself a dozen. If six projects seemed like as much attention-splitting as you want, then don't add more, and in fact consider reducing the number.

Some people are OK with having hundreds of active projects. Some people (and I'm in that group) would in an ideal world have only one. The goal here is to find out which kind you are. It sounds like you're not the "Hundreds" kind, but you may be fifty, or a dozen, or two.

And you may also find that your tolerance for attention-splitting varies. A year ago, I could tolerate more. Right now, I have trouble tolerating much of anything at all--I'm in a job-burnout state and debating my entire career. Once I figure that out, I might have higher tolerance. So while you're in overwhelm you may need fewer items; when that's settled out and you've healed up a little, you may be able to tolerate more.

One matter still concerns me, even if I put all of that in 'Someday/maybe' , it still can get so long that some of the items may never get the attention. Otherwise scanning through long list can become a project in itself. That is why I feel calendars could be a better organizer which spreads this big task list across in small chunks easy to read. But reshuffling is needed every day.

 

[Old-Monk]

Hi, ackoska1. Up until recently I had the exact same challenge, so don't feel bad. I'm happy to share my thoughts and I hope you find them helpful.

First, you don't need to review everything every day. In fact, the only things you need to review daily are your tickler, calendar, and if you have discretionary time, your next actions lists. DA recommends you review your other lists at least weekly to keep them current.

Second, if you're overwhelmed by the volume of your next actions lists I would guess you have over-committed yourself. I had the same problem, and it caused me to avoid looking at my lists. They became a painful reminder of all the things I thought I should be doing, but couldn't.

My solution was simple: I decided to recognize the reality that I couldn't do everything and made some tough choices about my commitments, both those made to others and my internal ones. I pruned my lists, shunting a number of things to Someday/Maybe and deleting others entirely. Now when I review my calendar and NA lists, I only see things I am committed to doing now (calendar) or as soon as I can (next actions). Anything else is safely tucked away in someday/maybe for re-evaulation (at least once per week). Those things aren't lost, and I like being able to bring them back to the surface when my intuition tells me the time is right -- and not before.

Ultimately I'm glad I stuck with GTD. Clarifying and writing down my commitments gave me the impetus to make some difficult choices, and I'm now making progress in areas where I hadn't previously. It's also caused me to re-evaluate what it means to be productive. It's not just about efficiency, although that is important. It's about making choices regarding what to do, and when. Effectiveness doesn't just mean doing lots of things -- it means doing the right things at the right time.

I can group my task 3 categories 1.urgent or important responsibilities and 2. Important, productive and satisfactory, 3. chores, a lot of time is consumed by no.1 and no. 3 and I am always struggling to squeeze out time for later (no.2). I have a very long inbox and someday/may-be now, whenever I start analyzing them one by one, some of them turn out be project and need further division into sub tasks, some items need thoughts, some are very intriguing and may tempt me to get into it right away digressing from planning. Ultimately I realize that there is big list that I look at every week and has been sitting there for more than a year, it makes me feel more guilt and push to avoid system altogether. I feel with limited time we have on this earth we will always Thousands of things we wish to do but won't finish due to time constraint. But those other stuff may not be urgent or may not have a due date but may have bigger value, a better opportunity cost. The problem I see with GTD that it draws focus more current tasks (inbox/ NA)and keeps attentions away from someday/maybe due it's size, a part of which may have value to it.

My question is how would you avoid to lose any such potential value in never ending list of 'someday/maybe'?

 

[Gardener]

One matter still concerns me, even if I put all of that in 'Someday/maybe' , it still can get so long that some of the items may never get the attention. Otherwise scanning through long list can become a project in itself. That is why I feel calendars could be a better organizer which spreads this big task list across in small chunks easy to read. But reshuffling is needed every day.

There's no need to have one really long Someday/Maybe list. Split them into topics, and set a review frequency for each topic that's as infrequent as possible. Yes, reviewing each of those lists will be a task--maintaining your GTD system definitely involves doing some tasks. That's OK. But minimize that effort.

If you're learning French cooking, there's no need to repeatedly look at all sixty recipes you're thinking of trying--put fifty-nine of them into a French Recipes to Try Someday/Maybe list, and go back to that list when you're content with what you've learned from the latest recipe.

The problem I see with GTD that it draws focus more current tasks (inbox/ NA)and keeps attentions away from someday/maybe due it's size, a part of which may have value to it.

That's by your choice--I don't agree that it's in any way inherent to GTD. You can say that Efforts C and M are really important, and so you WILL promote them above Someday/Maybe and keep them active on your everyday lists, while the whole rest of the alphabet remain in sorted Someday/Maybe lists.

I'm never comfortable talking in detail about my paid job, so let's discuss my hobbies. I have put sewing, beading, street photography, complex cooking, most annual ornamental and edible crops, and several more hobbies into Someday/Maybe. I have prioritized fiction writing as my personal priority for the foreseeable future. I'm also not willing to let the garden, the house, the budget, or my health utterly collapse.

So those are the priorities that are active--that are represented by tasks and projects that are NOT in Someday/Maybe. (And also by more distant-future tasks that are in Someday/Maybe, but that will be pulled out when I have finished the current tasks and projects.) They don't get lost, specifically because I promoted them to active and pushed many many other things to Someday/Maybe.

So, "push the novel's coherence line one chapter" isn't crowded up against "Make Kinsale Cloak" or "Find the best tasting nasturtium" or "research a better street photography camera", because those three other projects are in Someday/Maybe and are NOT going to come out this year or next year or probably the next year. It is competing with "schedule annual physical" and "do taxes" and "get dinner" and other non-optional things. But it's one of the very few optional things in that crowd, so it doesn't get lost.

To use a Disney metaphor, the novel and a few other things have fast passes, and all the others are in a long, long, LONG line that isn't guaranteed to ever move. I'll walk through that line once or twice a year in case I say, "Ooh! In the six weeks that I'm letting the first draft rest, I could do THAT!" But I've already chosen my top priorities.

 

[Oogiem]

One matter still concerns me, even if I put all of that in 'Someday/maybe' , it still can get so long that some of the items may never get the attention. Otherwise scanning through long list can become a project in itself.

So split it up into lists that make sense. I've got 64 different someday/maybe lists. I've written a lot about them elsewhere but it's easy to manage that way.