Re: completely new and overwhelmed
jpm said:
Third. Certain things should be above your GTD system. Block time for them. They are critical and need to be appointments on your calender not tasks in your GTD or Next Actions Lists. Get your workout schedule on your calender. Schedule time with your wife and family. Schedule a regular weekly financial review. Schedule some downtime (resting/meditation/prayer, etc.) Schedule you're daily & weekly reviews. These are the most important meetings you have and they are committments to yourself. Stuff in your Next Action Lists are a menu of things you can do to move your objectives forward. Stuff on your calender are the must do committments you have to move those goals forward. You can even block some time to work on your most important projects.
Jonnyread,
The principles of GTD can seem overwhelming at first. Keep in mind that, except for new commitments that you have taken on, whatever you are writing down as a project or next action is not adding to what you have to do but is already something that existed. I think it has some comparison to developing a budget. Many people hate to sit down and write a budget or make a list of assets and liabilities because it's difficult to see in black and white what they already know, that their financial situation is out of control. But if you develop a budget, you can develop a plan to achieve your financial goals. The same is true with your projects. If you have all of your projects in front of you, in an airtight system where you know they will not be overlooked, instead of living in a state of denial you can develop a plan to address them. If you are overcommitted, you can relegate some projects to the Someday/Maybe list, decide not to do them at all, seek assistance or identify someone to delegate to, re-negotiate your commitments, work harder for a period of time or try to figure out another creative solution.
The GTD philosophy will help you manage your workflow. As you implement more and more of the system, you will not feel so overwhelmed. You will develop more confidence that things won't get lost in the shuffle of day to day life.
Jpm's suggestions are excellent. I quoted his third point because I think it is particularly useful and something that people may not pick up right away about the hard landscape of the calendar. The commitments you have made to yourself are at least as important as the commitments you have made to others. You need to schedule things like the weekly review, exercise time, down time and family time. Once you develop routines that consistently address these commitments, you may not need to put them on the calendar. In the meantime, feel free to schedule them like any other commitment.
Note, as Jpm suggested, that you can also block out time on your calendar to work on some of your important projects. When you plan a project or next action, you may want to estimate how much time you think it will take. For example, during my weekly review, I work with a large sheet of paper that I divide up by days of the week. Then I handwrite in my commitments for the week, my routines, plus some next actions to get an idea of how they will fit into my week. This exercise keeps me realistic about the things I can get done in a given week. I may move some items onto my calendar that I decide I am definitely committed to do. For other items, I simply leave them on my next action lists and scan my lists during time that I have allocated to work off my lists. The key is to schedule only what you have truly committed to do and then leave ample time in your schedule for working off your next action lists and addressing daily routines like processing your inbox, reading e-mail, etc.
You may find that the weekly review is one of the harder aspects of the system to get up and running, but it is one of the critical elements to developing confidence in the system. In the beginning, don't feel like you have to do an exhaustive review. Instead of skipping the review entirely, which is tempting to do, keep your review short and focused on a few of the more important steps. As you progress, you can add more steps and do a more comprehensive review.
If you continue to have difficulty implementing the system, try posting again. There are many people who read this board who have great solutions. The exchange of ideas on this board (and on the yahoo groups listservs devoted to GTD) has helped me tremendously. Good luck.
