Duration of the next action

[Paul@Pittsburgh]

I am using Outlook to manage my calendar and tasks (for the most part as described by DA). However, one question I have is - how do I know if I genuinely have too much on my plate or whether it just looks like a lot because I have say 50 x 10 min actions on my list as opposed to 5 x 100 min actions on my list. In the context of a week or a month is there a way in GTD in which we can monitor the total time committed for a set of actions or a project and use this to monitor whether we can accept new activities or not and whether we are likely to meet existing committments or not.

On a simple level I was thinking of just adding a parenthesis to my task subject line to denote approx how many mins I think I need to complete the action... e.g.

A- Email ABC re: xyx [10]

would mean 10 mins to email someone.

Then if I have a short amount of time I can easily pick out the tasks that will fit in the allocated time.

But on the project level - how do we do this?

Does anyone else do this and if so - what do you do?

Thanks

Paul

 

[pjuhl]

Re: Duration of the next action

...adding a parenthesis to my task subject line to denote approx how many mins I think I need to complete the action...
Paul

Hi Paul

As you say yourself, you actually know how long (approx) an action will take, so why spend time writing it down. Really your just guessing, because so much could alter your guestimate.

Instead do some early brainstorming on your project to uncover as much of the gap between now and the successful outcome as you can. I think that will provide you with the sence of overview you need.

regards
Peter

 

[jerendeb]

On Time vs. Emotional Maturity

I wish I could select next actions based on time. I'm still stuck in the procrastinator's method of selecting the most distracting, desirable task & putting off what can wait until it's urgent. :roll:

Well not all of the time, I'm getting better & making progress :!:

 

[pjuhl]

Re: On Time vs. Emotional Maturity

I wish I could select next actions based on time. I'm still stuck in the procrastinator's method of selecting the most distracting, desirable task & putting off what can wait until it's urgent. :roll:

Well not all of the time, I'm getting better & making progress :!:

Remember that Energy is a perfectly OK parameter when choosing which NA to go ahead with, but remember that Context comes first.

Someone else wrote in a different thread, that because he had more energy in the morning (and was very aware of it), there were certain "Low-energy-NA's" that he would never start out with, because then he would never get around to the more energy demanding actions.

Good luck
Peter