manynothings
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How do you deal with times when you lose touch with your system, making it outdated and unusable?
Do a mind sweep of everything that's bothering me is my first step. Then process those notes and ideas into either the existing system or a new one. Then a very complete weekly review. It's likely that those 3 items will take a couple of hours if I've really let the system fall apart so I just buckle down and do it. Those are followed closely by reviewing my someday/maybe lists (which are not in my task manger tool). I deal with the immediate stuff that rose to the top when I did the mind sweep, then deal with the backlog in my task manager, dumping things off into S/M as much as I can and then I look at S/M lists if I have space in my life to add some stuff back in.How do you deal with times when you lose touch with your system, making it outdated and unusable?
Oogiem I like this process!Do a mind sweep of everything that's bothering me is my first step. Then process those notes and ideas into either the existing system or a new one. Then a very complete weekly review. It's likely that those 3 items will take a couple of hours if I've really let the system fall apart so I just buckle down and do it. Those are followed closely by reviewing my someday/maybe lists (which are not in my task manger tool). I deal with the immediate stuff that rose to the top when I did the mind sweep, then deal with the backlog in my task manager, dumping things off into S/M as much as I can and then I look at S/M lists if I have space in my life to add some stuff back in.
Great metaphorYou have to trust your system 100%. If you've lost touch with it and it's become unusable, that implies you're using something else. Maybe multiple something elses.
Think of your system as a rowboat. Specifically, it lives in Asana, for example. But rather than using Asana for everything, you're putting things on sticky notes (a leak in the boat), leaving next actions in meeting notes (another leak), and you're trying to remember everything (a big leak). Your system is unusable because it's taken on so much water. Plug the leaks, and you'll probably find your boat is reliable and useful.
I begin with whatever now has my attention. Something alerted my sense of cognitive dissonance of Project or Action. What is the thought now needing processed? By processing that to completion, whatever it is, and at whichever part of mastering workflow, I then climb back on the wagon again.How do you deal with times when you lose touch with your system, making it outdated and unusable?
The weekly review is really my lifeline here. When my system is on cruise control I can do an abbreviated review in ~ an hour and get set for the next week. When things get out of control, I tend to need longer periods and the review will consist of many of the "deeper dive" behaviors others have described here, like @Oogiem and @Murray. Depending on how out of control I feel, I will block a longer period of time for this, like 3 or 4 hours, or sometimes even longer. Other times, you can prevent this by being proactive. For example: if I take (planned) time off, I know I will need to block at least ~1 hour per day I've been away to catch up on the backlog and then do a weekly review to recalibrate to the world I've re-entered. protecting that time ahead of the vacation is a massive win for rapid reentry.How do you deal with times when you lose touch with your system, making it outdated and unusable?
Depending how it happens and why. It is easy to get of the wagon. Also, It is easy to get in !How do you deal with times when you lose touch with your system, making it outdated and unusable?
Just add a little trick and a very curious tendancy I dont really explain. Software helps me sometime almost with the secont scenario (The one when every thing gets crazy and out of control). In those time I dont feel well. I like staying on the track... Anyway,How do you deal with times when you lose touch with your system, making it outdated and unusable?