Falling off the GTD wagon

mcogilvie

Registered
Depends on what’s going on. If the weekly review is itself repelling you, you have to ask what aspect of your system is problematic. Contexts? Projects? Calendar? You may need to go several levels deep.

Or maybe your life has changed, and your system needs to change.

Or maybe you just need a good weekly review.
 
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dtj

Registered
If it's that weekly review has become burdensome, some software packages (ie. OmniFocus) allow you to selectively set the review interval. So set things to spread out the review of lower priority things to avoid the overwhelm. Things like "Someday/Maybe" could go to like monthly reviews and such.

If it's just the overall system getting tiring, start rejiggering things to freshen it up. Perhaps figure more specific, or less specific, contexts or projects. Give it a new coat of paint! Maybe even change software, or go full analog! In the sports world, players can get comfortable and maybe a little stale, and when they get traded, they often flourish due to essentially a change of scenery and new systems. Do that with your tools.
 

Murray

Registered
If it is truly outdated then one really thorough way to update it would be to print everything out, throw it in your in tray and go through it all item by item, deciding what to keep and what to delete.

If you want to err on the side of really pruning the system back then print it out and delete everything up front. Then you'll only re-type the things you really need to keep.

Do a mind sweep and throw that in your in tray too, as suggested in the David Allen video shared by John.

Good luck with whatever path forward you decide on!
 

Oogiem

Registered
How do you deal with times when you lose touch with your system, making it outdated and unusable?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.
 

thomasbk

Registered
You 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.
 

Murray

Registered
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.
Oogiem I like this process!
 

Murray

Registered
You 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.
Great metaphor
 

pgarth

Registered
How do you deal with times when you lose touch with your system, making it outdated and unusable?
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.
 

Jared Caron

Nursing leader; GTD enthusiast
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.

This kind of "out of control" might happen regularly btw if you're engaged in sufficiently challenging work, so it's not a symptom of "doing GTD wrong." GTD is about giving you the skills to get back in control and regain perspective; the tether to the surfboard when you fall off, to use DA's metaphor. GTD wont necessarily prevent you from falling off.
 

FocusGuy

Registered
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 !

If I loose touch and things appears to be outdated and un usable this is what I do with 2 scenarios.

Sometime it is not serious. In short - My system is on the track but I am loosing my core priorities. I just stop and focus on project make them actionable or on hold. I try to get no more than 10 projects really actionable per week. So I decide which are my core priorities. Then I take them one by one, organize them and input my very next action. I will adjust my priorities during one of my weekly reviews. They may happen Twice a week one on Wednesday and one on Friday depending on what happens.

Sometime there is a tsunami in my life. Things are getting indeed complicated. I am just loosing my vision. There are two many projects I dont know by what to begin, how and when. So, I do the same but my review is longer (can take half a day, sometime one all day). I take time to eliminate consciously. Do the same but go deeper looking at my OKR and Horizons. I realize that many problems needs to be align with my highest commitments. I just take a sheet of paper and make a pause writing about the situation itself. What happened ? Why is there this situation ? Then on another sheet I work on my vision. What do I want ? Then I work on my goals : How would I make it happen ? Then I put on my diary and in my software steps of control to see I am on the track or not.

Life is un predictable. It is easy to do stuff which doesnt matter. It is the difference for me beeing productive and efficient.

Taking space must be time blocked and takes time.
 

FocusGuy

Registered
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,
Suddenly I feel am fed up with the software I use. It's unfair for it but this gets me mad o_O So I switch. I can switch from Omnifocus to things or Things to Omnifocus (I also have Nirvana's life licence). This may be a silly loose of time. But in fact not really. indeed, It force me to clean my system, work differently during the time I use the other software (it often last only one month...) Then, later on, I switch again to the software I prefer. Most of the time it remains Omnifocus. It is complex and a bit old fashion, but I trust it. Then great ! I am again in the wagon ! and fully focus until... I get off... But this doesn't discourage me. I trust GTD so I know I will get in again very soon... Never mind...:)
 
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