feeling uninspired about GTD

[NA_johnny]

What do you do when you start to get tired about everything? Next action/project lists linger for a few days then get transferred to someday/maybe. Pretty soon purported next actions/projects are being written down directly to someday/maybe. Now, I have a long list of someday/maybe (which continues to pile up because everything gets captured) and zero next actions/projects. I get by the day just by looking at my calendar and daily checklists… because these are urgent and shouldn’t be left undone without drastic consequences. There are no open loops that “drain my energy” because everything is captured in the someday/maybe list. Commitments are constantly renegotiated, sadly, to the point that nothing gets done (other than calendar and checklist items). I just lower my standards everyday. How do I get “inspired” again?

 

[Borisoff]

I think you need more energy. Probably you need to add only one Re-energy yourself Project to your active projects list and stick to it untill you fill you have the energy to move SM Projects to active state. Not all of them but the most important that you tend to do in the upcoming week (start with 1 or 2). What can give you energy? I think that depends on you. For me it's swimming in a pool or some activity like Karate or Volleyball. Any other ideas??

Please keep us informed if that helps.

 

[treelike]

1. See if you can make any projects or next actions to make your calendar items less urgent. Is there any forward planning or preparation you can do or can you even do the calendar item way before it is required? The best time to do something is as soon as you know it needs to be done, not when it is due to be done.

2. Review your someday list and promote perhaps 5 of the items to projects. Choose some depending on priority and some that there is a risk that you might actually have some enjoyment from doing them.

3. Maybe see the doctor as it sounds like you may be suffering from depression.

Alternatively, take everything (NA's, projects, somedays, everything) and throw it into your inbox and start again.

 

[RuthMcT]

I get by the day just by looking at my calendar and daily checklists… because these are urgent and shouldn’t be left undone without drastic consequences.

Been there, done that - in fact still doing it! I think this is the key to your difficulties. If you have got so much urgent work, or fixed things that you have to do, that you never have time to do anything else then everything else will end up in someday/maybe. I have a worrying static NA list. I am crossing off about one item per day, as the rest of the time I am either seeing patients, in meetings, or dealing with the latest crisis or urgent piece of work.

One of the things that has helped me is to sit down and work out how many hours there are in the working week, and how many hours I can commit to each area of my work. I listed all the hard landscape stuff first, and then looked at the time left and what HAD to be done in it. The answer was that each area of responsibility could have about 1 hour a week, which was of course totally ridiculous. For example I can't run the District Childhood Immunisation Service on one hour a week!

Armed with the information I then went to my boss, and various other people I report to, and at last got their acknowledgement that the job wasn't physically possible. And over a period of about 2 years, my some of my responsibilities have been reallocated so I actually have some time to do some non-urgent, non-hard landscape work.

I'd suggest taking a good hard look at whether the time demands placed on you by your work are physically possible. Can you delegate? How much is really urgent? Do you need to discuss this with your boss? If you are self-employed then you'll need to have a serious discussionw ith yourself about what really is feasible, given that a week only has so many hours...

Ruth

 

[NA_johnny]

My day isn’t full packed from my calendar and checklist items. I’m self-employed and schedule my own work. The problem is not that there is too much to do but rather I put too little work for me to do. I get by with doing just the bare necessities then relax… that’s the problem. I relax too much.

Alternatively, take everything (NA's, projects, somedays, everything) and throw it into your inbox and start again.

I think throwing back everything into IN and starting all over again helped a lot. That fresh start gave me some new perspective. I realized relegating next actions to someday/maybe didn’t really give me peace of mind, evidently as I am posting my concerns in this forum. Although it’s already captured, keeping NAs idle on someday/maybe still gives me subtle nagging feelings that I’m supposed to move them to active state. I also realized that there are subtle reasons I’m keeping some tasks idle, some out of fear of failure and some mainly because of money constraints and are genuinely someday. Right now I’m just trying to dig deep into myself why I’m holding myself back from doing certain things. “I don’t feel like doing it” now isn’t enough and has to have some underlying reasons. Thanks for the comments guys. It's good to be back.

 

[Borisoff]

My day isn’t full packed from my calendar and checklist items. I’m self-employed and schedule my own work. The problem is not that there is too much to do but rather I put too little work for me to do. I get by with doing just the bare necessities then relax… that’s the problem. I relax too much.

1. I think relaxation should be a project as well. You can put different relax projects on your list to boost your energy. When done you should have more energy to do your other projects. If you have no energy then you can drop that particular relax project off your list as it makes no sence and try another. I noticed that sports working fine for me to boost the energy a little bit or massage. I have apponintment for massage and "Go to the gym" NAs on my list now. If sitting on the sofa or watching TV gives you energy to move your projects then you can schedule or NA these as well

2. What could really help in your case is a psychotherapy. Try to find a good doctor. Lay on the couch and tell him your story. You can find more about yourself just by telling and get good recommendations as well

Best regards,

Eugene.

 

[treelike]

My day isn’t full packed from my calendar and checklist items. I’m self-employed and schedule my own work. The problem is not that there is too much to do but rather I put too little work for me to do. I get by with doing just the bare necessities then relax… that’s the problem. I relax too much.

Do you have separate GTD systems for work and play? The reason I ask is that I am starting to believe that a solid line between work and non-work activities is absolutely essential (in a "western" capitalist society at least). I wonder if you are focussing too much on money making activities and not enough on doing things for the love of doing them. Money making activities are ultimately, by definition, things you do for the satisfaction of other people.

I also realized that there are subtle reasons I’m keeping some tasks idle, some out of fear of failure and some mainly because of money constraints and are genuinely someday. Right now I’m just trying to dig deep into myself why I’m holding myself back from doing certain things. “I don’t feel like doing it” now isn’t enough and has to have some underlying reasons.

And once you become aware of the underlying reasons you can work towards resolving them. I think it's OK in some cases to procastinate on certain items as long as a) you are aware of the reasons for the procastination, b) you are determined to overcome these reasons and c) there will be a time when you have the energy to do the actions.

 

[Borisoff]

and c) there will be a time when you have the energy to do the actions.

I think it's better to make energy then to wait for a time it comes

 

[TesTeq]

Why do you think one cannot make money doing the things he loves?

I wonder if you are focussing too much on money making activities and not enough on doing things for the love of doing them. Money making activities are ultimately, by definition, things you do for the satisfaction of other people.

Why do you think one cannot make money doing the things he loves?

 

[kewms]

Do you have separate GTD systems for work and play? The reason I ask is that I am starting to believe that a solid line between work and non-work activities is absolutely essential (in a "western" capitalist society at least). I wonder if you are focussing too much on money making activities and not enough on doing things for the love of doing them. Money making activities are ultimately, by definition, things you do for the satisfaction of other people.

Self-employed people tend to love the work they do. Otherwise they wouldn't be self-employed.

On the other hand, burnout is possible even when doing things you love, and it's very easy for self-employed people to fall into the trap of working literally all the time. It's also common for self-employed people to discover that they don't love their work as much as they thought they did, or that they like the work fine but hate all the administrative stuff that goes with running your own shop.

It's hard to say what's going on in this case, but I like the suggestion of throwing everything back into In and starting over. It sounds like the Someday/Maybe list has become a vehicle for procrastination, which defeats its purpose.

Katherine

 

[treelike]

Why do you think one cannot make money doing the things he loves?

I guess because most of the stuff I love one can generally get for free, or next to nothing

 

[NA_johnny]

they like the work fine but hate all the administrative stuff that goes with running your own shop.

You’ve hit the nail right on the head. I just completely revamped our accounting procedures last Christmas, but I’m afraid I’d have to be doing that again because it’s getting too tedious to do certain tasks. Commercial software couldn’t be tailored specifically to our needs, so I just use ms access, but my forms need major overhaul. That’s one project left lying around on my someday/maybe list. It’s true the NA could be as simple as list down the problem areas that need tweaking, but in order to mark the project as done, I can see loads of NAs that need to be completed. That is what’s overwhelming and causing the procrastination. And unless I unclog some tasks here, we’d be reluctant to add new business. Ergo some of the other projects remain someday/maybe. Perhaps I should get a clearer picture of the successful outcome from some higher altitude just to get myself going.

It sounds like the Someday/Maybe list has become a vehicle for procrastination, which defeats its purpose.

But the good thing is I have it all captured, and I’m now slowly transferring some of the someday/maybes to active project. That's what i like about the GTD system. Even if you fall behind sometimes, you're still anchored.

And no, I don’t separate work and non-work. I don’t see it as a problem. Right now I’m just trying to get daily doses of Zen from RFA to keep system healthy.