Only 12 months? How are you going to fill in your time when you've got all that done?
Seriously, having a lot of projects is not in itself a problem, and GTD can handle all
that and more. I think I've got years of stuff to do, maybe more than a lifetime worth,
which is fine: those things to do are opportunities, and GTD can help me select
the more worthwhile ones to actually do.
You're right, you have to move a lot to someday/maybe.
How do you manage when you're not using GTD? When you think about each
project do you imagine you're going to do it soon, even though realistically there's
no way you can get them all done soon?
GTD is supposed to reduce your stress, not add to it.
"Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once."
("Le temps est ce qui empêche que tout soit donné tout d'un coup",
Henri Bergson
http://physics.info/time/ )
Whether you're feeling overwhelmed by a lot of projects you'd
like to do (like learn to play the guitar) or by a lot of projects
you urgently need to do soon (like fix the toilet) or some level of
urgency in between, GTD can help you select the most important
and get them done first, and you should then be able to mentally relax
knowing that you aren't forgetting to do something urgent.
You could be putting off some fairly urgent things because you're
busy doing even more urgent things, but I find that if I've made
conscious decisions to do that, then I tend not to worry.
I tell myself "I don't have to worry about that right now because
I'm busy doing this," and I trust myself that I've made a good decision
about levels of priority.
Here are some methods I (sometimes) use or might start using:
-- Have more than one someday/maybe list, for example: someday/maybe to
review once a week; someday/maybe to review once a month; and someday/maybe
to review once per 3 months. When you get tired of seeing an item or feel
that it's adding to your feeling of being overwhelmed, you can demote it to a
less-often-looked-at list.
-- The "Powers of 2" system I invented which I describe in the thread
" Is GTD scalable for someone with ADHD?"
-- Sorting things by energy, length of block of time required to start, and
priority, as I describe in my blog post
http://woodgold.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/sorting-actions-by-energy-level-required-etc/ That way, most times when I glance at a page of next actions for a context,
I can just read the stuff on the left, which is the higher-priority stuff; I stop reading
when I'm either convinced that there's nothing important enough to do right then (so it's OK to spend time relaxing or move to another context etc.) or when I've read
enough items that I'm confident I haven't missed something that ought to have been
written a little further to the left and that I've read enough items that I have enough
to keep me busy until the next time I look at the list.
-- Taking a whole context list and demoting it to someday-maybe, recopying only
a few items onto a new, blank, shorter-term next-actions list.
-- When I recopy a context list, I use criteria like these: Basically, if I want to
be reminded of the thing within the next week or so, I keep it on the list;
if not, I move it to someday/maybe or another system. Whether I want to be
reminded of it is a mixture of how much I want it to get done; how likely I am
to do it soon; and the cost in time and emotion of reading it. Also, when recopying
a list I re-apply the 2-minute rule. I find the 2-minute rule really helps me
feel empowered!
You have a large number of items which add
up to a total large emotional cost (feeling overwhelmed and giving up on GTD);
you can divide that cost by the number of items to estimate (a lower bound of)
the average cost in time and energy of keeping an item on the list, and try to
push yourself to move them off the list unless, as realistically as possible,
the value of keeping that particular item there exceeds that cost. If you can keep
up with GTD through several reviews, you may learn to become more realistic,
admitting that since you haven't done something the past couple of weeks you
probably won't do it this week either and giving yourself permission to move
it to someday/maybe; it doesn't mean you won't ever do it, only that you won't
do all 12 months of work this week.
-- making the next-actions as doable as possible. For example, I like David Allen's
suggestion for phone calls, to write the phone number on the next-action list.
That way when it comes time to do it, all you have to do is pick up the phone.
(Or is it? Have you decided what to say? Would it help to make some decisions
and jot down the things you want to say in the call?) If you're feeling overwhelmed,
that could possibly be a sign that some of the next-actions aren't really
fully-processed doable physical actions but difficult "stuff" that needs more processing.
-- sorting by context. You say "the list of next actions". What list of next actions?
I never have "a" list of next actions. I have multiple lists, for different contexts
such as at-home, at-work, on-computer, etc. I never collect all the next actions onto
one list and then divide them up; I just write individual items onto the separate
lists. (I'm doing this on paper.) So I never have to look at one long list of
next actions. I can just look at the list for the context I'm in. This context sorting
is a marvelous aspect of GTD: it greatly increases the doability of the actions
and decreases a feeling of being overwhelmed.
You'd probably like to read the thread "next action vs. someday maybe" on this forum.
Maybe also the discussion of "mental contexts" in the thread "Freelancing and GTD":
dividing things into a larger number of different context lists may be one way to
feel less overwhelmed.
I started GTD gradually, over several months, and continued whatever previous
methods or non-methods I was using until they were no longer needed. I built up
my next-actions lists gradually over that time. You might like to try that.
It may give you time to get a more realistic feel about how much you can accomplish in
the coming week and what items really ought to be on someday/maybe rather
than next-action context lists.
Imagine the sort of list you'd like to look at: about how many actions would it have?
How would you feel when you look at it? Then design your lists to be like that.
