GTD and impact on mental health... negative?

[christophe.portier]

I've been practicing the GTD method for several years now, and my professional life greatly benefits from it: efficient, reliable for my colleagues, able to prioritize in often chaotic contexts, I now only function through this wonderful methodology.

On the other hand, I've been sleeping poorly for several months.
And I'm starting to wonder about this angle of the GTD method that might be causing these insomnias: all day long, my brain is on the lookout for any thought to capture and record, as soon as I have a free moment my inbox to (perpetually) process or my well-organized lists make me want to do everything except take a break because I know I'll be efficient.
In short my days run at 100 km/h, too fast to sleep well the following night, largely thanks to the GTD method, and I wonder to what extent my nature is the cause of this... or the method.

Have you experienced such a phase as well?

Thanks for your feedbacks & help!

 

[mcogilvie]

This is only an opinion, but I believe neither your nature nor GTD is likely the cause of your issue. It sounds like you are managing a very busy work life, which of course GtTD can help with. However, the purpose of GTD is not to make you more efficient; it is to help you be more effective in living the life you want across all the different horizons of your life. GTD helps with both control and perspective, but control without perspective leads to micromanaging your life and can lead to burnout. Reading David Allen’s book Making It All Work would probably be helpful to you. Since the 1960’s businesses have tended to idolize efficiency, and it’s easy to get swept up in the idea that efficiency is the supreme goal. Once you know that isn’t true, your life will be better.

 

[Wilson Ng]

I think GTD or any other productivity framework is meant to help you clarify what is actually important and filter out the non-important. Not everything that is captured should be kept. Some are whimsical ideas that we thought would be cool to do but doesn't align with your life goals. There are some projects that are worthwhile but you just don't have the capabilities (skill set, knowledge, resources) to do them. Then there are some projects that we discard because the cost-benefit ratio isn't there. The amount of time, energy, and resources needed will add zero to minimal impact on your life. Eliminate the cruft and can focus on what's important.

GTD will not enable us to do everything. We can't do everything. We can do some things - just make sure it's the important things. Is there a project that you can work on that will make your life easier? Work on that? Is there a routine that is annoying and you just don't want to do it? What can. you do to reduce the friction? Find an app or tool that will help you? Reduce the steps needed to get the desired results? Create a macro or shortcut that can perform repetitive tasks? Set up templates that will be easy to fill out? Write up documentation to make sure you are following just the necessary steps without worrying about any extra unnecessary steps?

The weekly review is the most important of your productivity framework. Use it to weed out the unnecessary, delegate what you can, or create a project that will help you gain the skills and resources needed to complete an objective or dream.

GTD is a good place to start. But you'll soon adapt it to your own needs.

 

[TimM]

I find the opposite. What keeps me awake is when my brain keeps going over something that I haven't captured... something I know I need to get to. I have a notepad beside my bed to write it down and that usually helps.

The only issue is that in the morning I have to decode what I wrote in the dark while half asleep the night before

In all seriousness though, when I wake up in the morning and remember what was going through my head, almost always I find that it was something trivial and I can't understand why I cared about it at 1am.

 

[Oogiem]

all day long, my brain is on the lookout for any thought to capture and record, as soon as I have a free moment my inbox to (perpetually) process or my well-organized lists make me want to do everything except take a break

I suffer or am blessed, it depends on your attitude, with having many, many more ideas and things I might or feel I need to do than I have the ability, time or skills to do. I handle this 2 ways.

Capture and Processing Techniques
I separate capture into something that forces me to slow down. I use a small notebook and pen to do capture. All those notes (and sometimes I can generate 20 small 3x5 pages of notes in a 2 hour drive to and from the grocery store. My husband drives while I do a mind sweep in the car.) get dated and stapled together and tossed into my inbox. I spend time roughly twice a week to triage my inbox and deal with bills etc but stapled notes can sit there for more than a week on occasion. When I can I actually process them, I start at the oldest first. Often by the time I get to them either they are important enough to have made it from idea onto my project and next action lists already or they are a real new project I need to work on. New projects get added to my project list and a next action defined. Some are actually things that are part of an on-going or current project. Typically those are actions for an existing project that can't be done now so aren’t a "next action". Those get added to the project support material for that project. The majority (approx 75%) go immediately into the appropriate someday/maybe list I review those when I have spare bandwidth to take on a new project or at a minimum in depth each quarter on the solstices and equinoxes. I also often wake up at night with thoughts that are important to capture. I cannot turn on the lights or it wakes up my husband. I have found that I can write the things that are keeping me away and then I have a specific routine to get back to sleep involving turning over to one side, doing some meditation exercises, then turning to my other side whereupon I almost always fall right to sleep again with a total time awake of about 20 minutes. I also do not ever set an alarm, so if I sleep late it's ok. I have very few 19-01-33_ critical appointments and I generally set them for mid morning to early afternoon when I know I will be awake and ready no matter what happened the day or night before.

Weekly Review
An in depth "weekly" review is often required about every 5 days for me, especially when I am in high idea generating mode. An in depth review takes me about 2 hours but is critical to feeling in control and on top of the many ideas I have. If I slack on the review time I get very frustrated and that isn;'t good. It's also ok to throw away many of the ideas and projects you come up with.