A
Anonymous
Guest
This is a bit of a repeat of my last post (...Calendar). While I wrote it, I could see how much of my stress and calendar problem is due to the "deliver on demand" nature of my environment. I am expected to be prepared and available on certain days for certain events but their exact time is not determined as the higher up will not or cannot commit. Even "firm" appointments get changed at the very last last minute . Change can mean re-scheduled, postponed indefinitley, cancelled, made more complex or more simple. At the last minute I may have to deliver sooner than I expected or in a different format and or something I prepared over a long period of time is just abandonned. Although some of these abandonned projects get resurrected at a future time. At the beginning of the week, if I ask a lot of questions, over and over, I can more or less figure that on certain days I will need to be ready with certain materials by 2:00 pm but the actual meeting time may be anywhere between 2 and 6, and the time allowed for presentation may start out at 45 minutes but could be reduced to 15 or increased to 90, or at the last minute I may be told "don't present your findings, give me a one page summary", or vice versa. If the most important meetings actually take place early in the week, the possible times blocked out for them later in the week can usually be used at my discretion. So how does one modify GTD for this type of situation? I have been copeing by having many elements in place at all times (supplies, resources, data), aways having both a full report to present, a little chart, and a summary, never telling a client that I can get back to them by a specific time, and on occasion just saying "no, that's not possible, unless I have more notice". In regard to the calendar, I keep those 2 to 6pm slots open and have n/a lists at the ready, but when you are not sure if you are off or on, it is hard to do more than water a plant and as a result other responsibilities suffer!