GTD stresses me

John Forrister

GTD Connect
Staff member
For years I've been used to shopping every day or two for groceries, not planning meals much in advance. Now, like Gardener, I'm also working on that "stockpile of dry staples," which up to now has been the equivalent of my Someday/Maybe list.

Courtesy of Kathryn Allen, I saw this article on French bistros giving away cheese and boeuf bourguignon.
 

Gardener

Registered
Was it something I said? Thread went spooky quiet

Heh. :) Looking over a post above:

Weekly Review...Daily Review... (etc.)

I'm suddenly wondering: How long are your active/check-them-every-day lists? Is it possible that there are things that should go to Someday/Maybe? (We've probably discussed this.)

and have to remember "oh right I need to write down the last thing I was thinking so I know where to start tomorrow".

Is it possible that you're over-perfectionizing on how much to capture? I tend to just write something like "STOPPED AT debugging widget report". I assume that the elaborate structure of methods and variables and theories that I've formed in my head just can't be saved. I might add a couple of words for my latest theory ("race condition?") or the code marking string (I tend to mark changes to existing code with the same comment string through the day, to help me remember, tomorrow, what I did today) but not more than that. I assume that I will have to reload that structure in my head.

"isn't the point that GTD lets you stay relaxed and in control despite an enormous, never-completable work load?"

My view is that it helps you recognize that it's too big, and helps you decide what to throw out of the lifeboat.

The problem is that if I don't, I will not remember the things

I've partially forgotten my own train of thought here. :) But I think that my idea was that you look at a REALLY SHORT list for the day.

So if your current lists have a few hundred items, but today you plan to work on three of them, plus you can't afford to forget to call Joe and attend Fred's meeting, then during your morning review you could write those three things down, enter an alarm for Fred's meeting, and enter, oh, three timed reminders for calling Joe. (So you can silence the 10am reminder and the 2pm reminder, but when the 4pm reminder, whose text you have set to 'LAST CHANCE TO CALL JOE TODAY!' comes up, you know you'd better sacrifice your train of thought, like it or not.)

So, a SHORT list. You only look at the long list once, in the morning. It's a theory, anyway.
 

Oogiem

Registered
I'm also working on that "stockpile of dry staples," which up to now has been the equivalent of my Someday/Maybe list.
For us the issue is how are we going to keep getting fresh vegetables. So one task was to buy a few seed packets of open pollinated vegetables like lettuce, rocket, spinach as well as some tomatoes and a few herbs from the local feed store. Not too many, 1 pack of a bunch of different ones, and plan for some sort of a garden. Then we got 1 foot of wet spring snow. So it will be a while. For protein we are set. If we run out of the frozen meats from the farm store freezers I have a whole flock of sheep and know how to butcher one as needed. We also ahve plenty of game animals and birds. The other issue will be carbohydrates. Potatos grow well here but it will be months before any planted this spring will be ready. Not many folks plant winter wheat (which will come up first) but there is some. Hard wheat and oats are also local crops but not much and usually specialty. Ditto for barley. So flour for bread and malt to make beer (way to store wheat long term)may be in short supply locally but available from a county or 2 away.

Personally my concern is rice, my favorite starch, and coffee. Neither of those grow here so if things really go sideways that will be the thing that we are totally out of.
 
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