How to Engage

C

campnbug

0
I've started implementing GTD and am having difficulty engaging/actually doing the next actions. I did start doing things on my Next Actions lists but then realized that I should have been doing other actions because there are deadlines coming up. Are there suggestions on how to prioritize to ensure the things that need to get done are actually getting done by the appropriate deadline? Would putting some next actions on the calendar be appropriate? I'm just not sure how to actually plan for what needs to be done.

Thank you.
 
If the next action is a time or day sensitive item, then it would likely go on the calendar so it doesn't get missed if it needs to happen on a specific day or at a specific time. I tend to put things with due dates there to ensure that they get done by a specific day or by a specific time.

Does that help?​

Derek
 
That is a good idea to put deadline items on my calendar. For a very simple example. Let's say I need to prepare for Halloween. This could be a project related to my daughter: try on costume, pull tights, shoes and long sleeve undershirt from her clothing, surf web for makeup ideas and choose one to use. If I need to make sure this all gets done by Halloween, how would I plan for this so that I'm not scrambling on Halloween morning?
 
For me this would depend on how projects are viewed. Since Prepare for Halloween seems pretty huge, maybe you are preparing for a Halloween Party or something more definitive. then, the actions of Try on Costume, get shoes, surf web for makeup ideas are all actions to be performed in the completion of the Prepare... project. There are two ways to see it, each action has a deadline: this way works if you are going to complete each item on a day leading up to the project deadline (Halloween) or The project has a deadline of Halloween and all the actions are sorted underneath that deadline as complete as soon as possible actions.

Both ways work, it depends on your reminder system and how you use it... If its digital and alerts you when things are due, maybe action deadlines works so you get a popup on your computer or phone as a reminder.

HTH

Derek
 
If an action or project has a hard deadline there is no question that this should be indicated - whether this is done in the calendar or in the list is mainly a matter of convenience (tool characteristics etc). If deadlines are not actually hard in themselves, but perhaps "indirecly hard" given the overall deadline, it has become evident that practices vary a lot. Many use deadlines for these, too. Personally I do not - I instead use a tri-color system where in my morning review (and weekly review) I mark actions red if they are "running dangerously late". This is quite a stable assessment (does not usually change), and makes it easy to spot these tasks in the list without requiring me to "guess" (or revise) any artificial dates.
 
campnbug said:
I did start doing things on my Next Actions lists but then realized that I should have been doing other actions because there are deadlines coming up.
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Didn't you notice these "other actions" during your Weekly Review?
 
Aha...the million dollar question. Planning -- how to do in GTD? By reviewing everything, you should be able to see what is coming up in the next week or two. For example...that major progress report is due in 5 days. As David Allen and senior coaches then suggest, make sure you have time on your calendar blocked off so that you can indeed complete this report. This may or may not mean you actually put an action on your calendar. If it is >1 hour, then it suggested that you do so. But if that makes you uncomfortable, then simply block time on your calendar and name it something. A tip I learned from my past university President was using the title "Desk time". What you decide to do in that protected time....well, that is your judgment call.
 
Longstreet, this is extremely helpful. I was reluctant to put actions that weren't due on a specific day on my calendar but that is where I start the day - I look at the calendar for what has to be done today. If the report is due in 5 days then I can put on my calendar the Next Action for that report a few days before the report is due so then I can meet the deadline. Would you mind clarifying your statement of "If it is >1 hour, then it suggested that you do so"?
 
You certainly need to have time for all kinds of things (e.g. contexts, projects, areas etc) - such as desk time, errand time, mail time, family time, sleeping time, eating time and so on. To what extent this needs to be quantified and mapped on your calendar is something that different people have very different views on. Some prefer to avoid it (I do), some prefer to map it.

If you allow me, I think I can clarify Longstreet's statement: the idea is that if something is small and quick it may not be equally necessary to explicitly reserve time for it. You might instead be able to do this task as part of a generic "desk time" or "admin" block. Or you may simply know in your bones that you must sit at your desk quite a bit most days (I do; just as I know I must eat and sleep, too).
 
Thank you. Both yours (Folke) and Longstreet's explanations have helped tremendously. This was an area I just couldn't grasp and now I see a way forward.
 
Yes, if we are talking about small next actions (1 hour), I block these specific actions onto my calendar. I do NOT remove them from my next actions lists because it is imperative that you be able to renegotiate if new, more important and urgent matters show up. They are still on my action lists and I can either delete them off of my calendar or simply reschedule. David Allen and the senior coaches wholeheartedly support the approach as I have described.
 
Another thing you can do that might help - and this, I believe, is textbook GTD, too, but I don't know which of the books - is to use the legendary "white index card" to plan today's actions. In other words, in your morning scan you pick all the actions that you aim to do today (or aim to consider doing) and put them on a sepeparate "index card". In apps this "index card" usually has the form of a "Focus list" (or "Starred" list, "Today" list etc). It is a simple way to make those selected actions visible both on the Next list and on this shorter and handier list. Depending on the app you are using, the items on this "starred" list can often be arranged into the order you expect to be doing them during the day - and if you change your mind you just "un-star" them and/or pick other actions from the Next list. I use this method for the fickle day-to-day, hour-to-hour prioritizations. (And I also use the tri-color system I mentioned earlier for my more permanent "urgency" classifications.)
 
campnbug said:
I do see the "other actions" in the weekly review but maybe I'm not doing the Weekly Review correctly. I'm following Meg Edwards guided weekly review from http://gettingthingsdone.com/2015/07...weekly-review/. I get all my Next Actions lists updated and get current but now how do I decide what to do and plan? What do you do in your Weekly Review that enables you to plan ahead?
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I'm wondering if maybe you have too many current projects/actions.

My preference--and I'm not saying that this is universal, it's purely my preference--is to have an absolute minimum of current projects. Everything else goes in two major levels of Someday--one for things that I will want to pick right up as soon as the current work is done, and one for more distant things. That's ignoring a sort of middle level of things that I can't/won't even start until a specific date, but that I want to be in the "pick right up" group once that date is reached.

So in your situation, if I realized that I was working on things that didn't have to be done before Halloween, and forgetting things for Halloween, I'd demote almost everything to Someday, and leave only the Halloween stuff, and of course other stuff that has to be done before Halloween, in my active lists. That's a large part of what I do in my Weekly Review--I promote what I'm actually likely to be able to touch that week, and I demote everything else.

Of course, this demotion/promotion of projects between Someday and Active can be difficult or easy depending on the tool. For my personal stuff, I use OmniFocus, where it's pretty easy. For my work stuff, I use a task manager that I wrote for myself. Both that task manager, and my arrangement of OmniFocus, are designed to make it really easy to move projects in and out of the active lists.

Again, this is just me. Others are able to function very well with much, much larger active lists.
 
campnbug said:
What do you do in your Weekly Review that enables you to plan ahead?
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I check if there are any time-sensitive Projects / Next Actions.

For each item that seems to be time-sensitive I ask a question:

"Really?"

Maybe I can delete it because I've changed my mind or it became unimportant?

Maybe I can consciously postpone it?

Ok. If I have to do it I block necessary time or I can color code it (Folke ;-) ).

After good Weekly Review you should be sure that no deadline hides on your lists unnoticed.
 
I agree with TesTeq: the level on which you assess the operational picture, ie. which projects have deadlines? which projects are most important? etc etc is on the steps of Organize and Review. When you switch over to Doing things, all this should be present at least to some extend. While Doing you are much more in the here and now and ask more in terms of: "OK, what can I get done now? How much time do I have? What energy level? etc etc" "What NA is a good fit for now?"
 
campnbug said:
I'm just not sure how to actually plan for what needs to be done.
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And one more thing that we had all overlooked, it seems, until Cpu_Modern touched upon it just now, is the fact that in GTD perhaps the most strongly recommended form of task selection is actually intuitively in the moment, in other words choosing from scratch while considering factors such as context, energy, time and priority. In other words, "planning" is not recessarily always required to that level of detail.

One of the best ways to get a lot done is to make the best use of whatever energy, mood, place, people, tools, time of day, day of the week, idle time etc you have available to you at that moment. It saves a lot of "context-switching" (time and effort) to do more things while you are "there". During the organization stage, it is perfecly possible to place actions at least in the right context, which is part of the GTD recommendation, and it can obviously be refined as far as you like, such that you have matching tasks conveniently at hand in virtually any type of situation you may find yourself in. It takes a bit of effort to think through what the meaningul contextual classifications would be in your case, but it saves a lot of time and confusion later.

If you manage to get in the habit of making efficient use of time, and knocking things off early, you will have much fewer urgent things (late things) to worry about (or "plan" for).
 
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