From "Getting Things Done", Chapter 2:
"The 'Next Actions' lists I advocate will hold all those action reminders, even the most time sensitive ones".
Further on: "The way I look at it, the calendar should be sacred territory. If you write something there, it must get done that day or not at all".
I find this approach quite scary and (after six months of GTD) still struggle with it. I have a lot of actions which won't be completely valueless the next day but who's value will greatly decrease if they are not done ON that day e.g. customer quotations, production of orders, returning important calls. Speed and reliability, in my business, equals a quality service. I dare not put such urgent but not necessarily time critical items in the actions lists for fear that I will miss them and they will slip through the cracks - after all, there are many actions in my lists but the small number in the calendar can't really be missed. I admit however, that I do end up with mini to-do lists - against the principles of GTD - in my calendar and there is often enough work here to prevent me getting near my context lists.
I understand that DA is telling us to maintain "hard edges" in our "trusted system" and that requires that we respect the calendar as "sacred territory". It just seems to me that putting very time sensitive but not critical items in the action lists is an unnecessary risk and could end up lowering trust in the "trusted system".
So is what I'm doing such a problem? Am I preaching heresy? Or, am I (once again) missing something really obvious that you folks are going to point out to me?
"The 'Next Actions' lists I advocate will hold all those action reminders, even the most time sensitive ones".
Further on: "The way I look at it, the calendar should be sacred territory. If you write something there, it must get done that day or not at all".
I find this approach quite scary and (after six months of GTD) still struggle with it. I have a lot of actions which won't be completely valueless the next day but who's value will greatly decrease if they are not done ON that day e.g. customer quotations, production of orders, returning important calls. Speed and reliability, in my business, equals a quality service. I dare not put such urgent but not necessarily time critical items in the actions lists for fear that I will miss them and they will slip through the cracks - after all, there are many actions in my lists but the small number in the calendar can't really be missed. I admit however, that I do end up with mini to-do lists - against the principles of GTD - in my calendar and there is often enough work here to prevent me getting near my context lists.
I understand that DA is telling us to maintain "hard edges" in our "trusted system" and that requires that we respect the calendar as "sacred territory". It just seems to me that putting very time sensitive but not critical items in the action lists is an unnecessary risk and could end up lowering trust in the "trusted system".
So is what I'm doing such a problem? Am I preaching heresy? Or, am I (once again) missing something really obvious that you folks are going to point out to me?