Know what actually to do! What does doing look like???

Yaaqoub7 said:
My trouble has always been with getting myself to do things -- tackling difficult, boring, complex, or intimidating tasks, or just getting myself to work on anything at all.
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Article I just read that might be of interest:

Use Productive Procrastination to Start a Daunting Task​

...structured procrastination. Get out your to-do list (or make one) and pick another task that you need to start, but keep putting off. The key is finding something you’re dreading less than your primary project—enough that you’d be willing do it if it meant postponing your main assignment.

For example, if you’re avoiding doing your taxes, you can spend some time churning out a bunch of emails that are important, but you never to get around to sending.
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Ref: “Use Productive Procrastination to Start a Daunting Task.” 2023. Lifehacker. September 16, 2023. https://lifehacker.com/use-productive-procrastination-to-start-a-daunting-task-1850845462.
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I've been meaning to return to this thread and share some more serious thoughts. I do have them from time to time.

I see a lot of analysis paralysis in these forums. Since some of that has come from me, that's an observation and not a value judgement.

I remember @DavidAllen saying that some of the people most attracted to GTD are those who are already successful and high-performing because they're looking for something that can help them stay that way without blowing a gasket (admittedly, the phrasing is mine and not Allen's but I think got the gist of it). Then you've got people like me who have always had trouble doing things, hoping GTD could help us become one of those high performers.

Here's the problem for people like me: GTD can't make you want to do things. No one and nothing can do that for you. So it's out of scope for GTD.

My own journey to clearing away internal roadblocks involved abandoning any semblance of "doing GTD" for a couple years. Yeah, I was keeping stuff in my head, letting things fall through the cracks, all that stuff. It was still the right thing for me during that time.

While I've derived a lot of value from GTD I'm actually going to take issue with Allen in one respect. I've heard Allen say at least once that if you're severely depressed, maybe you need to clarify all of your commitments. In other words, maybe the path out of depression is GTD. I can tell you that my own mental health journey has included bouts of depression and other issues I would not want to reveal here. And GTD was of no help. None. I needed medical help. Talk therapy. Other things that, again, I'm not inclined to reveal here.

It turns out I couldn't get full value from the material comprising GTD until I dealt with the things that were keeping me stuck. Irrational fears. Distorted thinking. An inability to be honest with myself.

The funny thing is that it's easy to do things. Decide on an outcome, decide on an action, and then do that action. If it turns out it wasn't the right action, you've learned something you can apply the next time you have a similar outcome you need or want to achieve. Over time, your mistakes will guide you to future successes.

If you're wondering how to organize something in your GTD system, try it one way. If it doesn't work for you, try it another. Over time, trial and error will guide you toward your goal of a mind like water.

(As an aside, I find my thinking regarding GTD changes as I do. So I let my system change in response. Sometimes it takes time to get the system to align with those changes. Discomfort is part of a life well-lived, or at least I believe it is.)

Unfortunately, for some of us it's really difficult to learn that doing things doesn't have to be that difficult. It was the case for me.

I hope someone, somewhere got some value out of this. If not, I can at least take solace in the fact that I smarted off at David Allen in two previous comments and also provoked @mcogilvie into writing about flatulence in a GTD forum. Both of those align with my life's purpose.
 
bcmyers2112 said:
In other words, maybe the path out of depression is GTD. I can tell you that my own mental health journey has included bouts of depression and other issues I would not want to reveal here. And GTD was of no help. None. I needed medical help. Talk therapy.
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Getting retooled to consistently escape depression is how I thought of it when my practitioners were giving me training in those mental health methods. GTD happened to be a way for me to use these tools after my practitioner taught me those other techniques. I needed more than GTD in my tool box to deal with it.

The interesting thing about my discussion of GTD tools with my various practitioners is they thought the GTD skills were useful: decide what something means to me, ask myself am I in an appropriate relationship with this, ask myself what is the appropriate relationship and a single step to start moving me there. They helped me integrate the tools they were training me to use into my GTD system customizations.

So without those practitioners, I would have struggled and without GTD I would have struggled to integrate the practitioners advice. I'm better off having all of those tools.

Clayton.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
 
cfoley said:
I had two days recently where I found it very difficult to do anything.

On the first day, I was totally stuck. I just couldn't seem to do anything at all. Eventually, I decided to take the pressure off myself for the day. I decided that if I could do just one action, that I could call it a win. I looked at my context list and chose the easiest, quickest thing and focussed on it. I felt a little bit better when I completed it. Not much better, just a little bit better. Then I thought about what to do next. I could stop for the day. After all, I had already given myself permission to stop, but I decided to do one more action. I chose another quick one. It wasn't easy to do but I focussed on just that one action, completed it and felt a little bit better again. I kept going like this for a few hours and managed to complete a reasonable amount. Don't get me wrong, it was not my most productive day ever. Each action was a struggle and I certainly did not reach a state of flow, but I achieved more and felt a lot better about myself than if I had given up, or spent the day refreshing my email.

It is very unusual for me to have days like that, but when it does happen, it is very useful to have my thinking done already with a list of actions at hand. What happens more commonly for me is that a particular project gets stuck. This brings me to the second day. I caught myself procrastinating on the next action that I had chosen to do. I know that this often means that the next action is too large, so I took a piece of paper and broke that action down into smaller parts. I got really granular. Start computer. Launch software. Open file. Etc. I also thought about other actions that might be needed and wrote them down too as granularly as possible. Now it was really easy to get started and build some momentum. Some of those actions turned out to be wrong but that wasn't a problem. They were easy enough to discard.

I certainly feel that GTD helped me to make progress despite some internal struggles on those occasions. Are these the sorts of things that you had in mind with your question?
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While GTD listed or unlisted, it often helps on this end to realize that 'doing nothing' is really doing something while actually, perhaps subconsciously, preferring to do something else.

Hopefully through this subtle realization one might find sufficient clarification(s) to make it encouragingly easier to move oneself from 'doing nothing' to doing something else, as seemingly small as 'doing nothing', as a productive help to do a something else GTD listed or unlisted that helps/grows in doing additional something 'elses' on one's sufficiently attractive GTD lists as one's previously non-funked motivated concern(s)?

As any other GTDer's might also see as a worthy consideration?
 
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schmeggahead said:
GTD happened to be a way for me to use these tools after my practitioner taught me those other techniques.
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Hey, if GTD was instrumental in your recovery then that’s your truth. And I wouldn’t presume to tell you you’re wrong.

All I can tell you is that in my case, I was a perfectionist who just saw GTD and everything on my lists as more things I would “fail” at if I ever dared to try consistently. Until I changed that mindset, GTD was of no use to me.

That’s what I mean about “analysis paralysis.” It’s ok to be analytical, to be detail-oriented, to be a planner. But when those things cross the line from supporting you to being excuses not to do things, there’s a problem.

With GTD, David Allen discovered how the game is played. But he can’t make you want to play it. No one can.

To me, doing is as simple as this: decide you want to make happen, then decide what to do to make it happen, and then do it. If it was the wrong thing, make adjustments and try again.

And in my experience, doing with GTD just means doing the above more consistently, rigorously and effectively than we’re used to.

If I tell myself anything else, it’s usually self-sabotage rearing it’s ugly head again.

But that’s me. YMMV.
 
bcmyers2112 said:
Hey, if GTD was instrumental in your recovery then that’s your truth. And I wouldn’t presume to tell you you’re wrong.

All I can tell you is that in my case, I was a perfectionist who just saw GTD and everything on my lists as more things I would “fail” at if I ever dared to try consistently. Until I changed that mindset, GTD was of no use to me.

That’s what I mean about “analysis paralysis.” It’s ok to be analytical, to be detail-oriented, to be a planner. But when those things cross the line from supporting you to being excuses not to do things, there’s a problem.

With GTD, David Allen discovered how the game is played. But he can’t make you want to play it. No one can.

To me, doing is as simple as this: decide you want to make happen, then decide what to do to make it happen, and then do it. If it was the wrong thing, make adjustments and try again.

And in my experience, doing with GTD just means doing the above more consistently, rigorously and effectively than we’re used to.

If I tell myself anything else, it’s usually self-sabotage rearing it’s ugly head again.

But that’s me. YMMV.
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@bcmyers2112,

GTD agree with: "To me, doing is as simple as this: decide you want to make happen, then decide what to do to make it happen, and then do it. If it was the wrong thing, make adjustments and try again."

However, with all due respect, while all about perpetually trying on this end, sometimes a GTD three-fold: "decide . . . decide . . . do. . . ." can be overwhelmingly daunting [like when finding oneself in one of life's overwhelmingly 'fun; quagmires?] on this end and therefore, hopefully respectfully, posted the above as just one possible way getting through/beyond "doing nothing" . . . at least on this end

Sometimes to just get the GTD train moving as effortlessly as possible is the most crucial Next [less than two-minutes all the better] Action?

As all GTDer's respectfully sees fit
 
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bcmyers2112 said:
Hey, if GTD was instrumental in your recovery then that’s your truth. And I wouldn’t presume to tell you you’re wrong.
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@bcmyers2112 I am agreeing with you. I needed professionals to give me tools to help with my particular ilk of need.

My point was that the GTD skills I had worked on before were also instrumental in helping me be successful after I obtained non-GTD based capabilities. My practitioners realized I had these skills and they realized the two skill sets could work synergistically to help.

Your experience is equally your truth. My thoughts were to build on your experience and expand options for those reading the posts.

bcmyers2112 said:
With GTD, David Allen discovered how the game is played. But he can’t make you want to play it. No one can.
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There is something about the game of life, by living, we play it. Playing includes pausing, consciously or without being aware. Checking out is a choice and is actually living. People have their on valuation of checking out. I've played life by choosing not to choose. It was indeed the best choice at the time because the only choices I saw were not as good as inaction.

Inaction is ok and it is playing the game. I call it playing the pauses.
bcmyers2112 said:
To me, doing is as simple as this: decide you want to make happen, then decide what to do to make it happen, and then do it. If it was the wrong thing, make adjustments and try again.
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If ever there was a distillation of the GTD methodology, this summary is it.

My understanding of GTD has taken me down some very unproductive experiences that taught me things. So maybe they weren't so unproductive upon retrospect. It just derailed things for a bit.

bcmyers2112 said:
And in my experience, doing with GTD just means doing the above more consistently, rigorously and effectively than we’re used to.
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This is why my practitioner saw the synergistic value: it would help me implement what they had taught me consistently.

Much in these posts have resonated with me and I feel lucky to have had some many good synergistic interactions to help me move into a more enabling space.

Avoiding self-sabotage is a very important endeavor. I remember a quote that help me to discover it in one specific form that my well remembered friend said, "Email has no emotion." Maybe posts here are the same. Below is my favorite entry in 365 zen.
Clayton

A man was rowing his boat upstream on a very misty morning. Suddenly, he saw another boat coming downstream, not trying to avoid him. It was coming straight at him. He shouted, "Be careful! Be careful!" but the boat came right into him, and his boat was almost sunk. The man became very angry, and began to shout at the other person, to give him a piece of his mind. But when he look closely, he saw that there was no one in the other boat. - Thich Nhat Hanh
 
schmeggahead said:
My thoughts were to build on your experience and expand options for those reading the posts.
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Let me try this again: there is an extent to which our experiences differ, but yours are just as valid as mine or anyone else's. And they're just as worth sharing.

All good?

schmeggahead said:
Inaction is ok and it is playing the game. I call it playing the pauses.
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Oh, absolutely. Inaction can be self-care. Or it can be a rational choice in the face of something we can't control or influence.

In my case, however, consistent inaction on many fronts over a period of decades has had serious consequences. Loss of jobs, failure to achieve goals that meant a lot to me, significant financial consequences, and more. It negatively impacted my quality of life.

Based on comments I've read in these forums for the last decade, I am far from alone. And I think it's unfortunate, because I know the pain of chronic avoidance. And now that I've started learning, bit by bit, to engage with my life in an appropriate way, I know the good feelings that can create.
schmeggahead said:
This is why my practitioner saw the synergistic value: it would help me implement what they had taught me consistently.
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I'm glad your practitioner saw the value, and I'm glad it helped.
 
Respectfully with all due objective respect . . . in the spirit of GTD rigorous analysis/reasoning . . . real corporal "inaction" . . . much less so spiritually . . . is when the ticker (vs. tickler) stops ticking?

All GTD corrections/feedback GTD welcomed

GTD thank you very much
 
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