I am surrounded by stuff. I could describe it, but to be honest… I don’t want to be honest on a publically accessible forum. It is pretty bad and stacks of paper abound. It is often ranked as the worst office seen, by casual observers.
I’m not bragging. This has been my work-style for my entire life. In college, challenged to find a silver dollar in my desk piles, I was able to thrust my hand into a stack and retrieve it in short order.
Successful at school and later at work, I compensated for this by having a good “sense” of what was where and an ability to churn out work when the crunch was on. Although supervisors would be critical of the appearance of my workspace, the work got done well … and so it was tolerated.
I would temporarily reform for a while and clear off desks and straighten up. But it was usually short-lived. Although I can work amidst clutter and even feel comfortable with it, I can’t say I like it. It is a horrible embarrassment and not what I would like to be known for.
At the beginning of this year I stumbled across some GTD concepts online that caught my interest and traced it back to the source and found Getting Things Done in our local bookstore. I’m generally skeptical about things, but this system has given me a small seed of hope.
I’ve read the book three times and various summaries on the web to ensure that I’m grasping the concepts. These are some of my first steps ... what I am trying to implement right now. Please tell me if I am heading in the wrong direction so I might avoid problems down the road.
I have been capturing thoughts pretty well… usually tasks that need doing or ideas that need follow-up using a pocketmod paper system. Everything is written down.
I have been entering NAs and Projects into an Excel spreadsheet, where only immediately do-able actions are showing on the NA list. I am also putting scheduled and tickler items on this list. Since it’s sortable and filtered, I can easily focus on dates or contexts.
I emptied the file drawer of my desk (stuff was in there from the 90’s) and I put in this new-found space a 43 folder system and an area for reference files behind those.
I set a wooden inbox on top of one of the smallest stacks and have habitually been putting new items in there and processing them daily. My work e-mail inbox has been emptied daily, as well, although my personal account is untouched.
I still am surrounded by stuff so that there is no way I could get everything into an inbox for processing… so THAT might be problematic. I intend on putting 3 inches of desk into the wooden box for processing when time and energy allows and continuing until all of it is eventually handled. I’ll move on to other cabinets, storage boxes, car and home in a similar fashion. Merlin Mann said somewhere a first step is to “Stop Sucking” and move on from there.
Weekly reviews at this point are mostly reviewing Next actions and Projects. I’m pretty good at adding and removing actions on a daily basis. I’m nowhere near getting all inboxes empty, so I think it might be a while before I’m brain scanning for things that need to be added to the system. I have been printing out hard copies of NA lists and Projects to keep with a paper calendar so I can review if not near my computer.
Hope is the biggest thing right now. As I implement this, I’m sure questions will arise… I’m grateful for this forum! I am trying to unlearn 50 years of bad habits, but it seems like GTD might be a great pattern to follow.
It’s less dangerous than gasoline and a match
.
--- Vinny
I’m not bragging. This has been my work-style for my entire life. In college, challenged to find a silver dollar in my desk piles, I was able to thrust my hand into a stack and retrieve it in short order.
Successful at school and later at work, I compensated for this by having a good “sense” of what was where and an ability to churn out work when the crunch was on. Although supervisors would be critical of the appearance of my workspace, the work got done well … and so it was tolerated.
I would temporarily reform for a while and clear off desks and straighten up. But it was usually short-lived. Although I can work amidst clutter and even feel comfortable with it, I can’t say I like it. It is a horrible embarrassment and not what I would like to be known for.
At the beginning of this year I stumbled across some GTD concepts online that caught my interest and traced it back to the source and found Getting Things Done in our local bookstore. I’m generally skeptical about things, but this system has given me a small seed of hope.
I’ve read the book three times and various summaries on the web to ensure that I’m grasping the concepts. These are some of my first steps ... what I am trying to implement right now. Please tell me if I am heading in the wrong direction so I might avoid problems down the road.
I have been capturing thoughts pretty well… usually tasks that need doing or ideas that need follow-up using a pocketmod paper system. Everything is written down.
I have been entering NAs and Projects into an Excel spreadsheet, where only immediately do-able actions are showing on the NA list. I am also putting scheduled and tickler items on this list. Since it’s sortable and filtered, I can easily focus on dates or contexts.
I emptied the file drawer of my desk (stuff was in there from the 90’s) and I put in this new-found space a 43 folder system and an area for reference files behind those.
I set a wooden inbox on top of one of the smallest stacks and have habitually been putting new items in there and processing them daily. My work e-mail inbox has been emptied daily, as well, although my personal account is untouched.
I still am surrounded by stuff so that there is no way I could get everything into an inbox for processing… so THAT might be problematic. I intend on putting 3 inches of desk into the wooden box for processing when time and energy allows and continuing until all of it is eventually handled. I’ll move on to other cabinets, storage boxes, car and home in a similar fashion. Merlin Mann said somewhere a first step is to “Stop Sucking” and move on from there.
Weekly reviews at this point are mostly reviewing Next actions and Projects. I’m pretty good at adding and removing actions on a daily basis. I’m nowhere near getting all inboxes empty, so I think it might be a while before I’m brain scanning for things that need to be added to the system. I have been printing out hard copies of NA lists and Projects to keep with a paper calendar so I can review if not near my computer.
Hope is the biggest thing right now. As I implement this, I’m sure questions will arise… I’m grateful for this forum! I am trying to unlearn 50 years of bad habits, but it seems like GTD might be a great pattern to follow.
It’s less dangerous than gasoline and a match
.--- Vinny
