Hi,
Im new to these forums and in a way I suppose I am new to GTD. I read the book in 2009 and ever since I have attempted to implement GTD, so I am familiar with the principles and concept, albeit in a superficial way perhaps.
I am trying to develop a better me, as the one currently typing is not where he wants to be in life, but that is a different matter. I am not sure if you can help, but I assume a lot of you (most, if not all?) are far more advanced and experienced when it comes to this issue and have probably faced it yourself.
I am truly stuck taking action and after learning about GTD, goalsetting and so on, I am overwhelmed and take far less action than I previously did. I "suffer" from a severe case of perfectionism and so every little action, thought or idea needs to be filed, organized in an optimal system where I just press play and every little part gets connected and interconnected to every other part, goal and project.
So basically I just spend my days either staying as far away from planning and "organizing" as I can, or I fiddle around with Onenote, Outlook, Mindmeister and read a bunch online about how others have set up their system. Hell, right now there are five bags (small) of garbage in my doorway that have been there for two days because I am not sure how to track and record the fact that I just went and threw it out
Outlook works well for me as it syncs with my phone so I have all my tasks there. Stuff at the "runway" like pay this bill, go pick up X, talk to Y etc works fine, but when it comes to doing a mindsweep, processing and organizing projects, it just stops and I feel completely lost.
Here is an example of where I freeze up. One of my goals at the moment is to "become more confident" or "I am a confident person!" something like that. Then I start to think and complicate things...where should I actually put those words down? Do I put them on a onenote page? Do I add it in Outlook under a "goal" category, do I create a onenote section for each of my "areas of focus" and put it in there, do I just track it by itself on a separate projects list - but wait, If I do this, then how can I track that some action I did belonged to that project which in turn belonged to that goal? (the project is not yet defined..). Ok, so this never gets done and started on. If I had just decided on something, then the next problem is....time to do a brainstorming, but the exact same questions arise. Do I add a date so that I can later look back and track where I got the idea from? Do I put it in my journal? Do I copy and keep it in two places?...bah!
And finally, when it comes to mindsweeps I don't know where and how to track them, nor the items that comes out of a mindsweep and I always feel like I am starting over with the same "things on my mind" every time I sit down
I love Onenote or perhaps I love the potential of Onenote and I just recently discovered Mindjet, but these two don't speak well with each other. Outlook is a keeper for sure, since my phone is with me all the time and works very well for capture.
Ok, thanks in advance if anyone has any input or advice. I know you have probably dealt with stuff like this several times from newbies like me but please bare with me!
Thank you
John
Im new to these forums and in a way I suppose I am new to GTD. I read the book in 2009 and ever since I have attempted to implement GTD, so I am familiar with the principles and concept, albeit in a superficial way perhaps.
I am trying to develop a better me, as the one currently typing is not where he wants to be in life, but that is a different matter. I am not sure if you can help, but I assume a lot of you (most, if not all?) are far more advanced and experienced when it comes to this issue and have probably faced it yourself.
I am truly stuck taking action and after learning about GTD, goalsetting and so on, I am overwhelmed and take far less action than I previously did. I "suffer" from a severe case of perfectionism and so every little action, thought or idea needs to be filed, organized in an optimal system where I just press play and every little part gets connected and interconnected to every other part, goal and project.
So basically I just spend my days either staying as far away from planning and "organizing" as I can, or I fiddle around with Onenote, Outlook, Mindmeister and read a bunch online about how others have set up their system. Hell, right now there are five bags (small) of garbage in my doorway that have been there for two days because I am not sure how to track and record the fact that I just went and threw it out
Outlook works well for me as it syncs with my phone so I have all my tasks there. Stuff at the "runway" like pay this bill, go pick up X, talk to Y etc works fine, but when it comes to doing a mindsweep, processing and organizing projects, it just stops and I feel completely lost.
Here is an example of where I freeze up. One of my goals at the moment is to "become more confident" or "I am a confident person!" something like that. Then I start to think and complicate things...where should I actually put those words down? Do I put them on a onenote page? Do I add it in Outlook under a "goal" category, do I create a onenote section for each of my "areas of focus" and put it in there, do I just track it by itself on a separate projects list - but wait, If I do this, then how can I track that some action I did belonged to that project which in turn belonged to that goal? (the project is not yet defined..). Ok, so this never gets done and started on. If I had just decided on something, then the next problem is....time to do a brainstorming, but the exact same questions arise. Do I add a date so that I can later look back and track where I got the idea from? Do I put it in my journal? Do I copy and keep it in two places?...bah!
And finally, when it comes to mindsweeps I don't know where and how to track them, nor the items that comes out of a mindsweep and I always feel like I am starting over with the same "things on my mind" every time I sit down
I love Onenote or perhaps I love the potential of Onenote and I just recently discovered Mindjet, but these two don't speak well with each other. Outlook is a keeper for sure, since my phone is with me all the time and works very well for capture.
Ok, thanks in advance if anyone has any input or advice. I know you have probably dealt with stuff like this several times from newbies like me but please bare with me!
Thank you
John