Practical limits of capturing and processing everything?

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lucas3d

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I have had some success with GTD in the past, but I have run into some stumbling blocks. I have what I think would be fair to call a very active and creative mind, so when I start writing everything down, my lists quickly balloon with hundreds and hundreds (if not thousands) of items. The investment of time simply to capture and process everything is considerable, because new things occur to me pretty much all day. I also find that with the increased awareness that GTD brings me of my various tasks, I end up taking care of more of the little things that normally I would forget to do, so this also constitutes an increase in time investment. So, for me the upshot has tended to be (when using GTD as opposed to not using it):

--- Much more time spent on capturing and processing
--- Much more time spent on not-very-important but "urgent" items that otherwise I would have forgotten
--- Slightly less time spent on big, amorphous, but important projects (at least I think so -- I have not done precise tracking)
--- The vast majority of the items I capture end up forgotton in a snooze bin, because I simply can't find the time to review everything.

So, I end up wondering: is it really important for someone like me to capture everything? Or are there practical limits, whereby in order to get anything done we have let some stuff go uncaptured/unprocessed and focus on the important stuff?

I would be interested in any insights others might have on these dynamics.

(There are some other relevant threads, such as the following, but I figured that my specific set of questions/observations warranted a separate thread.)

http://gettingthingsdone.com/forum/f...jects-sm-s-etc

Edit: I just found another relevant thread. It is in the context of ADHD, which I do not have, but it does ask some of the same questions:

http://gettingthingsdone.com/forum/f...eone-with-adhd
 
Do you have any examples? I'm not saying that I can't think of plenty of examples of the kinds of things that you might mean, but I feel as if a list of, oh, ten wildly different examples might spark some specific conversation about how to deal with this category, that category, etc.
 
We are all different, but for me probably 50% to 75% is "work as it shows up", in other words interruptions, sudden inspiration etc. My lists therefore are not a true reflection of what I will do. I cannot predict that. And I am fine with that.

Second, I do not write everything down just because it occurs to me. I only write it down if I fear I might forget it. So, that reduces the lists even more. There are lots of things that I do, and know that I will be doing, without writing them down. This is not limited to stuff like brushing my teeth and reading books. Even some very important and urgent things are often left undocumented if I am enthusiastic enough about them and cannot imagine that I would ever forget.

I have thoughts and ideas coming probably once every few seconds, and I have grown accustomed to just letting them go with the wind until they have popped up again and again so many times that I think they are worthwhile to write down. If they are truly tempting and great I often try to do them asap instead, or write them down as a task or project just as a placeholder.

This may not be GTD. I leave that to others to judge.
 
If something comes to mind that I feel I might want to do/remember/think about in the future, I capture it. My weekly review is the first gatekeeper. When I review all of my notes and ideas that have migrated to my inbox, I sometimes decide that the idea is no longer with keeping. If I think it still might be of value, I file it.

My work life could easily be occupied by meetings and random things coming at me. Each day before I go home, I take a 3x5 card and pull a couple of items from my work list which I want to get done in the day ahead. That list keeps me on track during the day.
 
lucas3d said:
when I start writing everything down, my lists quickly balloon with hundreds and hundreds (if not thousands) of items.....
--- Much more time spent on capturing and processing
--- Much more time spent on not-very-important but "urgent" items that otherwise I would have forgotten
--- Slightly less time spent on big, amorphous, but important projects (at least I think so -- I have not done precise tracking)
--- The vast majority of the items I capture end up forgotton in a snooze bin, because I simply can't find the time to review everything.
Click to expand...
My initial reaction is that you are not using Someday/Maybe appropriately or perhaps at all. So over the course of a single day perhaps you capture 50-100 new items (that is pretty typical for me BTW). My capture tools are either paper and small notes, or notes using Siri that go directly to my Omnifocus Inbox.

I carry a notetaker wallet all the time and also have small 3x5 spiral bound notebooks and pens scattered everywhere, the bathroom, the kitchen, my desk my night stand and anyplace else that I might be and need to take a note. This is because I often run out of the notetaker wallet paper and need to jot something down right now. From experience, use a pencil for notes taken at night. If you write a note at night without turning on the light (so you don't wake up the spouse) using a pen you forgot to click open it's really hard to read the note later. I ended up using a pencil and doing a rubbing of the note and then shining a light across the paper to try to read it. It did work but was much harder than just using a pencil to begin with. ;-) Put one thought or idea per piece of paper. Use scratch paper if that helps you do it that way.

Now for processing. So I pick up the note, is it actionable. Which for me means can I realistically work on this right now or within this season, usually 3 months. If not then I put it on the appropriate Someday/Maybe lists. I've just reorganized that and now have a separate DEVONThink note for each craft area and put all potential projects for that area on the note. So a quick note about a cool knititng pattern I might try gets added to the Knitting Project To Do Someday note in DEVONThink. I usually retype the note into a computer, either Omnifocus for active projects, or DEVONThink for some types of Someday/Maybe projects but when I got started I set up a paper file folder that was labeled Someday/Maybe and just dropped each paper note into there. It's important to put only a single idea or thought per piece of paper or the paper sort method doesn't work well. Processing can go pretty wuickly once you get the hang of it.

Then, during your weekly review (you are doing at least a weekly review right?) Take the folde rof Someday/Maybe notes and decide if you need to work on any of them or perhaps you find a bunch that are related and can flesh out a project.

It takes time before the iniitial flood of ideas slows down to whatever is normal for you.When you first start using GTD your brain goes into overdrive because it finally has a trusted place to save everything so it tries to get everything out there and saved. At least that is what happened to me and what I hear about often. So just go with the flow and allocate more reviewing time for a while. You really need to spend the time to review or you will find yourself capturing the same thing over and over again.

It took me about a year before I got the flow down to what it is now.
 
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