Cognitive Avoidance
Also keep an eye on when we avoid looking at things nonconsciously, or unconsciously, if you will.
You'll notice this when things just "slip your mind", or if you "just ran out of time", or if "something else came up".
Cognitive Avoidance is really a tricky and a fascinating subject.
It can also be found when we decide that a certain list structure "isn't good enough", and we reorganize more lists, mainly as a way of AVOIDING doing what we have already decided we wanted to do!
What i am mentioning here, for my own and others benefit, is that we can AVOID doing what we say that we want to do, but we can also unconsciously avoid doing things, without even realizing it, or only realizing it after the fact. And this can keep recurring repeatedly, in a circular fashion. All of us have this BLIND SPOT.
Sometimes our lists can actually enable this!
We might say, "well i want to connect more with my relatives, so i will make this list of calls with their names on it".
Then guess what?
We feel better about making this list with the INTENT to take action in an area, but the days-weeks go by, and the calls don't get made. Or we make make the first round of calls, but do we follow-up regularly over time, or do we slide back into our old unconscious habits which created the trouble in the first place?
In this way the lists CAN work in a negative way, as you FEEL you are doing something, but you really are not.
So of course a list is better than pure denial, but i am still working on the best method to translate some of these good intentions, in VERY SPECIFIC AREAS, into the Behavior, and then following up this behavior over time, REPEATEDLY.
I hope i am being clear here. I am not talking about things that we have no resistance to. These just get done. I am talking about TOUGH STUFF. As in,
"i need to call my brother, and then discuss with him his alcoholism, and try to figure out a way to persuade him to get into treatment before he damages his childrens lives"
or, dealing with things like Rejection, Prospecting over time, difficult personal issues, debt issues, quitting smoking, drinking, marriage problems, etc.
The danger might be that huge lists could take the place of clutter!
I would be VERY interested to see of there are others who continue to find themselves avoiding things, over time, even using the GTD methodology. Change the details if you want for privacy concerns, but my gut tells me this is a huge problem, in any system of Self Management.
Another example that pops into my mind is this. I know one woman, who had a very poor relationship with her father growing up. Now as an adult, she wants to begin to talk things through with him. Now, they get together once or twice, and right BEFORE they get into the real painful issues, they both get "too busy", there is a "snowstorm and they have to cancel", now one person has to move, etc etc etc. It just becomes a series of unconscious excuses to avoid the PAIN that will arise in a genuine emotional interchange. And guess what? The weeks become months become years. It just hurts too much.
The "good intention" of planning on working it out, and then writing it down and "making an effort" to get together, is the VERY MECHANISM which facilitates the avoidance and procrastination! For if nothing was "being planned" then the person would feel GUILT and anxiety over the fact they are not "doing anything" about their problem, but the guilt is assuaged by the alleged "plan", which conveniently never gets executed, with allows the avoidance of the painful stimulus to continue. Do you get me? They DO NOT SEE THIS. They see it as they have the best of intentions, and are TRYING to work it out, but events are conspiring against them.
In this case, having a list and a plan, is in reality making things worse, by allowing a person to feel like they are "doing something" when nothing is really being done.
This is the kind of issue i am talking about. Personal, and Professional.
I think this is very important stuff, at least to me.
Anyone else expererience this, or similar, or contrary?
Coz