staying in the first stages of GTD?

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suzanne1

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I started reading about GTD and implementing it 4 months ago.
I have 2 GTD systems with tickler file, projects, reference material,...: one at work and one at home.
Very enthousiastic about GTD but the problem I have is: I capture everything, but emptying my in-basket (at home I have 4 places with in-basket papers: kitchen, bathroom, ...) takes a lot of time: about an hour a day. I think that's a lot of time.
I have so many ideas (more creativity since GTD!), and stuff I want to do something with at home, that I'm so busy with collecting and clarifying that I don't come to the next GTD stages: reviewing my projects and think about the next actions, organise it, writing down reminders in my agenda,...

At office I have the problem that I don't find the time to empty my inbox. The day starts and people come in, there are a lot of meetings (some days whole day 6 meetings and no time to empty the inbox). And than the inbox gets fuller and fuller, and things stay there. What to do about it?
 
What would you do without GTD? Inevitably there comes the day when you have to stay late to get some pressing things done.

So, stay late and empty your inbox, see those 30 minutes you leave later from work as an investment in job security. Or better yet - come in earlier and start with emptying inbox. Makes for a good impression to be early at work and you avoid the traffic jam.
 
I have so many ideas (more creativity since GTD!), and stuff I want to do something with at home, that I'm so busy with collecting and clarifying that I don't come to the next GTD stages
Click to expand...

  • you can't do it all
  • get "clear": take 1-2 days to do a real, complete braindump
  • use your Someday/Maybe list
  • pick at least *one* project to make active
  • list its Next Action(s)
  • do
 
I do not think it is a lot of time...

suzanne1;75064 said:
I capture everything, but emptying my in-basket (at home I have 4 places with in-basket papers: kitchen, bathroom, ...) takes a lot of time: about an hour a day. I think that's a lot of time.
Click to expand...

I do not think it is a lot of time... It is the time needed to actively manage the things that take your attention. But you can throw it all away and forget about these creative ideas - just like before when you were not using GTD. :-)
 
Keep at it

Well first off I don't think an hour a day to process your inbox is at all excessive. Especially in the beginning. It takes about that amount of time to get all your thoughts and ideas processed. You will get faster but it will still take about that amount o f time because you'll start to have even more ideas. Just use the someday/maybe list or lists (some folks have several of them) to cull what you do.

I would however consolidate those 4 places to get all your papers in one single place. I collect in many places but I dump them all to a single inbox and process there. Trying to process 4 places is much harder.

On the work side I agree with others, take the time to really get totally clear even if it's working early or late for a bit and then try to keep up.

Most businesses are slow between Christmas and New Years, perhaps you can use more time then to clean out the work stuff?
 
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