Staying on top of backlog

ChristinaSkaskiw

ChristinaSkaskiw

0
After many years of practicing GTD, I still end up creating backlog and the feeling of a dark cloud hanging over me. It's not that I haven't done the up-front decisions or clarifications that otherwise can be the source for procrastinating, it's simply boring stuff that needs to get done during any day, competing with many other more compelling things to engage with. Including rest and recreation.

The stuff I'm talking about are bills, other financial mail, tax returns, time reporting, food planning for grocery shopping, processing email, and the like. I may have a little more of that stuff than the average person. My husband and I used to have our own company and we've moved around a bit, even lived abroad for five years, and currently we're building a house, which brought with it building permit paper work and a slew of additional bills and other admin. So fingers crossed, after we're moved in and settled, less stuff should be coming in.

I've tried putting time blocks in my calendar. I've tried coming home early on a Wednesday (flexible working hours) to do the week's admin, but find I struggle with leaving the office on time and don't get enough time to complete it all. Currently, I'm experimenting with doing a little bit every morning before work, which seems to work better, but I like being at work early too, so it's an emotional conflict. In general, I find I don't *commit* to the time blocks due to some inner rebellion of not wanting to deal with the stuff.

I guess it's down to discipline and commitment. Does anybody have any good tricks to help motivate yourself with getting "have to's" done?

Best wishes for a great 2016!

Christina
 
I can handle the incoming e-mails and bills and all that stuff my ongoing bugaboo is house cleaning. I tend to binge clean, wait till I can't stand it and then go all out. Not a good solution. If you've got ideas on that let me know.

On the food planning I do have a suggestion. I made recipe cards with the major main dishes and special sides we like to eat. Not the recipes themselvs, just a reference to them or just the name of the dish when it's things I cook by heart. We get veges once a week on Friday from a local farmer and I never know exactly what he will have available so I don't know what vegetables we'll get most weeks. What I was doing was on Friday after picking up vegetables I'd pull 8 main dish cards and any special side dishes out that I wanted to make that week. We raise all of our own meat animals and freeze the meat so after picking out the dishes I'd pull the meat we needed from the freezer. Then I'd decide that day, usually at noon what I was making but sometimes not even them. When I didn't get the meat out I have some go to meals I can take from frozen meat to dinner on the table in 45 minutes. I also often make extras, so we made a poblano relleno lasagne (no pasta use the chiles as the noodles) that I cut into portions and froze so I can microwave them for a quick meal, just add salsa, chips and a beverage. I have taco meat already cooked and spiced and usually have spaghetti sauce made as well. There is also a local chef who makes "fast food" as frozen meals, mutton curry stews, empanadas and more that are great and she uses our own sheep. I bake the chicken wings all at once after we butcher and then can just microwave them plus add rice and salad. I have 8 meals out so if I don't feel like cooking one of them I have no worries. I got away from doing that over the last 6 months but it was a great way to handle the planning. Now I pretty much know what we're going to get as veges so I just plan on pulling out meat once or twice a week so it can thaw and make the final decisions on how to cook it when I start the meal.

E-mail is also one I have problems with. My tactic was to modify how I handle it and create separate folders for waiting for e-mails and for e-mails that are action support. I put a link to those mails within my list manager in the action item I am either going to do or waiting for. Once a week at weekly review I check those 2 folders for anything that is done or needs attention. The other big one was to create a someday/maybe folder for e-mails. Things to read go there, classes to take that are on-line and with no set schedule, really anything that I didn't want to just delete but also didn't want to file as reference because I hadn't done it or even totally decided to do it. I realized that a lot of my backlog in my e-mail inbox was stuff like that, either action support, waiting for or someday/maybe stuff. Now I can process my e-mails pretty much daily with some hanging on for 2 days and it's a lot cleaner.
 
ChristinaSkaskiw said:
In general, I find I don't *commit* to the time blocks due to some inner rebellion of not wanting to deal with the stuff.

I guess it's down to discipline and commitment.
Click to expand...

Yes, yes - everything you said! I've tried it all, time blocking, getting up early, staying up late. Mostly I reorganize & cull my lists whenever I can't stand the mess (like Oogie's approach to house cleaning ;)). I still resist the mundane but necessary tasks, and the resistance weighs me down emotionally.

One thing that has been helping slightly is to bring in a sense of gratitude, and the higher altitudes - I'm grateful for my home, so will take some time to care for it; I take the time to plan healthy meals because the health of my family is a value I hold dear. I monitor my investment accounts because I'm grateful to have them, and value the upcoming retirement lifestyle they'll contribute to...

Meal planning-
Is done once a week before the weekly grocery run. I have a simple word template that I keep on top of the fridge, and write in breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks for the week (I have 2 kids in school so snacks are important). I also jot down medical appointments, evening activities, etc (copied from my digital calendar). This template goes on the fridge and serves as the family's organizer for the week.

As we make recipes, we put them into Pepperplate.com (online, free, ios and web). This greatly simplifies the 'where is that yummy pork meatball recipe I used to make?' question as I no longer have to scan recipe cards, cookbooks, or paper printouts. I can also tag recipes (ie favourite, summer, casserole, slow cook, etc) to facilitate searching. It takes awhile to build it up, but after using it for a year it's now a real time saver. An 'untried' category tracks recipes I'd like to try (all I save is the title, the URL, and the category - I don't waste time entering details for something I may never make!) And if I'm home late, my husband knows where to find the appropriate recipe(s)...

For email-
I have a 'Blogs' folder where I move my subscriptions until I have time to read them. I don't think I'll ever clear that list! Someday/maybe is not in email, it's in Evernote, so I may forward email there. Other than that, I process email like Oogie. And I turn off most Facebook notifications, and all notifications from other social media channels.
 
Oh, do I know exactly what you're going through! Too many moving pieces and too little time. I've had the same road blocks, too. I've set aside time for backlog but when the time came I just couldn't knuckle down and get it done.

When it gets really bad, I use the buddy system. I'll call a really busy friend who finds herself in the same predicament and we make a date of it either at my place or at a great little coffee house in the neighborhood. We pack a big bag with "that" thing we can't get done and together we work, and work, and work until one of us throws up the white flag. I've always gotten far more done on backlog this way than I could have on my own. The accountability helps soooooo much. I've also done this with another friend who is out of state. We keep Skype on so we can see each other and stay connected.

When planning and will-power aren't enough, you've got to find those little tricks that work for you.

Dena
 
How funny, Oogie and Jodie, that you both picked up on the food planning. We've been talking about at work, too. It's very common here in Sweden that you bring a cooked lunch to work, and people cook double amounts for dinner so they can have a "lunch box" for work. One of my intentions for 2015 was to improve my experience with all that and had some success. I think one thing that makes it hard is that there are so many choices. Oogie, you seem to have made it easier by already having decided on the main ingredients up-front. One thing I've tried was to decide on the protein source for each day of the week, like beans on Mondays, beef mince on Tuesdays, etc., but what happened was that I tended to create more food than we'd eat, and I had no good way for making use of left-overs. I've tried setting a theme for the week, like Mexican one week, Indian the next, and so on, but then we'd have rice every day. (Obviously, there are countries in this world where that's normal, but it didn't work for me :-) ) We've had long stretches of soups for dinner, but that didn't provide for lunch boxes. So my latest inspiration is tapas and by that I mean having all sorts of food at hand (sallads, veggies, dips, bread, soup, cheeses, cold cuts, quiches, left overs) and simply put out a spread. It's fun! And for lunches we can take something and add a pre-cooked filet of salmon or chicken breast to make it more substantial. (We have no kids to feed.)

Dena, I like your buddy system and I agree that accountability is helpful! Food for thought.

After I'd posted yesterday, I listened to the In Conversation with Tiago Forte. He had found that tracking his productivity had helped him stay motivated because he wanted good quality data. He tracked number of action steps completed in a week, which got him to do the weekly review so he could make sure he had checked off everything he had done. Whatever works!
(If you're interested: https://vimeo.com/80968838)
 
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