Struggling with GTD reviews

ArunM

Registered
I have been practicing GTD for exactly a year and at this point my whole life runs on GTD. I use Notion for my projects and next actions. I now have 64 projects on going and 69 in someday maybe. I do reviews religiously every weekend and typically lasts about 2 hours.

I have a daughter who is 5 and I regularly do some form of physical exercise and work as a programmer and count myself as a continuous learner.. So I have a busy schedule however I have a good perspective on my situation and understand that there are people who have much much more busy lives that I do. I am putting this out there to give a perspective on the type of life the I lead.

Off late I have found that I am struggling with reviews.I get a feeling of this being a "chore". GTD has made a big difference to my life and efficiency and the difference it has made to my life is clearly visible. So I am keen to remove this friction which has been creeping up so that I can align my GTD process in such a way that it can be something I do not feel an inertia to do. I follow the review system that has been recommended by this episode in GTD podcast.

I have identified 2 main issues with my reviews.

Issue No: 1 -
During my review I tend to spend the first half hour emptying my inbox which is a google Keep List. This is the only time in the week that I tend to empty my inbox. I know David recommends to clear inbox every 2 to 3 days. This is something that I am working on. My idea is that when I sit for a review the inbox should be fully processed.


Issue No: 2 I guess the fact that I have 69 ongoing project means that there are projects where I cannot do things much during a week.This means that there are projects which come across regularly in my review for which I have a next actions set but I just have not been able to get to them for quite some time. I do move some of them to a someday maybe if I feel I will not get to them anytime soon. But I think seeing these projects which I am not able to get to is maybe having an "psychic weight" effect on me.

I would really appreciate if experienced GTD'ers in the community can offer any suggestion to me to remove the friction in my GTD reviews. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thank you for your time.
 

mickdodge

Registered
But I think seeing these projects which I am not able to get to is maybe having an "psychic weight" effect on me.
I had the exact same problem when I first started. The overwhelming "weight" of feeling I have so many tasks/projects I need to complete.

I had to learn to limit my work-in-progress and prioritize the most important/valuable projects, move some out of site to Someday/Maybe with due date reminders, and delete many of them because I couldn't realistically see myself ever setting time aside for them. If I'm reviewing the same project (or task) for several weeks and I'm not moving forward on it, I have to ask myself, "Is this truly something I need/want to do? Why am I avoiding this project/task?" If I've neglected it for awhile, maybe it really isn't something that adds any value for me or maybe it's just not a priority right now so I can come back to it later. To use Dominica DeGrandis term, they become "zombie" projects "low-value projects that are barely alive." These projects need to be removed to free up my time and resources. I also learned to tell myself that I'm one person and can only accomplish a finite number of tasks any given day, week, month, or year. It's okay if I don't get to everything, so long as I'm doing the right things for me now. Prioritizing your projects also ties heavily into your Horizons of Focus. Take time to work through your Horizons so you have a compass to guide your project level priorities.
 

thomasbk

Registered
When it comes to clearing your email in-box, is your weekly review the only time you look at it? If so, I can understand it gets backed up since your last review. But if you're in your inbox regularly, and leaving the Clarifying step until your weekly review, then you're touching your email more than is necessary. When David says clear out the inbox every 2 to 3 days, I don't think he meant in one fell swoop. If you're regularly processing your email, then it's not such a heavy lift when it's time for your weekly review. Otherwise, having read an email but not doing anything with it is likely causing an open loop for you and adding to the psychic weight.

As far as not advancing every one of your projects each week, that probably means your system is working for you. It's one thing if there are deadlines that you're missing. Otherwise, GTD helps you decide what to do right now and feel good about your decision. When deciding what to do next, we look at 1) the context, 2) available time, 3) available energy, and 4) priority. The first three are quantifiable, but the last one is your intuition. There are reasons you chose to advance some projects last week and not others. Don't make yourself feel bad that you didn't work on every single project. It's not called Getting Everything Done. Instead, congratulate yourself and feel good that your system is working. :)
 

Cpu_Modern

Registered
I agree with @thomasbk your projects list is not meant to be a catalogue of all things that you want to touch during the arbitrary time frame of seven days ie a week.

Maybe you need to clarify more. What is realistic? What are you really trying to accomplish?
 

ArunM

Registered
I also learned to tell myself that I'm one person and can only accomplish a finite number of tasks any given day, week, month, or year. It's okay if I don't get to everything, so long as I'm doing the right things for me now. Prioritizing your projects also ties heavily into your Horizons of Focus. Take time to work through your Horizons so you have a compass to guide your project level priorities.

Yes. I do need to set my expectations appropriately and need to manage my expectation based on my energy levels as well. I struggled with this when I was in the starting phases of GTD, It is good to be reminded of this again.

As for horizons of focus, my GTD system is still at Horizon 0 & 1 (Ground Calendars/Actions/Current Projects). I have mapped on my Horizon 2 (Area of focus) as well but to be honest I probably can do better at incorporating this into my system.

I do not have any sort of mechanisms in my system for the the higher horizons(1 to 2 year goals,Long term Vision, Life). It is very difficult to map things out at those levels. So I am hoping that as my GTD system gets better I will get more and more change to ask questions at those higher horizons.

I will search the forums to find good ideas for managing the higher horizons. Thank you for your time and inputs.
 

ArunM

Registered
When it comes to clearing your email in-box, is your weekly review the only time you look at it? If so, I can understand it gets backed up since your last review. But if you're in your inbox regularly, and leaving the Clarifying step until your weekly review, then you're touching your email more than is necessary. When David says clear out the inbox every 2 to 3 days, I don't think he meant in one fell swoop. If you're regularly processing your email, then it's not such a heavy lift when it's time for your weekly review. Otherwise, having read an email but not doing anything with it is likely causing an open loop for you and adding to the psychic weight.
I use google keep list to do my capture. Any action items I get from the email mainly go into the google keep list or is added into my GTD system immediately if it is priority. At present my capture system is basically that any thought, idea or action that come up I immediately add it into my google keep list. I usually only do this into my system at the time of weekly reviews. So this was getting too big for me and typically took 30 - 45 mins away from my review time. I plan to get into the habit of looking at this list every 2 - 3 days so that at the time of weekly review I can start my review straight away.

When deciding what to do next, we look at 1) the context, 2) available time, 3) available energy, and 4) priority. The first three are quantifiable, but the last one is your intuition. There are reasons you chose to advance some projects last week and not others. Don't make yourself feel bad that you didn't work on every single project. It's not called Getting Everything Done. Instead, congratulate yourself and feel good that your system is working. :)

Thank you for this. This is the biggest gap in my GTD practice. I am not aligned to my system yet. The capture and 2 mins rule are ingrained into me now. What I would like to happen next for me is to choose things from my actions list. I know this is very obvious but I think it takes practice. On any normal day I have caught myself drifting and doing things without intention. It will be awesome when this stops happening and instead of being mindless I sort of ask myself what my context is and also what my energy levels and choose some action from my list. I remember a podcast in which David says that it usually takes people 2 years to internalise GTD so I have one more year. :)

Thank you for your time.
 

ArunM

Registered
I timed my review for fun and found that It takes me around 2 hours to do the review. Below are my findings.

Collect from sources & Get Inbox to zero - 25 mins
Mental Collection - What are the things that are bothering me and in my mind -10 mins
Review next actions list - 20 mins
Calendar review - 15 mins
Review Projects list and larger outcomes - 1 hour
Go nuts [Any new wonderful hair raising, though provoking, risk taking ideas] - I did not do this.

Optional things

Areas of focus - I did not review this. But this is optional and I do not intend to do this every week.

Thanks to the community for the helpful suggestions. Making some adjustments to my attitude while doing the review has definitely helped and they do not seem a ""chore any more. I also celebrated one year of doing weekly reviews today. :)
 
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ArunM

Registered
While doing the review, I have noticed that I am reluctant to do the Go nuts [Any new wonderful hair raising, though provoking, risk taking ideas] section

I guess the internal reasoning behind this is that since I have lots of stuff going on I do not have flexibility to do these kind of activities there. There is always this feeling of having limited bandwidth and a lot of commitments.

Do experienced folks here do this stage of the review religiously. Any suggestions for me would be appreciated.
 

ianfh10

Registered
Little late to the party but a practice I've found helpful is to empty inboxes (for me: outlook - email, Intray - paper, OneNote Intray - meeting notes, thoughts, scribbles, etc., MS To Do - tasks/ideas/thoughts/agenda items) in small chunks throughout the day. Finished a task but 5 minutes to go before lunch? Inbox zero. Ten minutes between meetings? Inbox zero.

As a failsafe I have a 15 minute daily review blocked off in my calendar at the end of every day to catch anything. My system is virtually paper-free so I'm able to do it on my commute home.

Then, when I get to my weekly review, I do little, if any, zeroing, and can get right into the current and creative phases of the review. Plus, getting creative doesn't mean you should pressure yourself into writing the next great American novel. For me this might be reviewing my own workflows for efficiency, looking into a new app that might serve me, thinking about anything I might have come into contact this week I want to explore, reviewing actions and somedays if they spark other ideas etc etc.

I think it's easy to think of dipping into your inboxes like this as not strictly 'doing' GTD because your time is supposed to have been freed up by your system, but defining your work is certainly work itself, and you need to keep the system consistently well-oiled otherwise it won't work, or at worst, will overwhelm you.

This is for my work life only, however. I don't think I could go 2-3 days without zeroing my inbox because I'd likely miss something and stuff would start piling up in inboxes. My personal system tracks a minimal amount of true 'commitments'; they're things I need to get done but have no real consequences if I don't. I can usually wait for the weekly review for personal stuff.
 
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Oogiem

Registered
Issue No: 1 - During my review I tend to spend the first half hour emptying my inbox
So start the emptying of inbox the day before. For example. Friday is my normal review day andf I have Thursday set aside to be sure to clean up all myinboxes and get things ready for review.

Issue No: 2 I guess the fact that I have 69 ongoing project means that there are projects where I cannot do things much during a week.
It sounds like you are a person who doesn't like long lists.I am the opposite and it doesn’t' bother me to review and have projects that I never get to in any given week if they are ones I could or want to get to in this current 3 month cycle.

So. given that you like really short lists I would separate your someday/maybe into short tem (maybe next 1-2 weeks, and then whatever timeframes make sense to you. Only keep in your active working task system the things you need to or plan to get to dring the next week. If you get them all done halfway through the week you can go look at your short term S/M list and add a few more projects back in.
I do not have any sort of mechanisms in my system for the the higher horizons(1 to 2 year goals,Long term Vision, Life). It is very difficult to map things out at those levels.

Don't worry about that part now. This from someone steeped in the Covey tradition of starting at th top and working down. That can work but another good way is the GTD system of start at the bottom and let the top percolate up to you. Either one or a combination works. Get your lower levels under control and you'll have tome to think about the higher purpose and levles. Get your higher levels defined and that will guide your lower level projects and help you decide to eliminate or delegate some.

It's a cycle I circle around regularly. I add far too many projects not active work and during reviews, especially my quarterly reviews I feel I am missing somehting with them all. So I look at my higher levels and see they need abit of fine tuning. Then I come back down and suddenly those lower level projects have changed. They have either become less important or more important and I can adjust where they are in my system accordingly.
 

FocusGuy

Registered
I have been practicing GTD for exactly a year and at this point my whole life runs on GTD. I use Notion for my projects and next actions. I now have 64 projects on going and 69 in someday maybe. I do reviews religiously every weekend and typically lasts about 2 hours.

I have a daughter who is 5 and I regularly do some form of physical exercise and work as a programmer and count myself as a continuous learner.. So I have a busy schedule however I have a good perspective on my situation and understand that there are people who have much much more busy lives that I do. I am putting this out there to give a perspective on the type of life the I lead.

Off late I have found that I am struggling with reviews.I get a feeling of this being a "chore". GTD has made a big difference to my life and efficiency and the difference it has made to my life is clearly visible. So I am keen to remove this friction which has been creeping up so that I can align my GTD process in such a way that it can be something I do not feel an inertia to do. I follow the review system that has been recommended by this episode in GTD podcast.

I have identified 2 main issues with my reviews.

Issue No: 1 -
During my review I tend to spend the first half hour emptying my inbox which is a google Keep List. This is the only time in the week that I tend to empty my inbox. I know David recommends to clear inbox every 2 to 3 days. This is something that I am working on. My idea is that when I sit for a review the inbox should be fully processed.


Issue No: 2 I guess the fact that I have 69 ongoing project means that there are projects where I cannot do things much during a week.This means that there are projects which come across regularly in my review for which I have a next actions set but I just have not been able to get to them for quite some time. I do move some of them to a someday maybe if I feel I will not get to them anytime soon. But I think seeing these projects which I am not able to get to is maybe having an "psychic weight" effect on me.

I would really appreciate if experienced GTD'ers in the community can offer any suggestion to me to remove the friction in my GTD reviews. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thank you for your time.
About issue1 the best is for me to clarify my inbox once a day. Find 30 mn somewhen during the day and clear it as you can
If it is too heavy do it in twice. eg monday half and tuesday.

About issue 2 it is a great question. I also had this problem of having too much on my plate. I dont really know how Gtd treat that. Having too much is just too much for me. This gave me so much stress that I could not stand it anymore and Horizon of focus and so on never helped me really with this.

So I took this decision for doing stuff eg choosing the core stuff during my weekly review and avoiding the rest. So my solution is this one according to a project setting system and not a task setting system.

On your software create some areas and put in them project you wish to accomplish with the next week (or the next two week if there is a projects in the future you absolutely want to do).

All the rest goes into the someday may be.
- During my Daily review I choose what to do today. It can be a project or even a task it comes from my areas
- During my weekly review I choose what projects are migrating to my areas and control what I did the past week or not. These are my crucial choices.

I won"t say it is the way to do it as GTD preconize. I just can tell you it perfectly works for me. Omnifocus does this perfectly with evernote for references including notes.
 

ArunM

Registered
Recently, I started reading a few of my vision statements before I start the review. There's something about focusing on a vision that helps me cull projects and narrow the number of active projects. It motivates me to do tasks related the part I my vision.

I love this and I am going to add this into my review template so I do not forget. :)
 

gtdstudente

Registered
Yes. I do need to set my expectations appropriately and need to manage my expectation based on my energy levels as well. I struggled with this when I was in the starting phases of GTD, It is good to be reminded of this again.

As for horizons of focus, my GTD system is still at Horizon 0 & 1 (Ground Calendars/Actions/Current Projects). I have mapped on my Horizon 2 (Area of focus) as well but to be honest I probably can do better at incorporating this into my system.

I do not have any sort of mechanisms in my system for the the higher horizons(1 to 2 year goals,Long term Vision, Life). It is very difficult to map things out at those levels. So I am hoping that as my GTD system gets better I will get more and more change to ask questions at those higher horizons.

I will search the forums to find good ideas for managing the higher horizons. Thank you for your time and inputs.
Arun, By all means please GTD proceed as you see fit . . . meanwhile on this end, all GTD horizons are under my 'Areas of Focus,' as such, where am I committed to experience/take the Divine [Spirituality, Peace-of-Soul, etc.], Health [Energy/Vigor including all positive relationships with others into the future], Decorations/Tools/Utility, and Fiscal life into the future?
 

ArunM

Registered
About issue1 the best is for me to clarify my inbox once a day. Find 30 mn somewhen during the day and clear it as you can
If it is too heavy do it in twice. eg monday half and tuesday.

Thanks for the suggestion. I struggle with this. I am a software developer who mainly does coding. So it is not important for me to have my work tasks organised as I have very few co ordination kind of tasks. So I struggle to clear my inbox frequently. I am working on building this discipline and try and clear my inbox atleast 2 times a week. :)
 

ArunM

Registered
Don't worry about that part now. This from someone steeped in the Covey tradition of starting at th top and working down. That can work but another good way is the GTD system of start at the bottom and let the top percolate up to you. Either one or a combination works. Get your lower levels under control and you'll have tome to think about the higher purpose and levles. Get your higher levels defined and that will guide your lower level projects and help you decide to eliminate or delegate some.

Thank you for all your suggestions. I have found that as I get used to GTD more and more I am having the space to think about higher horizon questions. Like you said above(I have also seen David mention this a few times) I am asking myself more higher level questions and I now have my area of focus clarified as well as some of the horizons mapped. It is not perfect but a lot better than how things were before. :)
 

ArunM

Registered
Little late to the party but a practice I've found helpful is to empty inboxes (for me: outlook - email, Intray - paper, OneNote Intray - meeting notes, thoughts, scribbles, etc., MS To Do - tasks/ideas/thoughts/agenda items) in small chunks throughout the day. Finished a task but 5 minutes to go before lunch? Inbox zero. Ten minutes between meetings? Inbox zero.

As a failsafe I have a 15 minute daily review blocked off in my calendar at the end of every day to catch anything. My system is virtually paper-free so I'm able to do it on my commute home.

Then, when I get to my weekly review, I do little, if any, zeroing, and can get right into the current and creative phases of the review. Plus, getting creative doesn't mean you should pressure yourself into writing the next great American novel. For me this might be reviewing my own workflows for efficiency, looking into a new app that might serve me, thinking about anything I might have come into contact this week I want to explore, reviewing actions and somedays if they spark other ideas etc etc.

I think it's easy to think of dipping into your inboxes like this as not strictly 'doing' GTD because your time is supposed to have been freed up by your system, but defining your work is certainly work itself, and you need to keep the system consistently well-oiled otherwise it won't work, or at worst, will overwhelm you.

This is for my work life only, however. I don't think I could go 2-3 days without zeroing my inbox because I'd likely miss something and stuff would start piling up in inboxes. My personal system tracks a minimal amount of true 'commitments'; they're things I need to get done but have no real consequences if I don't. I can usually wait for the weekly review for personal stuff.

For me it is the exact opposite. Personal stuff seems to clutter up and the work stuff can wait. :). I think maybe because I am an individual contributor developer at work and things are slow for us at the moment. I also have a couple of personal projects that are big and need my attention.

But I agree with you completely. An empty inbox is important for effective reviews. I am striving to clear my inbox the day before review. Easier said than done most of the time. :)
 
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