The Mind Sweep

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I'm curious if anyone would care to share, just how many items you 'retrieved' and wrote down during your initial Mind Sweep?

How long does one add to this initial "RAM Dump?"

I've read Jason Womack's article, THE MIND SWEEP, located at http://www.davidco.com/coaches_corner/Jason_Womack/article1.html --- and was surprised that the exercise in the seminar is just ten minutes.

I can totally relate to the woman he depicts who returned again & again, all day long, to the Mind Sweep exercise. Indeed, I'm not sure how long (time) it's "supposed" to last, nor how much (how many items total) is "supposed" to be retrieved.

Frankly, the Mind Sweep appears infinite in nature to me; perhaps I've not read enough about it yet, so am not clear on what it actually comprises.

Anything you'd care to share I'd luv to read.
 
Re: The Mind Sweep

Grateful said:
Frankly, the Mind Sweep appears infinite in nature to me; ...
Click to expand...
As for me there are two kinds of mind sweep:

1. The daily mind sweep for the urgent stuff (takes only a few minutes)
2. The initial mind sweep that I started a year ago and that still goes on (takes about an hour per month).

Rainer
 
mind sweep

In the "Ubiquitous Capture Tool: Home" I started about 6 months ago, I have 212 Next Actions listed -- frankly less than half of them completed. So I need a major overhaul and purge. For Office, I have 110. I have turned my major events/mailings/responsibilities into "handbooks," so those actions don't get entered in my UCT.
 
It's been a while, but I think I came up with more than 100 items pretty easily (well, I am an attorney, so there is lots of stuff on my mind). I didn't catch everything in the initial sweep, but I added items as time went on. However, over time, I found that if I kept up with the mindsweep regularly during my weekly reviews and as a daily habit my mind eventually emptied-- isn't that a scary thought? Actually, I felt more confident in my system, because as things came to mind I realized they were already in my system.
 
Re: The Mind Sweep

Grateful said:
I'm curious if anyone would care to share, just how many items you 'retrieved' and wrote down during your initial Mind Sweep?

How long does one add to this initial "RAM Dump?"

I've read Jason Womack's article, THE MIND SWEEP, located at http://www.davidco.com/coaches_corner/Jason_Womack/article1.html --- and was surprised that the exercise in the seminar is just ten minutes.
Click to expand...

10 minutes allows seminar attendees enough time to familiarize themselves with the practice, not complete it. They would have to continue the exercise at home, since Jason no doubt has much more material to cover during the seminar.

It took me about 90 minutes the first time. Much of that consisted of second-guessing myself: Do I really have everything? During weekly reviews it usually takes about an hour.
 
It does depend on the scope and how long you've let things "clutter"

I let myself loose for about a year focusing on adapting to my new surroundings and for all practical purposes, letting inspiration soar!

I finally locked down and took a solid 2 weeks to get things in order and separate my home "context" from my work "context"

data points per your request:

- project/reference file ~100 folders
- inbox empty
- 51 projects
- 57 not now (or someday) projects
- 126 next actions

this 3rd week is primarily to clean up any loose ends and get ready for take off come the new year :)

btw, pls don't let "2+ weeks deter you" - I'm guilty of processing on the run to some degree - one of the no nos in DA's book. I also took some time to evaluate the GTD outlook add-in, capture and design a system to address weak points of my previous setup, as well as capture the transformational process as a series of mindmaps...i did it - just don't ask me why i did it! ;)
 
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