The Simple Problem of Too Much To Do

  • Thread starter Thread starter whsbpb
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Delegation ...

The poster who suggested delegation is exactly on the mark, for me.

The implication of the orginal post is that, with a sufficient incoming flow of tasks, you may never manage to keep up and get to the bottom of the list.

But this is exactly why people take on staff, whether that is a cleaner or a business analyst. I could have "dust the mantlepiece" on my task list forever just as I could have "investigate whether or not the invoice process in my org is as efficient as it could be" and also not get round to it.

Where the work that is *not* getting done has an identifiable value, you can hire someone to take on the task. This is the essence of having a personal assistant. Manager types probably won't get round to filing (because meetings get in the way) even though it is necessary. When the tasks that are left behind seem to be rather more worthless, then we just leave them alone maybe for years.

What would be nice, from an automated support point of view, would be to say:

"Read this article, if there is time, but it will become irrelevant 6 months from now because the law will change, if I haven't read it by then, purge it."

It is the reverse of the tickler function in some respects

Just a thought
 
Too Much To Do

The OP was right - by simple arithmetic, if you keep adding things to your lists, they will grow. However, the thread reminded me of one of David's aphorisms - "You can do anything, but you can't do everything", which (as others have alluded to) requires some discrimination or choice about what you're about. In fact, that is I think almost a pre-requisite to making GTD work. Doing some higher altitude thinking will inevitably result in some of your "stuff" simply not making it to your lists at all. But there is a certain rigour about asking "what is this?" and answering "it looks cool/possibly useful" but deciding that nonetheless, it need not be in your system, regardless of whether its actionable or not, and sometimes its quicker to convert the stuff to a project and/or next action & add it to the system without having really conisdered if you;re committed to it.

But even for things that do (properly) make it into the system, they do not have to stay there forever, until "done". Do your weekly review. Experience the satisfaction of taking things off the list when its obvious that e.g. although you'd like to read X it does not really matter if you never do. If it can stay on the list, well, leave it there.

So the lists grow - big deal. As David says with read/review piles, when they physcially fall over, you need to purge them. Its the same with next action lists (metaphorically). Whenever I feel my lists are too long & not helping me get thigns done, I carry out a careful review which usually brings up a number of items that have been on the list for a while without there having been any movement. I take that as life's way of saying to me that after all, I was not really committed to it, even as a low priority item. So its no big deal to take it off the list.

I suggest that you do not in any case need to be concerned about the size of your lists. For some time, I used to fret about the number of things I had in my lists. No matter what I did, when I went to "Tasks" in outlook, the number was still very high and seemingly refused to shrink. But now I'm not that concerned, even when the number goes up.

I suspect that for each of us, there is a certain number of next actions that we will always have on our lists, depending on what we see as our roles, repsonsibilites, projects etc. at that time. No matter how much we get done, the actual number will fluctuate around that "core number".

But so what? Its evidence that you are thriving! The name of the game is to get things done, not shrink your lists. As long as you're alive, you'll have things you want/need to do. OK, if all you do is add to the lists then obviously they'll keep growing until you're not capable of adding to them. At that point, nothing on them will get done, but you'll be past caring by then!
 
I'm not sure the airline analogy works here. With an airline everyone with a ticket is guaranteed a seat. In a person's real life, though, everything that might be good to do isn't guaranteed to get done. The airline will suffer major consequences if it doesn't seat the people who bought cattle-class tickets. If you don't clean your oven or read a particular magazine article, though, life will likely go on.

whsbpb said:
I could demote it to Someday/Maybe - but that's not how I see Someday/Maybe. They're not meant to be a lower priority list. They're more a cauldron of thought-provoking ideas, wishes, musing potentials and so on. My paper doesn't belong there.
Click to expand...

Actually, it turns out that the Someday/Maybe list can be for low priority items. I had a GTD telecoaching session (very valuable) and the coach was surprised to see that I had 100 next actions at work. She recommended that I move most of the items down to my Someday/Maybe list so that I can actually look at my NA list clearly rather than trying to slog through 100 items. She also suggested two levels of Someday/Maybe, with the second level being more like your view of the list.

I think your solution b. is closest to the best approach, but not as a mechanical rule. For something like cleaning the oven, for example, the priority will go up as the burnt food accumulates. For something like reading a magazine article, though, time may pass and you may just decide it isn't worth the effort. It still depends on what the task is.
 
beirne said:
I'm not sure the airline analogy works here. With an airline everyone with a ticket is guaranteed a seat.
Click to expand...

This isn't actually true. Airlines routinely sell more tickets than they have physical seats on the flight. Yes, they have to pay compensation when they bump people. Still, if it weren't cost effective, they wouldn't do it.

Katherine
 
Dreams/Ideas

I added a sub-section to the DA Someday/maybe file called Dreams/Ideas. It is stuff that I am interrested in but there is no way in the near future that I can commit the necessary time to complete. I view the file maybe once or twice a month - even then just to keep the dream alive so to speak. Every once in a while, something changes my mind and I move one of those Dreams/Ideas into a Project list. Sometimes I complete them, but usually what happens is I do some work (complete a couple of NA's) then the project gets moved back to Someday/Maybe or even back into the Dreams/Ideas file. Some of my Dream/Idea projects have been moved back and forth several times and are in various stages of completion. Most stuff on those lists will likely never be 'done' but the little dabbling here and there satisfies the dreamer in me that put them onto the list to begin with. Being realistic with what 'has' to be done and what I 'want' to do, has helped me get a grip on the sheer amount of work that I would like to see done.

It works for me....

Todd
 
Comfort with Big Lists...and the End of Day Re-Schedule...

I suggest that you do not in any case need to be concerned about the size of your lists. For some time, I used to fret about the number of things I had in my lists. No matter what I did, when I went to "Tasks" in outlook, the number was still very high and seemingly refused to shrink. But now I'm not that concerned, even when the number goes up.

I suspect that for each of us, there is a certain number of next actions that we will always have on our lists, depending on what we see as our roles, repsonsibilites, projects etc. at that time. No matter how much we get done, the actual number will fluctuate around that "core number".

But so what? Its evidence that you are thriving! The name of the game is to get things done, not shrink your lists. As long as you're alive, you'll have things you want/need to do. OK, if all you do is add to the lists then obviously they'll keep growing until you're not capable of adding to them. At that point, nothing on them will get done, but you'll be past caring by then!
Click to expand...

I, too, was growing concerned with the size of my next-action lists as I went to a full implementation of the GTD methodology - which does take consistent effort to achieve.

The posting I quoted is bang-on, though. It reminds me of a quote that I heard a few years ago...that the reality for all of us, especially those with professional or knowledge-work responsibilities, to the effect that "our inboxes will never be empty, until we're dead...". It takes a while to get used to this reality!

The one issue that I continue to grapple with is what I call the "End of Day Reschedule". Basically, many of the tasks I have in my next-action lists have a target date associated with them in addition to categories, associated projects, etc. This means that every day I have a pre-screened list of the most important next-actions on my desktop. While I can generally accomplish the high-priority tasks assigned to today's date, sometimes lots of the smaller tasks are incomplete at the end of the day (I just love watching them all turn red in Outlook at Midnight!). Then on to the ritual of rescheduling many of these tasks to the next day, or sometime later in the week or the month if they require a specific context, location, or resource that I know won't be available until some other time.

Is anybody else doing the End of Day Re-Schedule ritual? Are there good alternatives?

I was wondering of our Outlook / Visual Basic programming gurus would be interested in creating a small add-in that would either (a) tag each task with the number of times it has been re-scheduled; or (b) the number of days from task creation to the present date (ie. the age of each task), so that I could use this as an additional filter item - this may help identify tasks that I am either actively or passively resisting, or that do not represent true next actions that need to be reviewed and the "sticking point" identified and smoothed out. At a minimum, it would be a good "procrastination metric".

Any thoughts?

Regards,
Peter
 
peter_g said:
The one issue that I continue to grapple with is what I call the "End of Day Reschedule". Basically, many of the tasks I have in my next-action lists have a target date associated with them in addition to categories, associated projects, etc. This means that every day I have a pre-screened list of the most important next-actions on my desktop. While I can generally accomplish the high-priority tasks assigned to today's date, sometimes lots of the smaller tasks are incomplete at the end of the day (I just love watching them all turn red in Outlook at Midnight!). Then on to the ritual of rescheduling many of these tasks to the next day, or sometime later in the week or the month if they require a specific context, location, or resource that I know won't be available until some other time.
Click to expand...

I think the end of day reschedule ritual is exactly why DA advises against dated To Do lists. In my case, all it does is frustrate me.

At the same time, dates do really help with sorting, and putting a dated item three months in the future ought to be functionally equivalent to putting the same item in a paper tickler.

My solution is to date everything, and then ignore the dates. Unless the date is actually important, which I flag, I simply don't see the date in my NA list. I still have the information, though, so I can look (usually at a weekly or monthly review) to see which items are getting old and need to be either moved forward, thought about some more, or dropped.

Katherine
 
Defer menu

I've written myself a "Defer" combobox for a toolbar which can operate on multiple tasks in Outlook. I'll post the code over in the other forum under the heading "Defer menu".

gunns256
 
Disappointment

Oh, joy! At least seven new posts to read on the forum. Oh, drat! Four of the seven are the same stupid spam.

Carolyn
 
Spam

Speaking of too much to do, there are some time wasters. I really wish there were an elegant solution to the problem.

The spammers are slowly working their way into the forum. This has been one place where I haven't had to deal with it. I can sometimes tell to pass a message by, but when the spam gets slipped into a regular thread, it's hard to detect until you have taken the time to open the thread. Too bad that this stuff (free iPods, money to search, etc.) doesn't get deleted shortly after being posted.

Carolyn
 
Volunteers for Forum Spam Policing...

It might be worthwhile to check with the people responsible for maintaining this forum to see whether someone at DavidCo could take on the role of checking the forum for new posts that are spam on some periodic basis (daily/weekly), or perhaps a couple of us who are members could get delete permissions and delete spam as it appears.

I, for one, would volunteer to help...

Peter
 
whsbpb said:
GTD doesn't solve that problem. The simple fact is, it is entirely possible for the length of a person's NA lists to continue to grow, and for some tasks never to get done. Having clear visibility of that is better than having a nagging suspicion about it. But simply not having it happen is best of all. And even relegating stuff to a Someday/Maybe list won't help (and isn't always appropriate). Having a Someday/Maybe list that grows and grows, is not, as far as I can see, a Good Thing.

And no amount of management of tasks will solve that if the management starts only after tasks enter the system. The trick seems to be, to stop some tasks entering in the first place. To say "no", I guess.
Click to expand...
Very True!

This is precisely the point that GTD makes it possible to be at. If you don't have a clear picture of what you have already agreed to have IN your life, you are always tempted to say yes, and add stress, as in another thing you 'should' do.

What GTD does is give you a method (reviews) and a place (Someday/Maybe lists, NA, Project lists) to look at something new, look at something old, and decide, what needs to come out, before you can accept this new goal.
In putting everything in it's place, sometimes you have to make a decision as to whether a goal really needs to be in your life at all. In your review, you have to make the hard decisions, 'If I allow this to come in, these have to go out.' You have to agree with yourself, that 'these' go out.

The hope is that as you make an agreement with yourself that 'these' go out, you leave yourself healthier, happier, and with a mind like water, that responds appropriately to what you've agreed to being in your life.

Someday/Maybe is a placeholder to allow you to slide these things out of your life. OR, as you finish with your previous agreements, see the way to allow something you want back in.
 
David had a neat insight...

into this particular issue. If i may paraphrase, it went something like this (from GTD Fast): If you are getting paid to do a job, and don't know what is on your plate, your *integrity* will require you to say yes when you are asked to do more work. If you do know what is on your plate, then your *integrity* will require you to renegotiate when you are asked to take on more work that you can actually accomplish."

I thought that was a subtle, and very helpful insight.

Regards,
Gordon
 
Okay, to blow the airline analogy a little more . . .

I presume the queues you describe relate in some way to the "priority" of the NA in the various lines. However, as DA notes, the priority we assign to tasks may change "moment to moment". So, unlike people in line at the airport, your NAs can jump from queue to queue.

I apologize if this has been mentioned earlier, but the three-part, bottom-line answer to your problem is: the weekly review, the weekly review, and the weekly review.

Your concern about your lists getting too long is the fear that something will get "lost" on your list. This won't happen if you revisit your entire lists at least once a week. Further, as was mentioned earlier, with the consistent habit of a comprehensive weekly review in place, you'll feel comfortable dropping some NAs down to Someday/Maybe. If you know you realistically won't get to them in the next 7 days, but that you'll absolutely have them in front of your face in the next weekly review, there should be no fear in parking them on the Someday/Maybe list and focusing on what you need to get done.

Finally, again assuming your queues roughly equate to "priority", I'd suggest you're trying to organize based upon the one filter that can't be easily systemitized ahead of time. While the URGENCY of an item (in terms of the deadline) doesn't change, the IMPORTANCE of the item changes all the time. As DA says on the CDs, when your brain is burnt toast, the most important thing to do might be to fill your stapler or water your plants. But you won't know that until your in the moment.
 
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