Using your calendar for planning

[kkuja]

If I recall corerctly DA has spoken two things which have something to do with this.

1) that some executives block time from their calendar to do weekly review

2) if you plan more than 60% of your time, you plan will fail because of external changes.

I personally don't see a reason to blend hard landscape and soft landscape, because hard landscape itself defines where soft landscape can exist. And by blending them you pick one item from soft landscape over anything else. You basically do and lock your context/time/energy/priority choice in advance. And your just better hope you succeed to foresee you context, time available, energy and priority in advance. (Ok, I just blocked 3 hours to bug fixing time, but I ugly migraine destroys my day... result is worthless feeling because I failed to do what I had decided to do)

This is just my 0,02 €. I'm still a total GTD newbie, so if there is obvious misunderstandings or you just otherwise disagree, please tell me.

Thank you.

 

[ero213]

If I recall corerctly DA has spoken two things which have something to do with this.

1) that some executives block time from their calendar to do weekly review

2) if you plan more than 60% of your time, you plan will fail because of external changes.

I personally don't see a reason to blend hard landscape and soft landscape, because hard landscape itself defines where soft landscape can exist. And by blending them you pick one item from soft landscape over anything else. You basically do and lock your context/time/energy/priority choice in advance. And your just better hope you succeed to foresee you context, time available, energy and priority in advance. (Ok, I just blocked 3 hours to bug fixing time, but I ugly migraine destroys my day... result is worthless feeling because I failed to do what I had decided to do)

This is just my 0,02 €. I'm still a total GTD newbie, so if there is obvious misunderstandings or you just otherwise disagree, please tell me.

Thank you.

If you have some predictability in your life than you CAN foresee context/time/energy/priority. The farther you look forward in time the less accurate you willl be. This is why the daily weather forecast is fairly reliable but the 10-day is less so.

David Allen has just taken this to its logical end, essentially saying I don't know ANYTHING about the future and therefore I'm only going to pre-plan the bare minimum of my activities and base my action on what feels right at the moment.

This approach works in some instances for some people, but it doesn't really help those with the tendency to procrastinate, or those whose work requires blocks of focused time, rather than checking off a list of tasks. In addition, it doesn't really help with keeping balance between various projects or aspects of your life. If you do an internet search you'll see these issues written about here and on blogs over and over again. If I dig into my bookmarks I could probably come up with 100 examples.

I really like David Allen's method but, for me at least, there are some missing components to "make it all work"

EO

 

[Oogiem]

This approach works in some instances for some people, but it doesn't really help those with the tendency to procrastinate, or those whose work requires blocks of focused time, rather than checking off a list of tasks. In addition, it doesn't really help with keeping balance between various projects or aspects of your life.

I'd disagree with that blanket statement. I am a master at procrastination, I can avoid things for months and years. But I found that once I really got how to define the next tiny small thing to move projects forward I got a lot more done.

I also have projects where the next logical action is one that requires significant uninterrupted focused time. GTD has let me see those actions in the context of all the other stuff I have to do. Sometimes I make an appointment with myself to do that and sometimes I just let it happen but in both cases I find that knowing what else is on the plate allows me the freedom to really focus. As a result actions that originally would have taken me 5-6 hours in part because I'd keep getting distracted (remember I am great at procrastination) now can get done in 3 hours or so because my mind is quiet about all those other things. I know I won't lose track of them so I can focus on doing what I need to on the project that needs concentration.

Lastly GTD has made a huge difference in the balance in my life. By clearly defining areas of focus that include major things I consider important to me like hobbies, personal growth and all of my work roles it is really easy to see when a piece is getting too much or too little emphasis. Due to the nature of my job there is a seasonal ebb and flow of when certain areas take priority but the GTD system is the first method that allows me to be in control of managing my life so that nothing important to me falls totally off the board.

 

[ero213]

Reading back through "Making It All Work" I found this passage:

"Obviously based on other prioritizing factors, you may need to create specific structures and block out sufficient time slots for the important actions that require them."

This seems more lax that what had been written in GTD about the "hard landscape."

EO

 

[SiobhanBR]

Making appointments with yourself

This is a very interesting discussion.

Someone up there mentioned that one benefit of blocking out time on your calendar to work on a project is to prevent others from booking meetings during that time. In my work environment, this is absolutely necessary as others use my calendar to find free time and book me into meetings. I block out time for my weekly review and time for working on Next Actions. That is usually as specific as I get. When I get to that time, I am free to close my door, review my lists and work on what needs working on. During my weekly review I would have taken a look at upcoming due date and thus be able to trust my intuition as to what I should now do.

If, during my weekly review I find a project that I've been avoiding I may block a specific time for that specific task (and perhaps I'll do it as a meeting with someone else to amp up the pressure to get it done).

Most of us have forced work hours with varying degrees of flexibility. However, I don't see that creating a work framework for yourself opposes the GTD process. For those (like you) who have significant control over your work hours, I imagine it would be necessary. I imagine myself creating a weekly plan during the weekly review that would still allow the flexibility my situation demands (this is different for everyone) but that provides the work/home balance I need (again, different for everyone and varying during the year).

 

[ero213]

After trying a time map approach and doing some more reading I am inclined to reverse my thoughts on this. Here's a very good post that explains a lot of it:

http://tools-for-thought.com/2008/06/24/hard-landscape-vs-parkinsons-law/

With some exceptions I'm thinking it is best to only manage external commitments with your calendar. However, I also think it is a bit dysfunctional to work within a "context" without any regard to importance of the actions. In other words, how do you ensure that you are in the right context (with the time and energy) to work on your highest priority projects? Seems like the calendar is the place to make these plans. I'm curious how people work this.

 

[cwoodgold]

In "Getting Things Done", as I remember it, it says not to put an action on the calendar
unless it's something that, if you're going to do it, has to be done that day.
A concert you might or might not attend fits this.

As I remember it, he said a reason not to put a bunch of actions on the calendar is that
typically you don't get all of them done, and that it's time-consuming and demoralizing
to have to keep recopying them onto another day. I used to do that, and agree with
him on that; it may feel fine for the first while but started getting me down. If some
people have more predictability or are able to put a few actions on the calendar without
overdoing it, and only occasionally have to recopy a few and don't feel overwhelmed by
that, then fine -- they can put actions on their calendar, as far as that reason goes.

If I remember right, David Allen also said you can make an appointment with yourself
and mark it on your calendar. This seems to me to contradict the other things
he said about calendars, especially in light of another thing he said, that you can
renegotiate agreements with yourself at any time.

I don't think David Allen ever said to just do things in a context without considering
importance. Within the context, he does say to consider priority as one of the factors
in choosing things. As far as I remember, he didn't say anything about how to decide
when to move from one context to another; I assume this is one of many things he
expects his readers to be smart enough to figure out without his help, or that
different people will do differently so there's no point his telling people one method;
or that can be carried out using one or another GTD method such as Roles,
Weekly Review, or Projects, etc.