weekly review - one for office/one for home?

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helenjc

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Hi
Since looking at GTD and beginning to get on top of it, I've done a lot of soul searching and realised that one of the possible reasons that I get 'blocked' so often in creativity/productivity/and in essence GTD, is that I'm not happy with my 'contexts'. What I mean by this is that I'm having problems with working from home - that I'm 'over it' and so often get stuck if I"m not with a client and supposed to be doing research, admin etc - I procrastinate to the extreme because I dont feel as if I am in a 'workplace'. My office is in the middle of the living area and there is no alternative. Long story short is that I've made the decision to locate my business papers and files to an office that I can share for little/no rent and I"m happy with that idea. I've been thinking though about how does this work with weekly reviews? My life is pretty much 50/50 work and household/family duties - how do people deal with reviewing all areas of their lives? Do they do a separate review at the office because that is where all the 'stuff' is and a separate one at home?
I have been procrastinating doing the reviews STILL and I know that's one of my barriers to success - I blocked out time to do them, but found every excuse in the sun, or sometimes I would not do the review but process my in boxes and then feel a bit better - the only thing is I"m still in chaos after some personal life issues that 'got in the way' and I feel I can't really do a successful review until I find all the stuff buried in the tray... bit of a vicious circle really. Every time I try to attack my in tray mountain I only get quarter down then have to stop and it all gets messed up again.
Need help but most likely just need self discipline...

cheers
Helen
 
Hi Helen,

I've had a home office for years (since about 1997), and up until this week that "office" has been smack dab in the midst of the living room. (Last weeked we moved and now I have my very own office with a door).

In any case, when I first started my business, I quickly discovered that balancing home and work was pretty difficult. And I learned that if things weren't written down, they were forgotten. So years ago, I started scheduling things like "give kids a bath", "cook supper", etc. -- right on my "work" calendar. And I've done that for years.

I personally don't feel that keeping work and home seperate is easy or viable. Things slip between the cracks. Trying to keep two inboxes, two calendars, etc, just causes chaos. IMO of course :)

In any case, I keep it all together. All mail (personal or business) goes into the same inbox. All schedules go into the same calendar. My NA and reference lists are a mixture of both business and personal.

I do keep personal and business paperwork filed seperately though. I have all file cabinets in my office (previously "office area"), for ease of access and organization, but I don't mix the home phone bill into the same file as the business phone bill for instance. I have different cabinets for each of those.

If you're definately moving your office out to another location all together, I'd suggest seperate inboxes and file cabinets. Other than that though, the schedule, NA lists, etc., should stay together.

Hope that helps a bit and good luck!
Kathy
 
weekly review location

Kathy: Thanks for your reply - I have more or less had it setup as you describe with only one in tray at home (and does it push the boundaries of being 'full' :-) ) but two filing cabinets, one tickler etc.
I think this constant feeling of 'overflow' and non-separation has pushed the decision to move on out but does anyone out there who works 'part time' at an office (ie) so there life is a 50/50 split or so with home/work have a weekly review system that works - is it one review at the office with the work papers and one at home with the home things? What I'm worried about is if I do a review at home I might miss the memory joggers that happen as you 'find' bits of papers/notes etc - but other than bringing home the office 'in tray' I can't see any way around this. Same concerns for vice versa ie if i do the review at the office what about all the things that I could miss at home?

Looking forward to hearing your practices on this.

many thanks Helen
 
weekly review location

I work 2 FT jobs - one in an office (contracts administration) and one at home (single mom to 2 boys). I do two reviews. One at work early (8:00am) on Friday and one at home Sunday evenings. Anything at work that needs to go home goes with me Fri. afternoon & straight to the Home IN basket. When I do the home review Sun. night...whatever I'll need for Actions to be done @work is ready to go there.
Stuff is always mixed together because homelife NAs that involve Call/Schedule/Look into/Check on; enerally involve calling places between 9-5/M-F. That, unfortunately, can only be done from my office or from my cell phone at lunch time. I keep one calendar.
I'm STILL trying to get away from the bits of paper problem. I think that if I can train myself to use the Palm for my random notes from both locations it will help lots! (My IT manager at work couldn't stop laughing when he saw 3 or 4 post-it notes stuck to my PDA. :oops: )
 
Thanks Renae that helped a lot - the timing and two review idea. It seems completely necessary...
I own a tungsten t with voice memo and I think it's great for some moments when I would probably grab for a piece of paper or yellow sticky note :-)
Don't cover it up tooo much I dont know if the stylus goes through paper :-)

thanks again....

best wishes
Helen
 
Renae, sticky notes on your Palm is hilarious! :)

If you haven't tried it yet, check out Slap by Handshigh software ( http://www.handshigh.com ) It's a wonderful little note taking tool. I have mine mapped to the contact button and use it constantly as an electronic inbox.

I have the Tungsten T but have yet to get used to having a voice recorder. I also don't have alot of commute/away time though so I imagine I'd use it more in those scenarios.

Kathy
 
Thanks for the tip - :)

Voice recorder sounds like something I should check-out too. Problem would be hearing myself over the background noise of the kids!
 
post its on palms

Sorry - I have to admit as well to using occasional post-its on my palm :oops:

My observations:
- it's only one so must be something important
- it bugs me so much that it gets done pretty fast!

(Also think I should have bought post-it shares a long time ago.....)

KT
 
????

:?: For the post-it folks-- may be a silly question, but have you tried the freebie :lol: DiddleBug for your PalmOS device(s)? If not, note that the latest version is OS5 friendly, although it doesn't yet do hi-res (no functional hassles, just somewhat jagged lines). No Graffiti involved. Just scrawl away on your screen in your standard handwriting, as if it were a regular paper post-it. Option to set alarm, later that day, tomorrow, whenever. Pretty intuitive. Play around with the menus and you'll see what to do. (There's a bunch of helper PRCs in the zip; you care about = DiddleBug-english.prc. Check out the readme file though, to get a quickie overview.)
http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?prodID=16870
 
Post-It's

I also use post-it notes - I have a small supply of the little ones stuck on the inside of my Palm cover. I also carry a small Notepad and I have a supply of post-it notes stuck on the insider cover of that too. The thing with Diddlebug is you have to reach for a stylus. If I happen to have a pen in my hand, a post-it note is easier. It's the same process to transcribe the note into Grafitti (actually easier to put it where you want from the post-it), so what difference whether it's in Diddlebug or on a yellow sticky?

Slap! is one step more removed from quick writing - therefore not efficient for me. It's a nice concept but I either have to take the time to grafitti in a form suitable for transferring into my Palm apps. (and yet have to edit in the target app.), or edit the Slap! notes later (Processing). If I was going to take the time to grafitti at first instance, I might as well go straight into the Palm apps or use DayNotez or MemoPad with MegaWiki.

Andrew
 
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