Here is an email I got today from David Allen, who thinks deeply about Getting Things Done. See davidco.com
He says this:
[Balance is tough enough when you are aware of all your goals, values, projects, and commitments. But it’s impossible if you don’t revisit the whole game consistently.
"The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons in any one of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world." – James Fenimore Cooper]
So this reminds us to spend an hour or two each week--I do it on Friday or Saturday mornings usually--reviewing all of our projects.
This time is not spent DOING the projects. It is spent going over the project list, adding to or subtracting from the list, of what is important and what needs to get done in the short term, medium term, and long term. It is spent thinking about the discrete parts of the project and what are the Next Steps.
Keep a notepad, virtual or otherwise, close by. Your mind will remind of things undone. You can also keep a list of the items you can do in two minutes or less. And you can schedule a time to tackle a batch of those. It can be SO SATISFYING to complete quickly some of those tasks. Set a timer. See if you can finish some of them in two minutes. You will become more aware of what can be done quickly and what cannot. You will see how you may or may not misjudge time.
In the end, you will get more accomplished of what you want to accomplish.
If you have other ideas about how to get things done, share them with comments here, in class or with your small group.
BH
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3 comments:
I've been a big fan of the todo list since, perhaps, middle school. It starts like this:
TODO list:
1. make todo list
2. yada yada
3. blah blah blah
and so forth. The best part is this: as soon as you finish writing, you get to scratch one thing off the list. How encouraging!
The problem for me, these days, is that I keep so many lists in so many places; I might as well not keep any. Those weekend hours spent organizing my lists might be just as helpful as the lists themselves.
Thanks for the tip.
I HEART TO-DO LISTS.
I really do and would be absolutely lost without them. Each semester I purchase a new notebook and each day I compile a list of things I need to do that day accompanied by checkboxes to fill out upon completion. At the bottom of each page I list tasks that are more general, less timely or just need to be taken care of in the near future and not that exact day indicated by an asterisk. If I am unable to finish a task that day, I simply transfer it to the next day's list. I assess a day's worth by looking at my list and seeing the percentage of things I was able to accomplish.
Anal retentive I know, but it is a system that I have developed and perfected throughout my academic journey and it has proved successful time and time again. It comes highly recommended.
In fact, I am about to go check off "blog comments for AW" right now :)
I've always been one to have about five "to do" lists tacked to the bulletin board in front of my desk. It really does help me visually see the amount of things I need to do and what I have accomplished. But lately I've become so overwhelmed with the number of things I need to do that I have stopped writing things down. It's as if once I start writing it all down I begin to become even more anxious and stressed because I see the length of the list. But over the past few weeks (especially Spring Break, when I worked on catching up on readings) I've realized that I just need to write it all down and devote a good chunk of time each night to finishing SOMETHING.
I'm always trying to finish the smaller things first because it motivates me to start larger projects. I feel more accomplished by working this way!
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