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As a product of a typically non-productive culture (sorry for the tongue twister), I have found a very useful tool for implementing the GTD
Just like any other experiment, the simple fact of consciously observing has an effect on your behavior. There is not neutral observer. During the first days, my interruptions naturally dropped without effort. Another thing that I noticed was a very subtle, parasitic notion that work must be toiling. Many of my doubts consisted in “micro-choosing” option A, but then telling myself in a very subtle way “no, that’s too easy”, and then having a hard time to choose option B.
I think this is the kind of skill that David Allen (who considers himself a lazy person) refers to when he defends following one’s own nose. The ability to acquire here is to follow your guts right away, having the required reflexes to grab that first guess, not the second or third one. In my case, even with the most intensive focus, this kind of “harder, please” indecision continues coming back now and them. Funny how bad habits take their time to disappear, and even resurrect sometimes. Die at once, you filthy zombie!
In addition to measuring flow interruptions, I have tried other techniques to make transitions between tasks softer (the good thing about GTD, they say, is that the system is not the end, but the beginning, so you start to become creative):
- The SMART scanner: in those days with a general feeling of stagnation, I take my to-do lists and apply, one-by-one, the SMART inquire: this task here, Is it Small, is it Measurable, is it Attainable, is it Relevant, is it Time related? This simple process makes you look at your tasks in a different way; some of them get chopped into more measurable pieces (that you then yearn to attack), others need a more concrete enunciation, others required a numeric goal.
- The acid bath: another way to chop a task into simpler, manageable parts. When weekly review time comes, I take each of the tasks still “standing” in the to-do list, or those that start to “stink” a little but are not suitable for the someday/maybe list, and disintegrate them into several, simpler parts. For example, “filling Internet form” can become “estimate time to fill form”+”Fill Internet form”. If those tasks still survive next week, they can be “atomized” again (never happened to me).
- The guided visit: crazy, but funny too, It consists in applying Merlin Mann’s “dashes”226 (7 minutes doses of a task to overcome procrastination), to ALL available tasks in all lists. It is like a “living to-do list”, like making a detailed map of your responsibilities in the moment. Not suitable for hurried moments or people without sense of humor.
Ahead
Will we ever defeat indecision? When pauses are not used for reflection, but to sink into hesitation, they drag productivity. The secret, probably, is acting fast, taking responsibility for your decision and considering that, more often than not, a wrong action is better than a sure doubt. To say it with the classics:
In our flowing affairs a decision must be made, -the best if you can; but any is better than none.
Emerson – “Conduct of life”
Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, one of the pioneers in introducing Buddhism in the Western world, tells in his ‘Essays in Zen Buddhism
How do you deal with indecision? Is your mind like water or like porridge? Any tech to share? Heuristics?
Related posts:
Reach for the moon, but start with your (two) shoelaces
GTD: the power of context-based lists
The GTD First Aid kit (Part 3)
The GTD First Aid Kit (Part 1)
Learn from others’ mistakes: my GTD leaks
