DonationCoder.com Software > The Getting Organized Experiment of 2006

GETTING ORGANIZED EXPERIMENT - WEEK TWO+THREE ASSIGNMENT

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Perry Mowbray:
I think the thing I like about this system so far is that everything that needs to be done gets popped into a pool, out of which I can select what I want to do (when there's time).

I understand that priorities are not part of it for the purist, but like some others, I think I'd prefer to record a priority (just to help me differentiate between the tasks).

But the big pool of tasks has some real benefits: if you choose the one you most want to do then you're more likely to be most productive on that one rather than the one you're don't want to do. That's not always true of course, and it's open to deceiving yourself... but the point of it all is that we are wanting to get stuff done and not just make a show!

I guess that's what I like about ToDoList too (or most software based lists): you can record this stuff and filter it in or out, archive it, sort by something else, or put it in a different file. I was a bit concerned that with a big list and paper that trying to sort through paper would get unwieldy. I'd appreciate some feedback from you paper-shufflers out there  ;)

- Perry

urlwolf:
I think the thing I like about this system so far is that everything that needs to be done gets popped into a pool, out of which I can select what I want to do (when there's time).

I understand that priorities are not part of it for the purist, but like some others, I think I'd prefer to record a priority (just to help me differentiate between the tasks).

But the big pool of tasks has some real benefits: if you choose the one you most want to do then you're more likely to be most productive on that one rather than the one you're don't want to do. That's not always true of course, and it's open to deceiving yourself... but the point of it all is that we are wanting to get stuff done and not just make a show!

-Perry Mowbray (September 07, 2006, 04:32 AM)
--- End quote ---
Hi Perry,
May I pop in again with the dangers of the infinite resource pool:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=5034.msg35405#msg35405

Although it's nice to have all your tasks in a large list that keeps growing, and it's certainly a feeling of liberation, the next thing you know is that you are cherrypicking tasks that are easy, or you feel like, etc, and a good chuck of tasks never get done.

So as much as I like the collection idea from GTD, I think infinite pool and cherrypicking are issues.

Perry Mowbray:
So as much as I like the collection idea from GTD, I think infinite pool and cherrypicking are issues.
-urlwolf (September 07, 2006, 04:56 AM)
--- End quote ---

I do agree, which is what I meant about deceiving oneself. That's where I thought that priorities may influence the mix. Hmmm, maybe priorities and deadlines.

Where the infinite pool comes in really handy is when there is no priority or deadline: it's just an idea that I want to achieve (someday), and I want to break it down into managable tasks along the way. It certainly isn't going to work for the purchasing of ingredients for Friday night's dinner party: that task has to float to the top before Friday night!!

- Perry

nudone:
i'm trying to make this work:

define your 'serious' goal projects - give them a timetable - over a year or whatever. regard these as 'work' with 'real' deadlines, i.e. they might sometimes be a real effort to start or continue but who said 'work' was fun. commit to spending as much time as you can to completing these projects but don't beat yourself up for not doing them every single day - 3 times a week sounds good to me, well, that's what they always say when taking exercise.

define all other tasks as garnish and nibble at them when you have a bit of time, or when it just feels right for a snack sized task.

the important thing being to keep your eye on the whole 'meal'. you don't want to gorge yourself on just the garnish/snacks and you don't really want to just spend everyday eating the same big meal goal project.

apologies for reinventing the wheel here and not really stating anything new (i might be simply trying to convince myself of what i'm meant to be doing).

so, how to avoid ignoring 'low' priority tasks that will never get done? er, well, not sure. the techniques i've read in Forster's 'Do It Tomorrow' do pretty much have this answered but it's either too rigid for me to follow OR i'm still working my way up to that level of discipline - not decided yet.

urlwolf:
Is anyone here a member of GTD connect?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Orchant/?p=196

I'd be interested in hearing what you think.
Certainly this looks completely in disagreement with the dc philosophy in that it creates two 'classes' of GTD users. That's my thinking at least.

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