A couple of thoughts here, if you are interested in thinking outside the box
...
Firstly, what time management system will work for you depends more on your
personality than on the system. IOW, GtD is not the "best" system ... nor
is Covey's ... nor anyone else's. A system has to work the way you do. So
start be looking at how you work.
I have noticed that some people thrive in systems that are highly oriented
to schedule ... IOW, plan it all out, schedule the time for everything in
the day, and then stick to that schedule. Others run away screaming from
that ... they prefer to have some general guidelines and then wander through
the day kind of "grazing" their tasks. Still others don't use any system at
all (at least not a formal one) they just react to what happens to them.
(And don't let anyone tell you that their lives are miserable failures ...
it works for THEM!)
You seem to be the kind of person who both likes to focus on one thing for a
while and who has that kind of task he needs to do. In that case, you will
find that the whole notion of "next actions" will not fit with your
personality/environment. I recommend that you don't try to force fit it.
In this case, I'd block some time, open my project folder and lock the door
until my time was up (I had another priority, the task was done, the
building caught fire, etc.)
Personally I found that identifying a few "types" of tasks helped me:
- "Little and often": for this kind of thing I work on a 20 minute timer.
(I have a watch that sets up repeating timers for me ... it helps.)
Examples of this kind of task are:
-- Drill vocabulary words in a new language
-- Clean parts of the house
-- Check email
- "Small Projects": for this kind of thing I work on a 2 hour timer. Two
hours is the minimum I have found that works to really get into something
and make serious progress. Examples include:
-- Learn rules of grammar in a new language
-- Work on a big house cleaning project (like get into my library, clear a
book case, dust the books, and sort/reshelf books)
-- Do taxes
(NOTE: it may take more than one block of 2 hours for some of these. But I
may need to take a break before starting a new block. It just depends.)
- "Big Projects": for this I will not allocate less than a 4 hour block ...
sometimes an 8 hour block of longer. Examples are:
-- Take a local field trip to the arboretum to practice photography
-- Build a deck in the back yard
(NOTE: here as well, a project may take multiples of these blocks over
several days or even weeks.)
Another observation, if you are up for it ;-)
Time management has some overhead. ALL systems have SOME overhead. The
very act of thinking about your priorities is overhead. Overhead is not bad
... it is just a cost that must be weighed in terms of what you get in
return. The simplest TM system is the basic TODO list. You just think
about your priorities, list them, and go to work. Easy peasy. No fuss, no
muss. The important/urgent things get done.
Covey focused on distinguishing between important and urgent and kudos for
him (though he was not the first to do it ... he stole the idea ;-) But
notice that his system introduced much more overhead. Fine if you really
had trouble distinguishing between important and urgent items. But once you
understood the distinction, why keep on with Covey with all of his overhead?
GtD also came along to answer a perceived need (obviously the need of the
developer). The problems were three:
- when people had to switch among a lot of different "contexts"
- when people could not remember what they had to do
- when people wanted to work mechanically, without thinking of priorities on
the fly
To answer these GtD dictates that:
- you define a "next action" for every task and put it on a list so you
don't have to think further about it
- keep multiple lists, one for each situation you typically find yourself in
- fanatically write everything down on bits of paper and process them
continually
There is nothing wrong with any of that ... providing that 1) you HAVE those
problems/constraints, and 2) you are willing to pay the price of the
enormous overhead. When I was working GtD, I could not figure where all my
time was going ... until I realized it was fussing with lists and scraps of
paper! The system itself was taking more time than the work I wanted to
do. My other problem was that I noticed that I had NO contexts (or only
one, I guess ... my life!) I can do whatever I need to do almost anywhere I
am. No, I can't do something in California when I'm in D.C., but that is so
dead bang obvious that I don't need a big system to tell me that ... I just
KNOW it.
Lastly, I noticed that GtD was weakening my basic abilities to manage my
life. I have no problem remembering things but GtD forcing me to write
everything down was starting to cause me to forget things if they were NOT
written down. Also, being a slave to "next actions" was killing my natural
ability to know what to do next. I guess what I observed was that if you
HAVE the problems that the developer apparently has, this is a great answer
... but if you don't, and you try to use this system, you soon will have his
problems.
Systems have to fit with who you are. I am not a fanatical Mormon so I
can't really fit with Covey and his religious orientation with "roles" and
such. That is not me. I can't make myself fit his system. Likewise, I
have a good grasp of what I have to do and how to do it. I just need to
make sure that I block time to do it ... therefore context lists, and lists
of lists of lists, and microscopic next actions just get in my way. But
then that is just me ;-)
I am happily back to my basic goal planning (once a week) coupled with a
basic TODO list. I like time blocking, so I do that as I described above.
I feel that I need to be aware of priorities but in the planning stage I
develop an implicit feel for priority and don't have to manage it
explicitly. (IOW, low priority things don't tend to make it to my list if I
have higher priorities on my horizon.)
FWIW, the best TODO list methodology I've found (FOR ME) is AutoFocus
developed by Mark Forster. But even there, I need to mold it to work for my
personality. But my changes there are few and the system takes as close to
ZERO overhead as the original basic TODO list did. Bear in mind that Mark
developed HIS system to answer HIS needs based on HIS personality ... so if
you are not a lot like him, then you'll have trouble with his system.
To get back to your original question: yes, others have had the same problem
you have had and the best way to fix it is to use a system that meets the
needs of your own personality and environment. Check out AutoFocus and add
time blocking to it and see if that does not make life simpler ;-)
Again, just FWIW, and as always YMMV.
--
Cheers,
Mike
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