Many GTDers will have heard David Allen talking about falling off the GTD wagon, and most importantly, getting back on again. In the past month or so I would say that I was teetering on the brink of this wagon, barely able to keep a hold on my system and working in reactive mode.
But today I did my weekly review and felt my workload come back under my control. The review is a strange beast - so easy to put to one side and think that it is not as important as all of the other tasks on that list! But it really and truly is the bedrock of the system that keeps all tasks in perspective. Without it (as I have recently experienced), a 'mind like water' is impossible and the weight of the workload starts to wear you down.
Having done my review today, I feel uplifted and more free than I have for a number of weeks.
That's seriously true. I've tried implementing GTD system for three times and the reason for this stupid necessity (to do it more than once, but good enough) was that I wasn't doing my weekly review and the lists have simply overwhelmed me. At the beggining of this month I've decided to do it right and up to now my system is working in a nice, relaxed way - mostly because I'm taking advantage of the power of weekly reviews.
ReplyDeleteBy the way - I have greater problem - the most difficult stage of GTD procees for me is unfortunately the stage of doing thing. I prefer planning to doing, however I'm conscious that realising things is most important because that's what bring us forward.
You are quite right, shoe125: the fact that you have recognised that you can get stuck with doing is really important. Have you managed to get your tasks to enough of a granular level? I often find that I shirk doing a task when I am not absolutely clear on what I need to do. When I cut the task down to an even smaller chunk, I find it gets me kick-started to do the task.
ReplyDeleteI hope that your weekly review is continuing to reap rewards! Thanks for reading and commenting.
Sarah