Managing deadlines and avoiding "last minute" working

I recently had a particularly productive week just before taking time off work for holiday.  It got me thinking about how I can use GTD to try to get these productive times to happen more often, rather than just before some time off. 

I have heard David Allen say that many people experience that satisfying feeling of clearing the decks only once a year, before they leave for a holiday.  GTD and the weekly review are a way of capturing that feeling every week by allowing you to take the time to clear the decks and gain perspective on your work by stepping back from the daily grind for an hour.  It was interesting to compare how I feel at the end of each review to how I felt just before I left for holiday, and it was certainly a similar feeling of relief. 

However, the extra boost in productivity during the week is not something that I find easy to recreate without the "deadline" of taking a week of holiday.  I think that many people find that they tend to be a last minute worker and need the pressure of a deadline to get things into gear.  I certainly have a tendency to do this and am trying to use GTD to help me to be more willing to get things done earlier, and therefore reduce the stress of having that looming deadline.  I use the weekly review to see deadlines ahead of time (often at least 4 weeks) and try to at least get started on items early, even if they are finished closer to the deadline.  This approach has certainly reduced my stress levels and given me more thinking time for more complicated projects, something that can be lost if you only start when the deadline is close.

The satisfaction of the productivity boost and being able to tick off a good number of actions from my lists is something that I hope to hold in my memory to give me the impetus to achieve this again, but without the deadline.  It's not realistic to think that I can do this every day of every week - that would lead to burnout - but if I can find a way of entering this mode every so often that would be a great way to push things forward.

Changing up contexts

While completing my weekly review last week I made a fairly radical change (for me) to the way my lists are managed.  As I reviewed my @office list, which had extended to over four pages and was not pleasant to work from, I made the decision to change things up and split the contexts.  It's not something I would normally do.  The @office has been working well for me for a couple of years so this was a pretty big step, but it was worth it.  My workload has been steadily increasing over the past 6 months and one office list just isn't quite cutting it anymore.  So I now have 3:

- @office

- @websites

- @minutes

These are the contexts that make the most sense given what I have on my plate right now, but I am giving myself the freedom to change them up as things shift around, and return to just one list if things calm down.  I already feel much more comfortable and more engaged with my lists and managed to get an action done yesterday afternoon that had been on the list for rather too long!

 

It took my review to get me thinking at that higher level for long enough to realise that I needed to make the change. The review is such an important part of my GTD journey; it gives me the chance to hold back the world for an hour every week and check that everything is on track.  I often find I am my most productive in the hours after the review, secure in the knowledge that what I am doing is what I should be doing, and what I am not doing can wait.

Finding the right day for the weekly review

I spent a number of weeks when I first tried to make my review a truly weekly habit working out which day was best for my routine. Many people review on a Friday - clearing the decks and cleaning the system in time to enjoy a weekend free of work distractions. I tried this as my day for reviewing, but it somehow did not gel with me. So I tried a Thursday instead and had immediate success - the timing just felt right. I have been wondering about the reason for this and how my experience might aid others who might be struggling to make the review a habit.

• Friday, for me, felt too late in the week perhaps because the nature of my work throws a large number of small tasks my way (as well as larger more involved projects). If I picked up on items during the review, I wanted to have the time and option of doing them before the end of the week. A review on Friday gave insufficient time for this
• My energy levels often feel depleted by the end of the week - I wanted to give my review a good chance of being done properly and thoroughly
• Urgent items to be completed before the weekend had a habit of shunting my review so that I either didn't do it at all, or only managed a part of it. I didn't get the full benefit of a complete review and the weekly clean and current feeling.

I can really recommend trying out different days and times (morning is best for me) to find something that really fits with your routine and energy.

With my review on a Thursday, I have ingrained the habit and am reaping real rewards. My system is more comfortable and complete and my intuition on what actions to choose is really keen. This is one habit that I intend to hold onto!

The Power of the Weekly Review Habit

This week's review made me realise, once again, just how important and powerful the weekly review habit is. I had thought that I was keeping fairly well on top of things this week - all my lists were up to date, inboxes clear - but as I moved through the review I picked up on quite a number of items that were important but hadn't got into my system. I also spotted some important Waiting For items that weren't on my lists. If I hadn't stopped the world for an hour and reviewed my system I think a lot of these items might well have slipped through the cracks.

I have a reasonably solid system, which I trust, but a part of that trust is most certainly down to the weekly review and the uncanny ability that the process has to pick up on loose threads. If my reviews were more sporadic, I feel that the element of trust would be eroded and the safety net that the regular review provides would be rather holey. Building the habit each and every week has helped me to trust my system and fully take control of every area of my work with confidence.

Interruptions and a very long weekly review

I set out to do my weekly review last Friday at 10am (as usual for most weeks). The review normally takes just over an hour, depending on how busy my inboxes have become and whether I have been able to triage during the week. Little did I know that my review would not be as straightforward as I had hoped at the start. Five hours later, at 3.10pm, I finally managed to finish the review!
It felt like the whole world was trying to distract me from completing my review and getting clean and current. I had interruption, followed by interruption and all were the important "drop everything and sort it out now" kind of problems. But despite these, I still managed to complete my review, although considerably later than planned. Each time I had an interruption, I would put a placeholder in my inbox and knew that I could come back to it after I had dealt with the person or phone call.
My job rarely has such a flurry of urgent activity for such a length of time as it did that day. However, I do have at lot of interruptions throughout the day. Through my implementation of GTD, some of these have been reduced and handled better to allow me not to lose concentration on the task at hand. I have been able to manage the expectations of those that I work for and consequently handle my work considerably better, rather than always dealing with the "latest and loudest." My first question when asked to do something is "when do you need this to be done by?" - this knowledge ensures that I can prioritise it fairly with the other work on my lists.
Interruptions will always be a part of work, but GTD allows me to take control when they happen, rather than allowing them to control me.

Back on the Wagon

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.

Making the most of your energy

Yesterday I was incredibly productive and managed to clear over 20 items from my list in a surprisingly short space of time. I found myself in “flow” with my work, taking small task after small task and getting it done, then satisfyingly crossing it off from my list. This has not happened for some time, as my head has been occupied with personal matters that I found hard to dismiss.

In the evening I looked back on what I had achieved with a sense of relief that my @Office list has decreased in size, and a sense of satisfaction. 20 items sounds like a lot, but I had a very large number of 5-10minute tasks that had shot my list up in size. I was lucky enough to feel an energy burst and be able to channel it to clear the list by nearly a third.

Had I tried to do this last week when my energy was very low it would have been impossible. My GTD system gave me a purpose and direction for my heightened energy state. Last week my system reassured me that nothing was urgent enough to be forced into doing it with little or no energy.

I love the fact that GTD addresses the issue of energy and does not expect you to be on top form every minute of every day. David Allen’s four-criteria model of context, time available, energy available, then priority takes account of the human factor and is sympathetic to our energy levels ahead of priority. Although there will be some days where despite energy levels, hard work has to be done, GTD helps me to get the maximum done that I can with the energy that I have. By using the weekly review, I try not to let deadlines creep up on me to the extent that I have no choice but to do them at low energy times.