Confessions of an imperfect GTDer

Sometimes it doesn’t go right, does it. Sometimes, at the worst possible time, we get it wrong. Occasionally, just occasionally, when we most need to get it right, we screw it up.

I had just about convinced my beautiful wife Raewyn that GTD ("Getting Things Done") was something that would benefit her greatly. One of Raewyn biggest strengths is the fact that she likes everything to be done well. The only difficulty with this of course is that without a trusted system to keep all the information, she tries to keep it all in her head. And that can cause her all sorts of stress as you can imagine. My performance since I had found the right implementation (eProductivity for Lotus Notes) had just about convinced her to give this a try herself .

Picture by Katrinket

But just the other day she asked me, "Have you done those things we agreed for Sunday."

"What things?" I innocently replied.

"Those forms we need for the service. Remember you wrote them down in your book."

I always feel it’s such a waste when people with incredible potential get bogged down doing stuff they simply shouldn’t be doing. So my posts on this site are predominantly about exploring ways to avoid this and to help people lead to their full potential. If you want to join with me in this journey you can follow me by rss feed, by email or through Twitter
… and don’t be scared to let me know what you think!

Oh dear, I checked my book, which is really my day-to-day notepad and my prime collection tool, and there it was in black and white. What on earth had happened? Where had I gone wrong? And more importantly, what impact will this have on Raewyn’s decision to try, or not try, GTD?

So what had happened and how could I rectify the situation?

I’ve ascertained that I need to be more careful with my note taking and my processing. You see this note would have got collected and processed during my normal weekly review on a Tuesday morning but that was no good because the action needed to be taken earlier than that.

So my new notetaking and collection process now looks like this:

When taking notes, in addition to the square box in the left margin for items that I must action and the circle for items that someone else is to action, IM including a triangle for items that may need action urgently. This means that when I get back to my desk, even though I do not want to do a full collection/process at that time, I can quickly scan my pad for items or actions that cannot wait until my next full process time. So in my notepad will now look like…

Can anyone suggest better, or the (GTD) correct ways to handle this situation.

Now, off to prove that I can redeem myself and that GTD and eProductivity will indeed make her life better too.

Tags: David Allen, eProductivity, Eric Mack, GTD, Productivity

Tagged as: David Allen, eProductivity, Eric Mack, GTD