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GTD @ home
direwolf | Apr 24 2006
I'm still ploughing through the GTD book, trying to get a handle on things, trying out little ideas here & there [did my work drawer/space/desk the other week & pleasantly surprised at the difference it's made so far, even so early on, very encouraging]. What has occurred to me is that the majority of my life that needs 'GTD-ing' is actually @ home, where I have personal stuff 'filed' in various places [*lots* of various places], along with things that do keep nagging my brain 'to be done, don't forget me, oh what about this' etc etc etc. Hence the reason GTD seemed so attractive! Looking at it this evening, the 'gathering everything to be processed' does look pretty daunting, especially as I open more cupboards & drawers and am faced with more stuff that isn't quite right & needs sorting. I read that one technique would be to capture things like 'sort out spare room' on a single sheet of paper & chuck that into 'in' for later processing. Would it be better to go round & capture absolutely all these items to 'in' before starting any processing at all, then slowly work my way through 'in' ? [from reading, this is what I understand]. What I'm concerned about is that all these things are going to take a long time to get from 'in' to 'processed' [certainly not in one full day - maybe a week if I could devote that much uninterrupted time to it]. What are peoples experiences re 'gather & process' ? Do people find that once absolutely everything has been captured to 'in' then they get through it fairly quickly or are concentrated bursts needed over time ? Is it acceptable to do it in shorter bursts like that & not be concerned about the volume to be done - as long as it's captured in 'in' then I know it *will* be done [eventually] ? Anyone manage to 'collect & process' all in one massive blitz ? Any comments appreciated, ta. 5 Comments
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 I had to do the...Submitted by kenzi on April 24, 2006 - 2:59pm.
I had to do the same thing as you when I started GTD because most of my stuff was at home. I have a home business so all that is already mixed in with the personal stuff. I just did my massive "go through everything and fill the inbox" about 2-3 weeks ago, so it's all fresh in my mind. I would argue that doing it all in one fell swoop gives you a better perspective on the scope of your system; that might help you create a filing system that is alrger than you might have expected doing it one box at a time. Fortunately GTD seems pretty flexible and expandable, so you definitely CAN do it room by room or box by box. My situation was dire with piles of paper EVERYWHERE (when I was finished I had an 8 foot high pile of paper to recycle plus 2 bags of shreddings...that's how dire it was!) and I know myself that if I just say that I will go through one pile and then process whats' in the in-box, I will keep putting off the next pile. So, I did them all in one day and then processed my in-box the next day. I found processing more fun, so that was like my reward for going through all the piles of paper. You really have to know yourself and your weaknesses to decide what is best for you. After I finished the papers and the processing, it was my plan to go through a bunch of boxes that contained various odds and ends, the kind of stuff that you just throw in a box when moving, without sorting and then regret it later. I just couldn't deal with those after 2 days of gathering and processing, and I knew they didn't contain anything urgent, so they are on my project list. I will get to them because clearing them out is a precursor to other important projects. I took a Monday off work and planned nothing for the weekend, so I had three full days to do everything. I STRONGLY suggest doing something like that; David also suggests it too and I can really appreciate the advice after having done it. Let us know how it goes. » POSTED IN:
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