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GTD & $ (or lack thereof)
88% | Oct 27 2006
How to deal with things that you need, but can't afford? I have recently started a small business & sometimes my finances can get fairly tight. I have a actions for buying things that don't need to be bought, but should be to improve the business. (Think a faster photocopier, or a software upgrade) Right now, my @errands list has alot of little things that need to wait for the next cheque to come in. I bring up that I run a small business because there is no fixed period for the money to come in. The problem, of course, is when I look at my @errands list, there are alot of actions for buying things that I would buy now but can't. That means extra thinking everytime I go through the list in order to decide if I can afford the thing at any given time, and as Merlin says, we shouldn't need to think about our work. I don't want to put these actions in the someday/maybe list because I don't want to review my someday/maybe list every time I get a cheque in the mail. I'd go mad. Anyone got any suggestions? 6 Comments
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 re: @ Errands (Context, Tickler, or Someday-Maybe?)Submitted by Todd V on October 27, 2006 - 10:21am.
88%;6419 wrote:
The problem, of course, is when I look at my @errands list, there are alot of actions for buying things that I would buy now but can't. That means extra thinking everytime I go through the list I had the EXACT same problem. And it took me awhile to figure out a solution. In the process of designing a one-at-a-time approach to GTD on the mac called "Ready-Set-Do!" I would get tons of "@Errands:" items. And it began to clog up my Actionable folder on my desktop. The Solution?? --> I made a separate text file called "PURCHASE LIST" with a list of all of the items I would like to purchase divided by category (e.g. Personal, House, Living Room, Office, etc.). And I keep this list in my "Checklists" folder which gets reviewed once per week with my weekly review. During that review I go through each category and bring things to the top of each category based upon which item is the most important for that category. Or sometimes I bring this list with me for the "business meeting" my wife and I have once a month and we discuss our purchasing priorities. The only @Errands items that go in my Actionable folder to actually purchase are the "must haves" that my wife and I have committed to purchasing (in the format of "@ Errands (Office Store):...")Everything else starts on the Purchase List. In addition, since I keep this Purchase List on my computer, I also have a physical folder I keep in my REFERENCE files called "Purchase List Support" -- and any magazine pages, or pictures or things related to potential purchases goes into that folder corresponding to items listed on the Purchase List I keep on my computer. So far this is really working well for me. Give it a shot and see if it helps at all. Sincerely, Todd V » POSTED IN:
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