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Great TODO List - Motivation Lacking?
Scottw | Feb 12 2007
Greetings. I am new to GTD and have yet to read the book, but I plan on doing that. I have always been a todo list person, and even have it broke out in a fashion that many are recommending. I do have ADHD and am easily distracted, and typically find that things come up, that are not on my todo list, that I make a priority, which are not at all. I tend to procrastinate to no end, and when I have projects (many) with no dead lines, they seem to go and go and go. Based on what I have read, I have taken time to take a new approach to email, keeping updated on news, and trying the various TODO software and web sites available, based on GTD. The problem is, even if I am 100% organized, I have a hard time getting over hurdles, especially larger projects or projects that seem difficult in my head, even if not really. I know that when I really come to an empass and feeling bad about myself and my lack of productivity, I can start nailing out the "little tasks" and get things done, and feel good. But eventually, those little tasks run out and I am left with only big things. I have read that those with ADHD should typically do fun things first, and not-so-fun things later. That is an interesting approach as it addresses the distraction issue, that if you save your dessert for later, your constantly looking forward to that and not focusing in the meal at hand. By eating the dessert first, your less distracting when eating the meal. My problem is, if I take that approach 100%, I will never eat the meal. But the meal is what provides the money to keep life and family functional. How do you approach the todo list and manage tasks that seem to have no real deadline. 5 Comments
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 Part of the problem may...Submitted by msanford on April 14, 2007 - 11:34am.
Unstuffed;8514 wrote:
Part of the problem may be that you have a multitude of systems happening around the place: if you tend to make todo lists, do some of the stuff, then abandon them for a while, then make new ones and so on, this might be the case....Set intervening goals with their own deadlines. I started by setting arbitrary deadlines, but that doesn't work because the procrastinating part of our minds is smarter than that. The deadlines have to be reasonable based on the task. I had the same affliction. I was recently juggling three papers (historical sociolinguistics, rhetorical genre studies and didactics of oral grammar), a research proposal and a grant proposal. One of the most useful and motivating things I did (thanks to GTD) was to write out a task list for each?project I suppose is best?on one of the two massive white boards behind my desk. In red I put the "next action" to move the project forward, something extremely simple usually, and then, also in red, the action following that. Under those, in another, less urgent-feeling colour, I wrote the next general actions. It looked something like this: Research Proposal: Then, as red things get erased, they're replaced by things from the blue general task section. This is a REAL motivation booster, because it makes you feel as though an otherwise unmanageable project is actually only a series of very small steps. It's a bit akin to looking at a huge stairwell and thinking "Dang, that's impossible to climb!" only to realize that the steps are perfectly manageable, if numerous. » POSTED IN:
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