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Getting off the ground - feeling panicked/worried
Pat Armstrong | Apr 26 2008
Hi all. I've read through most of Getting Things Done about twice now, thought about implementing it quite a bit, and even posted here once or twice. I've bought a filing cabinet (something I swore I'd never do), a stack of folders and adhesive labels, and a bunch of index cards. I've decided to give it a go, since I'm in my last year at uni, working part-time, and usually have a few personal/freelance projects on the go at any one time as well as a social life to keep a grip on, so there's a lot of stuff to manage there. And now I'm processing my inbox for the first time, and my list of projects is starting to make me feel quite nervous and even panicky, and I'm not even halfway there yet. It contains everything from "Fix couch in loungeroom" to "Organise time with girlfriend" and "Update portfolio". Although I had small moments of feeling good about the process (such as when I wrote out "Fix wind-up watch" as a project, something I've been meaning to do for over a year), looking at all this stuff in one spot just makes me nervous, not in control of all the stuff in my life. My project list is over 50, and I still have a stack of projects/ideas to get through, fearing I'll have this monster list at the end of it all and no idea where to start. Am I doing it wrong? 5 Comments
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 Too Many Projects!Submitted by augmentedfourth on April 27, 2008 - 7:37pm.
If you've got too many active projects for you to get your mind around, I would suggest temporarily moving some of them (the least-developed and least-urgent ones) to your "Someday/Maybe" projects list. This will help you see your list and feel more in control of it, then you can move things back into 'active' status as you begin to feel more comfortable with the system. I used to be scared of a too-long Projects list as well, and I created all these nebulous, umbrella-shaped meta-projects like "Manage computer security" to swallow up all the tasks involving security issues (I'm a systems administrator in a research lab). However, that really didn't end up working, and though my Projects list is now much longer it provides me with a much more accurate sense of direction in my work. » POSTED IN:
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