implement GTD

I took the advice to try GTDTiddlyWiki, which looks like it may end up as my central repository for projects, routines and action lists—but I’ve had to weather an up-front productivity drop as I succumbed to the uncontrollable urge to hack around in its workings instead of actually putting it to use. Doh!

I find my very modest Wiki experience is enough to make the interface seem incredibly easy and intuitive to me. The worst thing about it is that when you hit the escape key during editing, it tosses out your changes and closes the file for editing. As a frequent vi user, I hit the escape key a lot unconsciously when editing. That’s kind of a make-or-break problem for me, so I’ll have to see if I can remove that behaviour from the script before I spend any time getting rid of all that scarlet and mustard. (Not that I have anything against Griffindor house colors, I just don’t want to look at them every time I use my system.)

Edit: It didn’t take more than a few minutes to find and remove the offending shortcut. Colors took longer because they were not as well commented. I think I’m finally done tweaking and ready to fully implement my system.

My physical inbox backlog is finally, finally gone. Everything in there is from the last few days. Next I’ll work on getting down to a manageable set of current projects and refining my project files. My study looks unbelievable! I’m never been so organised in all my adult life. I feel as if I could do anything.

Please forgive me for boasting, but I have ZERO messages in my e-mail inbox. I think before this week it was something like two and a half years since I could say that.

Now about those hundreds of items in my paper inbox…

I lost momentum. I need to start over again almost at the beginning.

• my files are in a vastly improved state
• several small projects completed
• got a broad grasp of my priorities
• was able dismiss some tasks and projects from my mind for now
• high-volume e-mail account still almost completely organized after 2 weeks
• nearly all clutter I own is within a few metres of me as I write, was previously strewn over house and office
• recycled about 30 kg of paper

• didn’t set aside enough free time to finish initial processing before other commitments intervened
• allowed myself to become intimidated by volume of unprocessed paper
• many “pending” items still pending for next actions
• haven’t returned to using a calendar even though it’s obviously necessary
• did 0.5 weekly reviews, really need about 2 per week

Good luck to me and everyone else, and thanks to my fellow-travellers for sharing their experiences and insight. I’m starting again tomorrow.

I’m probably about halfway through the first iteration of processing, after a solid weekend of work. The most fun part is the two-minute jobs, actually getting a few things done. The second most fun part is coming up with action steps for everything—starting to think, “Yes, I really will do this after all.” And it’s liberating to file things under “someday”, to let go of them for now with confidence that I will think about them again when the time comes, and not until then.

The least fun part is discovering what a flake I’ve become. I can’t believe how many little commitments I’ve made to myself or other people and not kept them, just because the reminder for the task is buried under something, or eight somethings, on my desk and in my mind. Another not-so-fun part is confronting the bulk of material. It’s getting better. The outline of my study is beginning to appear underneath the coat of papers and whatnot. There is a path of bare floor to walk through now.

It’s weird to realize I’ve done all this and gained so much order, and I still haven’t even really started to use the system yet. It’s such a big step forward just to separate the stuff that needs action from the reference material. If I stopped right now I’d consider myself as having profited by the time and money I spent.

My next subgoals are to finish the initial processing by Friday night, and to get in the habit of writing down everything on my mind and getting it into my inbox.

The best way to get rid of clutter and get ready for houseguests, given that I’ve been using the guest room as a sort of inbox, is to consolidate my stuff into two inboxes and process everything over this weekend. There’s never a great time to deal with all the unfinished business in your life, I think, but I could do a lot worse than now. My study looks like the big earthquake came early—that’s the downside. The upside is that the rest of the house looks good, and my office has never been more organized. I have a big stack of paper ready for recycle, some garbage to go out, and some empty space to organize into, now.

My boss is a genius. I’m not exaggerating. My colleagues have come from around the work to work with him. He’s a good leader, a good writer, and as far as I can tell, a good scientist. Every silver lining has a cloud. My boss gets great new ideas and has me drop what I’m doing and do something else. It can be disagreeable if I lose perspective about it. I have more unfinished projects than finished ones, since my industry can never keep up with his creativity. At the jobs I’ve had before, I had a lot of different tasks, but I never had any trouble keeping track. Now it takes a big chunk of my time, trying to remember where I was in project A so I can take it back up again after finishing project B. That’s the job, though, so I may as well get good at it. Hopefully Getting Things Done will work out for me.

Right, back to processing. I take a deep breath and go.