Transform my home using GTD concepts

in fact it’s coming so naturally that it doesn’t feel like effort and I haven’t been making entries. I’m going to continue these efforts under my “manage my household” goal.

but I’ve found it just isn’t catching on for the household as I had hoped. It is back to the household notebook for me for now until I master GTD in other areas of my life.

and don’t really want to!

I am a big ole FlyLady Fan…how unsophisticated of me, but I am too low tech for this kind of thing.

Although, I did get my home filing system together this way.

I am getting a better sense of the “GTD” rhythm at work, but haven’t fully mastered it yet there, so this one here isn’t fully working for me yet.

I am still in love with my household binder, yet I don’t use that like I should either. I am thinking if I could sort of incorporate the two, that might be a start in the right direction.

A lot of this centers on routine, and if I don’t have a routine in place to review my progress with my GTD system and notebook, it will never fly. I can’t only do GTD on Tuesdays…it needs to become ingrained in habit!

This goal takes a lot of discipline. I know I haven’t made any entries in a while, but I have been doing this. In fact, organizing with GTD was a major factor in getting my bedroom remodel done. I kept a “bedroom” folder in my GTD box and every time I took a measurement or had an idea or picked up paint samples, it went into the folder. Quite a few mornings I grabbed that folder on my way to work, reviewed it at coffee to plan next actions and took it with me to the hardware store to pick up supplies on the way home. If I wasn’t using GTD, I probably never would have got around to getting to the hardware store (why bother, I wouldn’t have measured anything either), and that project would still be a dream.

I’m falling down on the more detailed stuff, and the problem is procrastination (or maybe I’m just letting myself get too busy and I’m not keeping up on this. I think I’m going to go back to my spreadsheets for housework. Even though they aren’t purely GTD, they are GTD based and I seem to be most successful when I use them. I need the challenge of competing with myself for a high spreadsheet score.

The 43 folders method is working great for keeping track of birthdays, school events and things like that. But I need to be more disciplined about putting the information in, and doing my daily reviews.

So, project folders are working great, but I need to get more disciplined about daily reviews and little details.

I just recently discovered the GTD “way” and so far, so good. I’m an architect/mom who works from a home office and so much has felt so out of control the last few years. I’m actually starting to tame the beast with just collecting stuff into a general inbox area (I think that to date, my whole house has been an “inbox” of things left around to do—a cutting board to be resurfaced, magazines to read, files to be sorted out!).

This process has also really helped me define my priorities. My daughter is almost 3 and it’s taken me this long to realize how intense it is to be a mom and that it’s become a higher priority than being an architect (which is something I’ve worked years to do). I’m in the process of setting up my practice so that I work fewer hours, but on more satisfying work in order to have the time to live my life with her and keep my house running in some semblance of order. I already feel myself getting happier about the choices and finding that it’s easier to chose what to do next.

I have a household notebook in a giant 3 ring binder I created that is not fully functional in the habit sense and am wondering how I can infuse GTD into it, as the folder thing seems to not be working well for me in the household sense…any ideas?

Now that I am getting a better understanding of how GTD works, I am rethinking a concept I have seen used in other methods…

“physical inboxes”. The concept would be to take a few large laundry totes, maybe one for each person in the family, and when cleaning up, say the living room, anything that doesn’t belong in there goes into the basket of the owner. If the basket does not get to zero by the next day, then the items get donated to charity.

I feel s organied right now I might even file myself. I have a small file box and at the front I’ve put my 43 folders with todays file at the front followed by the other 30 date files and then followed by the month files.

I’ve taken my chorelist off excel and transferred it into the 43folder system, this way:

• For each room or cleaning one, I’ve written the “daily review” on card stock. These are all the quick tasks that if I do every day keep the house tidy, most of them take less than 2 minutes when everything is maintained. This is all part of “processing to zero”.
• For each room or cleaning zone I’ve written another card with all the things to be done to have the room fully clean (wash floors, etc)
• I’ve also written out a card for each repetitive but not daily thing I may need to remind myself of, things like “garbage day” or “change sheets”.
• for today, all the cards are under today’s date. I pull them all out and do what can be done. Knowing I can’t do it all because I’m behind on cleaning. I make a concious decision for each “thing” – Do now, Defer, Delegate. Following my instinct to guide my priorities a little bit. Once I’ve made that decision or done the actions on each card, it gets filed back into 43folders. So if its a “daily review card”, I do it and put it into tomorrows folder. Or I might look at something and decide, not a priority for today, I’ll defer it. Then I decide when to defer it to and it goes into that folder.
• I only deal with a card once today, once I’m done, I make a quick decicion about when it will next be actioned and put it under that date (garbage day goes under every thursday, other chores I ask myself “how long until I need to think about doing this again”.
• I get calenders and notices from the kids clubs, sports, school and daycare. On these I highlight all the dates that apply to me and file the piece of paper under the next day that matters. Once I get to that day, the notice moves forward to the next highlighted day. Saves me having to keep track of and daily review 4 different calenders.
• Our library gives a reciept listing the books taken out and the return date. That gets filed under review date.
• other things I need reminding of go into the folders as they occur. Things like “phone mum to remind her…” or bills to pay.
• Each night I’ll review the next days folder and prepare so I have nothing to panic about in the morning.

This whole thing sounds complicated when I write it out, but really it was quite simple to set up. It’s probably taken me longer to write it out here.

But I have implemented my next actions list (incomplete, but still working) and I have to say this is the greatest but simplest thing.

I carry 4 index cards with me everywhere. They are labelled:

Next Action: Phone calls
Next Action: Store
Next Action: At computer
Next Action: Other

Soon as I think “I should…” it gets written down. If I’m at work, I put the cards next to my phone, in the kitchen I keep them on the counter… I don’t leave a room without them and their “put away” place is my purse. This small thing is wonderful. Soon as I have a coffee break, or other kind of tome, I do something on my list. Before I did this, I was always having thoughts about what I should do at inconvenient times, then forgetting when I had time, then being disgusted with myself. I’ve had so many nagging “should phone…” in my head. One each coffee break and they’re gone.