thinkfetti

I like it that I am using David Allen’s system Getting Things Done and also enjoying parts of Lin Yutang’s book The Importance of Living that have particularly to do with “the Noble Art of Leaving Things Undone.”

The numbers are terrifying.

I just finished my first real weekly review of my Getting Things Done setup, which I’m running on OmniOutliner Pro with the kGTD scripts. I’ve been doing GTD since December, but I’ve had a lot of time out of town, so up to this point, I had only done one moderately real weekly review.

The weekly review is, in large part, a survey of what projects I have going, and what things I have listed under “I’d maybe like to get to these someday.”

A project is pretty much anything that will take more than one step to accomplish, and anything I have listed here anywhere is something I couldn’t have taken care of, once and for all, in a couple minutes.

OK, then, the numbers…

• I have 23 next-items that are just single tasks, not part of any larger project.
• I have 27 projects on my someday/maybe list.
• And I have 144 projects going now (!!!), each with a next-action I’ve figured out to be the very next thing I need to do to make progress on the respective project. Remember, none of these next-actions is just a “few minutes” thing.

Geez! And some qualitative observations:

• Almost all of the 144 projects are things I’m doing for my job.
• Many, if not most, of the 27 projects being put off for now, on my someday/maybe list, are much more interesting to me than the lion’s share of the 144 projects on the live list.

Hence the title of this post. This is, however, very useful information for me - it’s quite impressive to be able to see this so blatantly available. Clearly, some changes are in order here!

Socorro, in addition to being the town where I live, is the Spanish word for “help!” as all my friends in other places know by now.

I’m back in Socorro from my holiday travels and preparing for the new semester, which means, among other things, that I’m digging out from the piles of emails and next-actions waiting for me.

I’m feeling pleased with the Getting Things Done system I got going in December - I have it to thank for the fact I’m only feeling that I have many, many things to do, instead of feeling overwhelmed with the many, many things I have to do.

I expect to have a more active posting schedule soon, with news of networks, probability, music history, conducting, and creativity/art/design - well, lots.