This is a new idea we are playing with, during the week, Tara (The Productivity Maven), Dan and Augusto will exchange emails on a Question or a Topic. The next monday, we will post the conversation un-edited or minimally edited.
If you wish to submit your question, please do, to mindlikemonkey at gmail.com and put in the subject: Monkey Talks!
We will work on your question and place it here the next time. For now enjoy!
The Question of the Week:
I've noticed I have a problem with never finishing. I start so much, but I never finish much. I have to change this and I will starting now. I have too many ideas, too many projects and this makes me concentrate on nothing. Having too many things on my mind just distracts me.
I need a system that lets me have nothing on my mind and lets me clear my mind from things that start popping up. If anyone knows of such a system PLEASE tell me. Yes, this is a cry for help. From now on, I'm finishing EVERYTHING I start and you want to know how I will start? By finishing those projects on my list that were started and abandoned later.
No projects deserve to be abandoned. If you aren't happy with them you should change something about them until you are happy with the finished product, but you can't give up on the project. I know I just have to keep going and changing it until it works. Nothing can be perfect and nothing can work the first time because then what would the point be? You wouldn't learn.
I am not sure how to help. I have this same problem. I don't finish everything I start. I have unfinished projects all over the place. I don't think a system is going to help. It is more of a function of distract-ability. This week, for example, I am overwhelmed with things and by the time I get home, it is all I can do to accomplish one thing without abandoning it halfway. For example, I was mowing the lawn tonight because it looks like it will rain on Saturday. Since it has been cold and wet since the last time I mowed, it only needed it in a few places. There were several times I almost gave up and quit, not finishing it. I wanted to do something else. However, I stuck with it. I got it done. I'm glad I did.
I think that is the key. I have to recognize when I am tempted to abandon a project in the middle. It takes conscious thought to not start something else before the previous project is complete. Another item to consider is the next action for the in-flight project. Is there something blocking it? Sometimes I have to think through those 'stuck' projects to see if I really know the next action. Errands are often a roadblock to finishing a project. I have to make sure I get those on the list appropriately.
Thoughts?
I have so much that I hadn't finished over the years that isn't funny, but i also believe that over the years, I had learn to improve in the completion/Incompletion ratio. I am not great identifying when I have too much, until it breaks, but I am able to identify when I had too much and not reduce the amount of things that renew me, but renegotiate the current agreements. I also had improve, noticing how much stuff (specially major time projects) I am taking into my plate, this backfire on me more than what I am willing to admit, but without a doubt has improve, this allow me to quit on less project.
For me there is something important to differentiate, the projects you quit because they are not part of the master plan, and the ones that are, but you stop doing. I don't worry about the ones that are not part of my master plan, those are irrelevant for me. For example if I begin learning how to play guitar and I really don't care for it, I had no problem quitting those kind of projects. Instead when I stop reading or writing, that are projects close or directly into my master plan, I get mad and frustrated.
Writing specially I notice this, you begin writing this post for example, and ideas begin coming of things you should do or write, instead of going to those I just capture. When I am writing a novel, I get the ideas that will be incredible books, more appealing to write, and seems that much better than the story I am working on, the key, is to focus.
I remember when I went to School for my undergraduate degree, I discover that I hate my major. Pick a different one wasn't an option, since will means four more years, my option was to finish or to quit. I almost quit, but at the end finish and decide that with a diploma on hand I was going to correct the course of were I want it to go.
I agree with you that there is no system, mine is my Major Project List. This list originate from my GTD Project list in OmniFocus, and it's just those projects that are important, that I want to make sure they move forward, all those projects that are part of the Master Plan, and yes those get stuck (Editing First Draft of Second novel, anyone?) and move slow (almost that feel stock), but because I have that little list, I made sure that they keep alive in the radar. It's also that little list that allow me to keep me in check.
I have the projects, and in my Weekly Review I check all those, against how the week was. This may take, five to ten minutes, if the week was stressful and incredibly overwhelmed may means that I am already trying to do to much. I don't know the total opposite, but I had learn to calibrate how much overwhelmed I can do.
Today I finish most of the projects that are tide in with my Master Plan (usually in this Major Project List) and I have improve making sure that important projects get there.
This blog is a great example of that. I love writing here, and in the past (like long long ago) this was in the list, and suddenly life happens and I remove it from the list. The result. I stop writing, I quit a project that is related to Writing (on my Master Plan). Took me longer to identify the issue, but a soon as I did, I have been trying to correct the course.
It's not that you abandon projects, is that you try to abandon the correct ones, and not the ones that are part of your Master Plan. I think...
I think it is important to keep the active projects to a workable level. I have many, many projects, but most are inactive, stuck on the 'shelf'. If I have too many going on, I get overwhelmed and don't work on anything. The past two weeks are a great example for me. I have so many things going on, I end up just sitting and staring at the wall. I normally don't watch TV or movies, but that is what I am doing this week. To get out of that mode, I have started identifying just one thing to do each day. When I do it, I can be happy that something was accomplished. It also ends up being a springboard to getting the second things done - Bonus! I also think it is important to be aware of things that are going on with the family. My youngest is in a production of Fiddler on the Roof this week. With performances every night, I have had to table some of my tasks to support his week. Next week is my daughters AP exams for school. Again, I need to take up some slack for her to spend a little more time studying. That's part of being a family. The GTD practice comes into play of keeping my projects on ice until I am ready to take them back up again.
I commend our questioner's commitment to finishing all the open projects on the list. That is a great place to start. Grab one and work it until it is done. Bravo! That is the right thing to do. Go for it! Clear the list.
That's a great example. Thanks!
The key is to understand all that is happening around, and evaluate with your own list, is on weeks like the ones you are describing that you need to be careful with your own expectations, because if you expect to accomplish the same amount of things you do on a cleaner week (regarding the amount of commitments) things not only will get behind but your disappointment will grow exponentially and your frustration with that.
In my experience, I always get in trouble when I am planning thinking on peak potential I failed miserably, I always do better when I plan for less than peak potential, because if I get a couple of great days in the week, then I will finish earlier.
Sadly, I know too many people that try to plan always based on peak potential, and when their work is less than that things got behind and frustration and disappointment grows that bring potential even lower and the spiral circle begins.
We all need to remember, that as you said, sometimes the best you can do, is make the list and try to accomplish only one thing, instead of catching up with everything at the same time.
I hadn't thought of it as planning for peak potential until you said it, but that is exactly what I do. That is a great insight. Now that you have named it, I see my problem and can deal with it. Thank you.
For years, I have struggled with Saturdays. I put so many things on my list, I couldn't possibly get them all done. I then proceed to beat myself up because I only got ten things done. I can't celebrate the ten for the three undone. What you described is exactly what I have battled for years - a spiraling disappointment. The last year I have made a conscious effort to limit the number of items on my list that are active. This has really helped me. I get more accomplished, feel better and don't feel bad about just doing nothing. In the end, isn't that the real goal of GTD - to feel good about what we aren't doing? I remember a quote from David Allen that really struck me at the time. "You can only feel good about what you're not doing when you know what you are not doing."
In theory, that's exactly what GTD does, create a complete inventory so you don't plan for full potential, you just do. The problem is, in my experience and at least for me, that there is always too many actions, to many projects, and too much to do. We are all aiming to overachieve, and ignore the fact throat the day had only twenty four hours in witch you need to do all that, rest and recharge. See how I put rest and recharge separate, and it's because I am a believer that they are two different activities.
Not only we tend to plan for maximum potential, we tend to minimize the importance of Recharging and Resting. So we sleep less and stop doing the activities that recharge us, and at the same time we try to push harder, the result: frustration & disappointment.
As you said, GTD is about feeling good for what you are not doing, but the underlying key is to be OK for what you are not doing, and not expect you to have them done.
When you made your list of thirteen items and accomplish ten, you know exactly what didn't get done, you should be OK with the fact that you are not doing them, but what happen is that I'm your mind those items were supposedly DONE!
When you made the list, you didn't say this is the things that will be cool to do, this is the pool of opportunities that I am going to pick from, regardless if I finish them or not; you said, this will be DONE today, hence the spiral of deception.
If instead, the list is a list of potential opportunities instead of things that need to get done, and you understand the difference in your mind, you will finish the day and feel great if you didn't accomplish anything in the list, because you had a complete inventory and feel good doing something that was not in the list, you feel good about what you're not doing, because you knew all the options.
This is the struggle most of us have, we make the complete inventory, do the weekly review and begin a race to catch up, and we have been loosing this race week by week over the last years and every week we come back and play again, hoping to win this time. On those rare ocacions in witch you can play four or more days on full potential you didn't win (because you and me plan for seven days of full potential and divine help on some issues of that list) but you feel that is that the time in witch you came close, and next week I will win. But usually next week, you get less days of full potential and go back to square one, trying to win an impossible game.
That is the problem with most GTDers, (me included) that we don't see our list as potential actions, but as things that should have been done, an until that click on the brain, we are playing a game that we will never win.
