It is once again Works for Me Wednesday.  Given the way these last several weeks have gone, I feel like nothing is working.  We have all of these great new systems for various things that I had hoped to be able to share, but none of them is quite cutting it.  The system for rewards and privileges we devised for Ariel?  Almost.  The planning system for our workboxes?  As my dad used to say, “Close, but no cigar.”  My cleaning cards?  Just about.  In some instances, we may need to make tweaks.  In some, sheer familiarity (or lack thereof) may be the issue.  More likely, my own weak time management and lack of discipline, along with the need for discipline in my children, is probably the biggest issue.  As we’re cracking down on training this week and the next, hopefully that will improve.  And I do still hope to be able to share these things with you for future Works for Me Wednesdays!

In the meantime, I have to remind myself (and you 😉 ) that it is rare that nothing is working.  We may sometimes have to dig a little deeper to recognize what’s working, but most of us have something that’s working, at whatever stage of life we may be.  For me, this time, it’s the foundation of my task management system.  I’ve shared about this in the past, but it’s worth sharing again. 🙂

I use the system described by David Allen in Getting Things Done(frequently referred to as GTD).  Many of David Allen’s principles are simply standard, good-practice time- and task-management principles.  Three things, though, that are unique to GTD and which I find helpful are “next actions,” the idea of using calendars only for time-sensitive things, and “contexts.”

At first blush, next actions sound like the things that everyone writes on their to-do lists.  There are some specific factors, though, that David Allen stresses, which make next actions very different from “to-do’s.”  The most notable is demonstrated by the name: a next action should be the very next action you need to take.  So “call plumber” is not a next action if you don’t already have a plumber.  “Ask Johnny what plumber he uses,” or “Check the yellow pages and choose a plumber,” would be next actions.  In some cases, “Look up the number for the plumber,” might be an appropriate next action.  This was the one huge eye-opener for me when I read Getting Things Done.  Allen points out that a lot of procrastination can be traced back to this matter of not listing the true next action.  We realize that we will have to take other steps first, and we don’t want to put out the mental effort to figure out what those steps are.  (One big goal of the GTD system is to take all of the thinking out of the day-to-day “what to do?” decisions.  Do all of the “figuring out” at one time during the “planning” stage, and you save yourself a lot of brainpower during the day-to-day grind.)

Another key factor of next actions is that they don’t go on the calendar.  All next actions go on a master list.  Nothing goes on the calendar unless it is specifically tied to a time or date.  (If you need to note a deadline for a next action, or a project the next action belongs to, you can just make a note beside it on the list.)  To put this another way, if it can be crossed off and moved to the next day, it didn’t belong on the calendar in the first place.  And this is basically why.  If we know that something doesn’t really have to be done today, we tend to not really take it seriously.  Better to just be really honest with ourselves and put on today’s page only what has to happen today, and put the more negotiable items somewhere else.  A benefit of this, for me, has been decreased discouragement.  Before, I usually felt like I hadn’t gotten anything done, because at the end of the day so much of my list had to be transferred over.  But that wasn’t really true most of the time; usually I had just accomplished different things than what was on my list.  GTD lets me run my day more fluidly, adapting to the way my day is going, and choosing the most appropriate next action for the moment at each turn.  (Not that I really always choose the most appropriate next action.  But I am able to choose what to do from my list based on my current circumstances.)  At the end of the day, I write down what I actually did, and I not only have a record, but I feel much better about my productivity.

Finally, the next action list is divided into contexts.  Remember how we talked about taking the thinking out of the moment-by-moment decisions by moving it to the “planning” stages?  This helps with that, as well as saving time re-reading things that are momentarily irrelevant.  The way it works is this.  All next actions go together on a single master list (as opposed to being on a daily to-do list).  This somewhat resembles the “long-term to-do list” many people may be familiar with; it’s just used for the short-term, too. 😉  But this single list is divided into categories based on what resources are needed or what environment is appropriate.  For instance, business execs might find “at home” to be an appropriate place for “honey-do”-type items, because they have to be at home to do them.  (And their list of at-home tasks will obviously be shorter than for those of us whose whole job takes place at home.)  If you need to be out to do it, an “errand” sub-list might be the proper place.  If you need your computer to do it, it could go on a “computer” sub-list.  The key to contexts is to have as many as you need, but to not have contexts you don’t need.  If you have access to a computer at all times at home, and only two of your next actions in any given week are computer-based, then a “computer” list would probably be overkill for you; the “at home” list would probably suffice for these next actions.  For me, I actually have a “computer” list and an “online” list, since I have a lot of computer-based tasks and our internet connection is not always on.

I have adapted this concept of contexts to suit my situation as a home manager.  Our week is roughly divided into “themed” days.  Monday is Laundry Day, Tuesday is for running Errands, Wednesday is Kitchen Day, Thursday is Office Day, Friday is Cleaning Day, and Saturday is Garden/Yard/Large Project/Family Day.  (Sunday is the Lord’s Day, but that’s not really relevant to this matter of stuff to do, except maybe to point out that none of these other things falls on Sunday.)  When I first started using GTD, I had only one “at home” list, but I soon discovered that a) that list was always incredibly long, and b) I was frequently skipping over things, realizing that it wasn’t really the appropriate time to do them.  So I added contexts for each of these days that didn’t already have a relevant context or contexts.  Now I have a “laundry day” context, as well as “kitchen day” and “cleaning day.” (The others already had appropriate lists, such as the “computer” and “online” lists, or “errands.”)  This way when I “schedule” a task, I can put it on the appropriate day’s list and can then basically forget about it until that day comes around again. I am not wasting time reading and re-reading all of the laundry-related tasks on kitchen day.  Instead, I can focus only on those tasks which are relevant to my focused time in the kitchen.

Your own setup will, of course, look different, as every one of our households is a bit different and we each have a different balance of interests, activities, and responsibilities.  But this works for me. 🙂