Constrained Bliss Point

The past two weeks have been a tizzy. Moving to a new city along with six hours per day of maths all but overwhelmed my ability to keep things organized. I suppose I could have swam harder against the tide, but that’s honestly not my style. Times like those I’m happy to keep my head above water.

This week begins my normal, much more open, schedule — three classes, no more than 4hrs/day, no class before 10am, no class on Fridays. And I am going to get on top of things again, and it is going to be awesome. I have a lot of emails, a lot of blog posts in my Reader, a lot of drafts and emails and phone calls I owe people. But that’s all going to come under control soon. I know that by the end of the week I’ll be back in command. Getting Things Done always has my back.

I’m not a GTD-wizard yet, but it keeps me sane.

I usually pride myself on being organized, but lately I’ve fallen behind. I have not felt on top of things for a week or two at least. When this happens, the optimal strategy is to step back and reevaluate, try to learn something, and come back swinging.

As I’ve written, I’m on the GTD system. It’s the most effective way of managing my commitments that I’ve found yet. But you need to control your system or it will control you. I think this is what’s been happening to me. Of the lists I keep, my main ones are Action lists and my Projects list. Action lists record all the little tasks you need to do. A projects list tracks longer-term commitments that might need multiple action steps before they’re complete.

My folly, I think, is in using my Action lists as a to-do list. Sometimes I think “Oh man, I have things I need to do,” and then try to crank through one of my Action lists. It is overwhelming. At any time I have between 30 and 70 actions queued up, and that’s just far too many to be able to look at and not freak out about.

But I think those lists are best used as a simple corral of your commitments (like an unordered set, if you will). When I have a chunk of time during which I want to accomplish things, here is my new strategy: first, scan over my actions list for about five tasks that I can accomplish given my context, time at hand, and energy level; then work off those five tasks as my todo list. In theory, it’s hard to get overwhelmed by a small number of tasks that you’ve specifically chosen to be do-able.

We’ll see how it goes.