Not because I want to take it slowly, but because I have a lot on my plate and my natural tendency is to "unflatten time", fast-forwarding in my head all the different plays and things to do. Some of these will only apply in a year, but here I am thinking about them and worrying about them now. Worse still, I sometime make decisions related to these future things and as you all surely know, decisions are paid for with a mental toll.
So I dial back, focus on the immediate thing in front of me and remember that nearly any progress is made of trivial, tiny chunks.
Having an effective system of writing stuff down is key to that approach - your future ideas and various pending tasks need to spill into writing instead of lingering around your head. When you have a good writing system you can trust, then you can free your mind to focus on the now.
The only thing which works for me is a big old whiteboard in the middle of my working area which I have to pay attention to. It's not like a text file or a task management tool which you can ignore or neglect.
I take great joy in the whiteboard writing itself (probably because I was always much better with keyboards than with pens, it's nice to make up some of that difference now).
Whiteboard real estate is always finite so it's not like you could amass too much junk, as you would digitally. You either need to reset your objectives or, well, go out and complete some of them.
I keep one side of the board filled with tasks, the other side I use as a scratchpad.
Obviously some of the notes I take on the whiteboard get translated into JIRA, emails or whatever, but that's only when other people are involved.
I think the book should be renamed to "Getting Organized: For the Hyper-Conscientious".
Because if you actually manage to power through all the padding to get to the content (I did once but failed my second attempt), you'll find a system that requires a level of conscientiousness that's higher than if you had just done the work.
The system looks great, it's just for a very specific type of person.
Not because I want to take it slowly, but because I have a lot on my plate and my natural tendency is to "unflatten time", fast-forwarding in my head all the different plays and things to do. Some of these will only apply in a year, but here I am thinking about them and worrying about them now. Worse still, I sometime make decisions related to these future things and as you all surely know, decisions are paid for with a mental toll.
So I dial back, focus on the immediate thing in front of me and remember that nearly any progress is made of trivial, tiny chunks.
Having an effective system of writing stuff down is key to that approach - your future ideas and various pending tasks need to spill into writing instead of lingering around your head. When you have a good writing system you can trust, then you can free your mind to focus on the now.