I fell off the GTD wagon pretty hard not too long ago. I took in a bunch of work because I’ve fought off a cash crunch that’s been caused by truly dopey business practices: a lot of bigger consults that took a while to pay and were more open ended than I would have liked. I had more eggs in fewer baskets than ever. A perfect storm of overseas trips, and other things delayed my well intended clients from paying on time, or even close.
I didn’t sweat it because of a longstanding relationships I’ve got. In August, I turned on the afterburners and started selling. I made a rule: all work is prepaid, period. I stuck to my guns and had an unfathomably good August. I recovered the slow income, and I didn’t have to get too anxious with my clients. Life happens, I’m happy to serve. I was able to do the works, and keep from having too severe cash crunch. I had to put off paying some bills, but the majors were covered and I carried through.
But, taking in more work than usual to replace lost cash, it caused some unfortunate things. My bandwidth got depleted, I spent less time with GenuineBoy and GenuineWife and GenuineGirl. I’m way behind on all the “Chris” projects. I’m behind on blog deliveries, and I’m behind on actually doing the blogging I’m supposed to do. There’s a sense of overwhelm that leads to procrastination until you get to–that’s what GTD was created for.
The problem was caused by abandoning my weekly review, abandoning my lists, and letting my desk and office get sloppy. Not messy, messy can be OK. Sloppy sucks. I did make it to the gym, because I’ve got a double barreled loaded gun to my head. But there was nothing external keeping my stuff in order. Stuff. That’s the essence of GTD.
So a few days ago, I was looking at it, and I’m not happy with the levels of service I’m rendering. I’m not getting enough time to think, I’m reacting to a barrage of nonsense. Not wresting control of my stuff. Every project is backed up 2 weeks, etc. I have to uphold higher standards than that.
So, what’s next? How am I back on the wagon, how is my mind much clear, and how come I had time to play with GenuineKids yesterday, and will be free to play with them tomorrow? Here’s my 13 Step Plan for GTD recovery. For the first time in DAYS, my mind is calm.
- Have an Emergency GTD Weekly Review. Gotta do that. The second you get to the overwhelm phase, do it.
- Start a new list. Write down what’s what and next actions you need to take, get it going, this took me 30 minutes, and 3 yellow pad pages.
- Find your last known list(s), and drop as much as possible. Go into it with a drop bias.
- Put your lists together, new Word/Google Doc. Do this, and have another round of drop bias. Pitch everything possible, and pare your lists down to the bone.
- Clear the hell out of your desk. Be ruthless. Everything in the inbox that isn’t nailed down and make it neat and clean. Windex your work areas and make sure everything looks fabulous. This helps for me. Put everything in the INBOX, unless it follows the 2 minute rule. Wires, cords accumulation, ditch it all.
- Process your junk: Throw everything into an inbox, and go through the inbox, every piece of paper that is in there is either on a list or pitched. Bias towards not doing it and not obligating yourself. If it’s important, you’ll make it to a list again.
- Pitch projects that you’re not moving, and “someday/maybe” them on the list. Don’t look back. You have ‘em on a list, they need to take no space up at all. If you’ve got a 43 folders system, put ‘em 4 months out, cause you’re a month behind.
- Do Closest things to 100% done: Given anything approaching equal weight, do the closest thing that you can to done.
- Report in to people: After you’ve closed one loop, look at the next one, and check in with the next 3-4 people that it’s time to move forward and when to expect deliverable goods.
- Deadlines first: Anything with a still makeable deadline gets your best efforts.
- Move to LIFO: Seems logical to move I went lifo when I got behind, and it changed my life. I got current with today’s stuff, and then nailed the past due stuff as I could. But I no longer made the problem worse by getting behind on new projects. This is worth a blog post- soon. Everything from “new work” to “money” was done lifo, and the time and money debt was attacked in the same way: do it in the order it came in.
- Delegate It All: Anything you can’t drop, delegate. To get out of triage, I sent random projects at people, here and there, where possible. I did more delegation than normal, and I will do more still in the next incarnation. This is when partnerships and such are big deals.
- Make a process: Anything that you’ve done twice you can expect to do again. Sonia Simone told me recently she was fanatical about processes. Anything that you do twice gets a written down, bullet point process. Because if you’ve done it twice, you’ll be looking at probably doing it a 3rd time. Don’t get bloated with this, but anything that takes multiple steps needs a ‘working document.’ that tells you what to do.
That’s it, that’s how I’m mentally “OK” after weeks of being behind, confused, anxious, and even running scared. I’m in charge of my output, I can even take new work, and I’ll be honoring my clients. It doesn’t mean I’m less busy, just more in control. And, I know what I’m supposed to be doing at any given time.
Related posts (computer generated):
- I’m back. I’m back. I abandoned this blog about 5...
- I am back on the Wagon… I am back on the Wagon and here...
- Back in the Saddle, such as it is. Moving sucks. It blows, it bites, and it...
