From the outside the restaurant looks promising, and you’re hungry. You get a table and the waiter brings the menu. You have a browse. A few things look OK, but you’re not really that up for anything on offer. With a sigh, you order something that looks acceptable but not great.
Then you notice the people at the next table, who are just tucking into their meals. They have things that look superb – in fact, one of them has something you’re really in the mood for – and it occurs to you that you didn’t see the food they’re having on your menu.
The waiter brings your meal, and you ask about the food on the next table. The waiter looks quizzical, and then opens the menu he gave you. “I’m terribly sorry, this menu is missing a page.”
Feel cheated? Sure you do. Appealing choices were hidden from you when you made your selection. As you do your best to enjoy your meal (mustn’t waste food, after all), you come to terms with the fact that you’ve had to settle for suboptimal, because the options you thought were comprehensive were, in fact, incomplete.
How is it then with the action reminders in your organisational tools? When you peruse the “menu” there, do you see all the options? Or only some? If you don’t see all of the options, how can you be sure you’re making ideal choices?
How about if I deleted every other entry in your calendar? Would you feel as though you were missing some important things? Yep.
So how about the lists of other action reminders you have? Are they comprehensive? If you’re at your computer can you peruse a list of all of the things you could do there? If you’re in front of the boss, do you have a comprehensive list of topics you need to discuss? Or have you “left pages out” of your menus? If things are missing, can you be sure you’ve made an optimal choice?
Many folks create intentionally incomplete lists, because they think it enhances focus. A “daily to-do list”, generally created in the morning or the night before, includes things that seem important to focus on that day. It’s unlikely to be a complete inventory of all of the things you could do, because in creating these lists we omit things that don’t feel “high priority”. Those “medium” and “lower” priority things won’t be there. By the way, nor will any high priority things that slipped your mind in the moment that you put the list together.
Why does this matter? You might think that omitting less-important things was a good way of making sure you focus on the important. The problem is that as your day goes by, you may have opportunities to move things forward that don’t seem high priority, but which you would like to get done as soon as you can.
Say your daily to-do list includes drafting a budget document, reviewing a 20-page proposal, and calling a client for what you expect will be a deep and meaningful conversation about a new product. Then you find yourself with 10 minutes free before you’ll be meeting colleagues for lunch. None of the things on your to-do list can be tackled in that time. At that moment, wouldn’t it be helpful to also see options like that phone call to book tickets for the concert? Or the quick internet search you could do to create a short-list of sailboats you might rent for your summer holidays?
Those things might not have seemed “high priority” that morning when you created your to-do list, but in those ten minutes they are the options you want to see – they’re the missing page in the menu.
Outstanding article, Todd! It certainly expresses the power of GTD thinking and having a COMPLETE inventory of all of your projects and actions. Focus IS important, but one has to know what I CAN focus on now and that is problematic if you have nagging thoughts about unresolved “stuff” on notes or a list. Creativity really does stem from having a clear mind.
Cheers!
Hi David – many thanks for your note. I’m glad the blog landed well with you. One of the things I find endlessly fascinating is how GTD best practice is reflected in the choices that we make every day. My colleague Robert Peake wrote a great blog last year that used the menu as a metaphor for GTD lists, and as I’ve been noodling over the last several months about blog topics this one hit me as helpful.
As always, please let us know if there is anything else we can do to help you on your GTD journey.
Interesting article Todd. I have started to create “daily plans” more than 2 years ago and I love those because they give me momentum and satisfaction whenever I cross of one item on the daily plan. The other advantage is that yes, they hide the overwhelming ammount of tasks that is in my system. And I also put those “quickies” in my daily plan, e.g. when I have to do phone calls.
On the other hand my system allows me to create a quick view that shows all tasks that can be finished within 10 minutes or less, if I made this effort estimate when entering the task to my system. So whenever I have 10 minutes I could quickly find out what other stuff there is that could be done, even if those tasks didn’t make it on my daily plan for today.
But there is also another choice: Use that 10 minutes to take a mental break. Get up from your desk, make a walk to the far away coffee machine, drink a cup of coffee and come back. Perfectly fitting into 10 minutes. And supporting my long term goal to stay healthy, meaning that I need to move and excercise more. And clears my mind so that I’m better prepared for the next high-level tasks. And there is also a chance that you meet coworkers when you leave your desk and you get important news by just doing some smalltalk. Works perfectly for me. And prevents me from being exhausted at the end of the day or suffering from a burnout sooner or later. Had one burnout in my life and learned my lessons. 😉
Hi Rainer
Thanks for your note. It sounds like what you’ve generated is a system that selectively hides details based on what you want to see. I’m all for date-specific reminder of things we need to do, as long as they don’t cloud our judgment of what the best choice would be at any given time.
Re; taking a break – it’s been interesting to watch the evolution of David Allen’s own writing in this area. He used to describe the optimal “Productive Experience” as in control, relaxed, focused, and getting things done. In the last several years, “getting things done” has been replaced by “being meaningfully engaged”. If the right thing to do in the 3 minutes before your next meeting is take that break, then that’s being meaningfully engaged, and is to be applauded.
Todd