I've Come Home & Brought New Insights
I used to be a strong user of LB, though not necessarily an efficient user of LB if that makes sense. Like many, I am constantly battling to get my life under control in an world of ever increasing speed (who besides me longs for the days of Ward Cleaver coming home at the exact same time every day to a well-defined family life?).
Since then, I've given up the Palm for an iPhone, and my Windows PC for a Mac (yes, I'm a switcher). I'm working out of my house now, though I do have a significant amount of travel. First time through, I had a lot of faux categories an outline entries to organize things and to be honest spent more time managing the outline than I did managing my life.
This time in, I'm taking a different approach. Rather than trying to hide higher level items, up to and including TLIs, I'm taking the approach that they should be telling me something...that, in GTD terms, I'm missing a next action. To that end, I'm entering project names with a ? in front of them to tell me that I need to question if it is really done. For TLIs I am making more positive affirmations such as:
- I am successful in my career
- My life is organized and stress-free
- I have stopped to smell the roses
- I am happy in my relationships
- I am happy with myself
If one of these show up, and I can't honestly check it off, then it prompts me to ask why not...and triggers the continual planning process. Also, when I look at my balance, I tend to view it from the affirmation viewpoint rather than just "category" names which are hard to relate to.
I don't know how it will work, but so far it feels much smoother for lack of a better term.
Comments
I just got back into LB
I just got back into LB after a year or so away also. I had little discretionary time available for the last 2 years, so I had my calendar filled. Now I am back to a 40 hour work week, but I have all the projects I put off to do at home. I keep my work life out of LB and handle that with Outlook and paper. I use the standard TLIs with one change. I have a project TLI with active and someday/maybe under it. I put all the projects I have to do under someday/maybe. I move them to active when I am ready to do them. I try not to have too many at one time. At the project TLI I put complete in order so the someday/maybe project do not show up only the active projects. The other TLIs like yours support me having balance in my life. I may rephrase the other TLIs “Earn a living” to “How can I earn a living without work?” , “Organize household” to “How can I keep the house organized with the least effort?” , “Spend time with my family and friends” to “What can I do with my family and friends this week?” etc… The open ended questions will make my weekly review more creative.
Thanks for the inspiration.
Jeff