Getting lost in the little things
Hi all,
I'm hoping someone can give me some direction on how to use LifeBalance more effectively. Overall, I am more productive and less stressed in the year I've been using LB on my PDA and computer. But I still find myself getting lost in the little stuff- reading email, taking care of odds and ends rather than settling in to a bigger task. It's amazing how much time I can spend doing things that seem urgent, and never getting the tasks at the top of my list done. For instance, email. Much of it is not urgent, or particularly important, but some of it will be, and just finding those, including sorting through my spam filter, can take 30 min, even if I don't attend to the nonurgent items immediately. When I try to focus my work on the top priorities from LB, I inevetably miss some little thing, like responding to an unhappy client. If I set all the little things priority high enough to not miss them, I don't end up with time to tackle the big things.
I'm rambling, but I'm hoping that some of this will sound familiar to some of you, and maybe you'll have some ideas?
Thanks,
Kate
RE: Getting lost in the little things
Read David Allen's "Getting Things Done" -- LB wasn't designed specifically with DA's system, but it is completely compatible. I've never found a better combination of system and software.
>Hi all,
>
>I'm hoping someone can give me some direction on how to use
>LifeBalance more effectively. Overall, I am more productive
>and less stressed in the year I've been using LB on my PDA and
>computer. But I still find myself getting lost in the little
>stuff- reading email, taking care of odds and ends rather than
>settling in to a bigger task. It's amazing how much time I can
>spend doing things that seem urgent, and never getting the
>tasks at the top of my list done. For instance, email. Much of
>it is not urgent, or particularly important, but some of it
>will be, and just finding those, including sorting through my
>spam filter, can take 30 min, even if I don't attend to the
>nonurgent items immediately. When I try to focus my work on
>the top priorities from LB, I inevetably miss some little
>thing, like responding to an unhappy client. If I set all the
>little things priority high enough to not miss them, I don't
>end up with time to tackle the big things.
>
>I'm rambling, but I'm hoping that some of this will sound
>familiar to some of you, and maybe you'll have some ideas?
>
>Thanks,
>Kate
RE: Getting lost in the little things
Hi,
I recommend the following thread:
http://www.llamagraphics.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=5&topic_...
Bye, Jens
>Hi all,
>
>I'm hoping someone can give me some direction on how to use
>LifeBalance more effectively. Overall, I am more productive
>and less stressed in the year I've been using LB on my PDA and
>computer. But I still find myself getting lost in the little
>stuff- reading email, taking care of odds and ends rather than
>settling in to a bigger task. It's amazing how much time I can
>spend doing things that seem urgent, and never getting the
>tasks at the top of my list done. For instance, email. Much of
>it is not urgent, or particularly important, but some of it
>will be, and just finding those, including sorting through my
>spam filter, can take 30 min, even if I don't attend to the
>nonurgent items immediately. When I try to focus my work on
>the top priorities from LB, I inevetably miss some little
>thing, like responding to an unhappy client. If I set all the
>little things priority high enough to not miss them, I don't
>end up with time to tackle the big things.
>
>I'm rambling, but I'm hoping that some of this will sound
>familiar to some of you, and maybe you'll have some ideas?
>
>Thanks,
>Kate
RE: Getting lost in the little things
>When I try to focus my work on
>the top priorities from LB, I inevetably miss some little
>thing, like responding to an unhappy client. If I set all the
>little things priority high enough to not miss them, I don't
>end up with time to tackle the big things.
The dirty little secret of any time management system is that you don't have time to do it all. Let that sink in...
You don't have time.
You can't do it all.
No, you can't.
Really.
Yes, a good system can make you more efficient and effective, but there are very real limits to the value of such efficiencies. Just as a gallon of gasoline has a limited amount of energy bound up in its chemical structure and can therefore propel a vehicle a limited distance regardless of how refined the engine design is, how lightweight the frame or how aerodynamic the bodywork, you can only do so much in an hour or a day. Furthermore, you should never expect to actually approach maximum efficiency. The ultimate car is priced out of the market, and the ultimate organazational system collapses under its own weight.
What's missing, I think, from your conception of time management is the sacrificing of less-important stuff. The point of LB, or any other system that has a chance of working in the real world, is not to help you do everything, but to help you decide which goals to keep working on and which to throw overboard. Yes, this will disappoint some people you're doing stuff for. Tough.
RE: Getting lost in the little things
Kate,
I feel your pain on this one.
As manager of a Technical Support Group, I need to work on all of the long term stuff as well as a the day-to-day emergencies that crop up. There is acute pain for me in missing the small stuff and cronic pain in missing the big stuff. Somehow the cronic is easier to take.
Life Balance is helping me with this. It allows me to manage the long-term stuff in a way that fits in with the day to day emergencies.
I'm experimenting with Places right now. My "Work" place and "Waiting For" place got too large to be effective. All of my coworkers are Now Places, as well all of my Roles are now places: Leader, Manager, Specialist (Do-er), Dad, Husband, etc. It's a long list, but each has it's own optimal times in terms of energy, thingking type (Abstract, emotional, Detail-orineted), etc. I open a todo list of all of these places in a time interval - i.e. Manager works seems to fit well 10AM - Noon.
Knowing that I have ~1 hour to clean out my Inbox before I need to start managing seems to get it done.
I'm still experimenting with a good integration of LB, Outlook (my company runs on email), our family's shared calendar, and our customer database (where I need to track all of my customer interactions). It's a logistical nightmare, and I have not resolved it just yet.
Getting 'push-button' integration is the key (for me) to get all of the little tings into LB. Right now I need to leave LB for the <i> little things </i> and revert to my CRM, or another list, or even a post-it note(r) on my desk. I do get some daily time on my train commute to enter data from those other inputs to LB - to keep it all up to date.
I hope that this works for you as well.
dawg
RE: Getting lost in the little things
>>When I try to focus my work on
>>the top priorities from LB, I inevetably miss some little
>>thing, like responding to an unhappy client. If I set all
>the
>>little things priority high enough to not miss them, I
>don't
>>end up with time to tackle the big things.
>
>The dirty little secret of any time management system is that
>you don't have time to do it all. Let that sink in...
>
>You don't have time.
>
>You can't do it all.
>
>No, you can't.
>
>Really.
>
>Yes, a good system can make you more efficient and effective,
>but there are very real limits to the value of such
>efficiencies. Just as a gallon of gasoline has a limited
>amount of energy bound up in its chemical structure and can
>therefore propel a vehicle a limited distance regardless of
>how refined the engine design is, how lightweight the frame or
>how aerodynamic the bodywork, you can only do so much in an
>hour or a day. Furthermore, you should never expect to
>actually approach maximum efficiency. The ultimate car is
>priced out of the market, and the ultimate organazational
>system collapses under its own weight.
>
>What's missing, I think, from your conception of time
>management is the sacrificing of less-important stuff. The
>point of LB, or any other system that has a chance of working
>in the real world, is not to help you do everything, but to
>help you decide which goals to keep working on and which to
>throw overboard. Yes, this will disappoint some people you're
>doing stuff for. Tough.
Jon:
The truth of your words takes my breath away!
Thank you
Ed
RE: Getting lost in the little things
Hi there Kate,
Just want to chime in here to say that Life Balance was actually designed with this "truth" quite firmly in mind.
You can show that if there is enough time to complete all tasks, then you can schedule them in the traditional "time management" kind of way.
However, as soon as there is more to do than there is time to do it, all bets are off, and you have to prioritize and make choices.
Life Balance is basically about making choices that further your heart's desires, (your top level goals) and choices that make the best use of the effort you have available (as you tell us in the "desired" pie chart).
You may find it helpful in your specific case, to make use of places to change your habits concerning the suspected time wasters.
For instance, you could set up a time for email and such related tasks that is only open for a short time in the morning, maybe an hour at lunch time, and an half hour before you leave. Work could include that place, but the task for checking email would only pop up during "good times" for it. Also your more important tasks may get more attention if you take the time to recognize the email as a specific task in its own right.
That's just one idea, but I hope that gives you some food for thought.
Best wishes,
--Catherine--*
Catherine E. White
President
www.llamagraphics.com
Creators of Life Balance software
for Palm OS, Macintosh and Windows.
RE: Getting lost in the little things
I've also heard of people using a kitchen timer.
DING!
That might not go over so well with your co-workers though. :-)
--Catherine--*
Catherine E. White
President
www.llamagraphics.com
Creators of Life Balance software
for Palm OS, Macintosh and Windows.
RE: Getting lost in the little things
Thanks for all the input. I reviewed a little of the David Allen approach, although I favor Stephen Covey usually. Then the thread from Ratz made more sense. I've rearranged LB to follow more closely his model, and now I think I'll do what Catherine suggested as well- making email only open at certain times. At the moment my time waster is fighting computer battles- something about GroupWise, PDA connect, and LB sync is periodically eating my PDA calendar database, thereby making LB temporarily useless on the PDA, so I'm functioning on the desktop only until I can get it fixed, and double tasking ten minutes on hold with IT to read Catherine's post and write this!
I think what I really need to remember is Jon's comment- You'll never get it all done!
Thanks for the support- I'll let you know if anything is particularly successful in a few weeks.
Kate
RE: Getting lost in the little things
I hear you. We are in the middle of restoring a dead hard disk today. We don't have an IT department. So, we don't get to wait on hold for someone to come to our rescue. I'm not sure if that is an advantage or a disadvantage, but at least the responsibility is clear! :-)
Anyway, another point to remember is that for many big personal goals, you don't have to get every task completed to actually accomplish them.
Sometimes you just need to get enough done to have the pieces fall into place so that you can declare victory.
Imagine the goal of buying a new house. You might have two dozen houses you plan to visit. But if you find the right one after looking at 5, then you don't need to do the rest of the tasks. You'll have a different set of tasks, like packing and unpacking. So Jon is right, you will never get it all done, but you will achieve goals along the way. You need to recognize and celebrate that stuff, too.
Many projects are like that example. We think we have to check off every task, and sometimes we don't. I am not advising cutting corners on things that DO need to be meticulously handled. But for personal projects, we need to include ideas, learning and brainstorming tasks on our lists that lead in a particular direction. Or we research a problem and discover a new direction is more fruitful than we previously supposed. It can be helpful to take the time to weed out the old tasks when you do change directions.
Also, if you are really overwhelmed with too many tasks, see if you can share the load with someone else. Be sure to reciprocate when they get overloaded too. Teamwork is a good thing. Of course if you can delegate the task completely, go ahead and do it -- but for many of us, there is often nobody else to delegate to!
For us, that hard disk isn't going to fix itself! So I need to get back to helping Stuart with that. :-)
Good luck, and best wishes,
--Catherine--*
Catherine E. White
President
www.llamagraphics.com
Creators of Life Balance software
for Palm OS, Macintosh and Windows.
RE: Getting lost in the little things
The hard disk is restored here, and I had another thought that might be helpful to you.
What is it about the task that you are "supposed to" be doing instead that doesn't seem motivating or appealing?
Is there something you can do that would make the project something that you would truly be looking forward to doing? MIght be a good time for planning a reward.
Best wishes,
--Catherine--*
Catherine E. White
President
www.llamagraphics.com
Creators of Life Balance software
for Palm OS, Macintosh and Windows.
RE: Getting lost in the little things
(snipped parts out for brevity)
>
>The dirty little secret of any time management system is that
>you don't have time to do it all. Let that sink in...
>
>You don't have time.
>
>You can't do it all.
>
>No, you can't.
>
>Really.
>
>Yes, a good system can make you more efficient and effective,
>but there are very real limits to the value of such
>efficiencies....
>
>....
>The
>point of LB, or any other system that has a chance of working
>in the real world, is not to help you do everything, but to
>help you decide which goals to keep working on and which to
>throw overboard. Yes, this will disappoint some people you're
>doing stuff for. Tough.
JON: I think this is some of the most profound stuff, but so simple! There really is no way to get it all done, is there? You DO have to sacrifice unimportant things (though they same important because of the urgency) to take care of the really important things.
Take my job for example: I work in software support at a large company. I don't to "tech support" on the phone, rather I am dedicated to two very large Fortune 500 companies for a specific software solution. But the point is this: I have several competing tasks coming from both customers, and there is no way I can all of them perfectly. I either do all of them less than perfect, I can do SOME of them perfectly and leave others incomplete, or I can choose a nice medium: Do as well as I can on the important stuff (within reason) and take care of the rest *IF* time permits.
It's a constant battle between spending time on Urgent/Important things, Important/Not Urgent things, and Urgent/Not Important.
With David Allen's philosophy I found myself very efficient, returning emails quickly, knowing where to go for important information, always knowing what my next action item was.
The problem was I lost the forest for the trees. I was very efficient at climbing that ladder, but like Covey says, I found the ladder leaning against the wrong wall. I was in the thick of thin things.
No the GTD methodology has some good techniques, but that's really all the system seems to be. Techniques. Not a philosophy on what is important. You don't get the enduring sense of accomplishment and noble work by returning 100 emails. You get it by completing meaningful, important and personally satisfying tasks... and you won't really know what those are if you focus on the tasks ONLY.
That's why I absolutely LOVE Life Balance. I purchased a PC version, the Palm Version and most recently the Mac version. Decent investment amount, but worth it. I've been using it for years now and have come to love it's ability to magically know what's important to me. It has the best of both worlds: depending on where you are it tells you what to do (like GTD), but it won't trump importance for urgency if you don't want it to.
Anyway, went off on a tangent, but Jon I appreciate your post. Really made me think, and appreciate LB even more.
RE: Getting lost in the little things
Thanks, Nomad. Checks for you and Ed are in the mail.
I've been hitting that same wall with GTD, but then Allen is very clear that his book is primarily aimed at the level of day-to-day productivity --what he calls "10,000 feet" or so. He explicitly says (pp. 189, if you're wondering) that "The focus of this book is not at those '30,000-' to '50,000+-foot levels," though operating with those higher perspectives in mind is "implicit."
I've been needing to pull up and look around, and it's been a bit of a struggle. I just skimmed GTD's chapter 9, which makes the point (among others) that 'clearing the psychic decks' of low-level clutter can free up the resources needed to look more carefully at higher priorities. Sure enough, my lower-level habits have gotten sloppy lately, my desk is a mess and my email runneth over. I'm not sure whether I got sloppy because my priorities weren't straight, or my priorities got out of whack because I got sloppy, but it's become a vicious circle. It's time for a little tidying up.