GTD Cost vs. Benefit Analysis

April 23, 2008 2:13 PM

GTD Filter: How do I best decide what my next action should be? I.e, how do I map out the Cost vs. Benefit?

I always have the choice between different things to do. I could work on my clients project, I could work on my personal project, I could study for school, I could go out and get me some needle and thread, I could call a friend, I could watch the new episode of Lost, I could research and buy some parts for my hobby robot.

There are always a lot of things to be done, and these things will all have to be done sooner or later. The list also never ends, because there is always something pending for the client, my project is never done, housework is a constant thing, etc.

I need a way of somehow being able to decide which task should be done right now, and which should be moved forward. What's the best system to decide this?

Important is that there is constant rotation - each thing needs some time so it does not fall behind the others. Also, I don't want to relearn a whole new GTD system, I just want a technical solution for how to keep my next actions rotating, with each project gettings its fair share.

posted by markovich to work & money (4 comments total)

The first commandment of the classic David Allen GTD system is context. So you first figure out where you are physically, and what is possible to do in the environment you are in. That might eliminate some of your choices. For example, if you are at work, you can't do the laundry, so all home-related items are not on your next actions list.

Is that what you're looking for?

Technically, I use recurring tasks in Outlook to remind me to regularly spend a few minutes at some recurring interval on certain projects. For example, I have a task that recurs monthly to remind me to check certain blogs that I like to keep up with, but don't need to read every day.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 2:52 PM on April 23, 2008

The first commandment of the classic David Allen GTD system the way I read it is that the system can't tell you what to do. GTD is a system of reminders and a system of defining with precision the tasks you've decided to do, but that deciding is up to you and is always in some sense arbitrary. Time management systems that claim otherwise are either bogus or unrealistic, — because they would have you spend an hour on Project X at 2.45 each Tuesday, or whatever, but life never works like that. Even if you can plan your own schedule that freely, you can't account for mood, motivation or energy levels. In my case, being told (even by my own time-management system) that I have to do X at 2.45 actively reduces my motivation for wanting to do it...

But if you're not comfortable with making moment-to-moment decisions all the time as Allen suggests — and I'm not — then I would strongly recommend some of the ideas in Zen To Done. It's all about taking a few moments each morning to define the 3-5 'most important tasks' that you will get done each day — rather than a fantasy to-do list that will never get finished and will probably get longer. This is the time to choose tasks that relate to several of your projects. (A 'most important task' may of course be several 'next actions' strung together, depending on how fine-grained your GTD system tends to be.)

See also Marc Andreessen's "anti-to-do list".
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 3:04 PM on April 23, 2008

I remember reading a system used in Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and though much of that book has not, this graph stuck with me. It basically consists of two axes -- urgency and importance -- which divide the plane into four quadrants. So now you have urgent and important tasks e.g. paying your taxes, urgent and unimportant tasks e.g. doing laundry, not urgent but important tasks e.g. getting regular exercise and tasks that are neither important nor urgent like watching a television show you've been meaning to catch. Which one do you think I'm doing now?
But seriously, I've found this to be a helpful guideline as to what tasks to do. The ones I find the toughest are the important but not urgent tasks since they require delayed gratification.
posted by peacheater at 6:50 PM on April 23, 2008

What helps me is to layer in what I learned from the FlyLady about routines. Set aside certain times during the day or week that you reserve for certain contexts or projects. For example, when I'm at my best I have two shopping/errand days - one that is mostly my weekly shopping and one that is for errands plus picking up a few perishables. Before I leave the house, I check my "errand" context to see which ones I want to include in that trip.

Based on your habits, block out some times for your general categories and then use GTD to decide what to do within that category. You may not go to an office but you should have an office time to focus on client work. If you end up changing your plans, then you know that you owe yourself client times. I find mid-morning is a good time for focused concentration, afternoons I am more likely to be out and about, after dinner on the laptop while my hubby watches TV.

One of my favorite FlyLady ideas is that Wednesday is Anti-procrastination Day - make yourself do at least one thing that you have been putting off every Wednesday. It is a great feeling to get one of those low priority but necessary tasks out of the way (or if you are on a roll, you might clear out several).
posted by metahawk at 8:41 PM on April 23, 2008