Collaboration in the Enterprise from the perspective of Anthony Holmes, an IBM Accelerated Value Program Leader (Premium Support Program).

Working Collaboration Blog

Trusted Buckets

Anthony Holmes  6 July 2009 09:36:41 PM
Last week I wrote that I had completed a weekly review using the eProductivity application and I was feeling good.

However: at some point that day I realised that although I had read a publication called GTD and Lotus Notes, I hadn't actually read the real book: How to Get Things Done. I contemplated ordering it over the internet, but one of my workmates told me that I could buy it locally. And when I asked "where" locally he said "Well, probably any bookshop". And so it proved to be: half an hour later I had a copy, picked up from my favourite bookstore (and printed locally by Penguin Australia in the country town of Marysborough, a couple of hours out of Melbourne). So GTD is certainly mainstream.

And thus, that evening I started reading how to Get Things Done (feeling a little guilty that I had been trying to do it without actually reading the proper instructions). However: a few hours later I gave myself a happy little pat on the back. I powered through the first third of the book in a sitting (taking careful notes to help aid my learning). Along the way I happened to think of two entirely new activities that I need to do. They were thoughts that bubbled up out of nowhere: not really associated with what I was reading. But both times I got up and walked across to my PC and created two new activities in my eProductivity application... and then I reached a point in the book which reads "... in the last few minutes, has your mind wandered off into some area that doesn't have anything to do with what your're reading here? Probably. And most likely where your mind went was to some open loop, some incomplete situation that you have some investment in. All that situation did was rear up ou of the RAM part of your brain and yell at your, internally. And what did you do about it? Unless you wrote it down and put it in a trusted "bucket" that you know you'll review appropriately sometime soon, more than likely you worried about it."

Woo Hoo.... I had done things correctly: I had written the items down and put them in a trusted bucket: eProductivity.

Now: despite my moment of happy satisfaction, I know that I'm still a country mile away from being a fully enabled GTD expert, every time I practice new habits, I feel a little happier.