Taking a brain dump
GearFire is taking a look at the question of “writing everything down” within the GTD process. I posted this short time-management tip previously:
Unless you have very little to do or the tasks you have are highly repetitive, you cannot depend on your brain to recall everything that needs doing. The things that are most immediate are going to push away things in the background —often the most important. By writing things down you free up your brain to analyse the information and make productive decisions.
Here are three things I keep in mind with writing things down:
- Keep the system simple – the point of writing things down is to get it into a system that makes it easy to find. If your process is too complicated, you’re not going to trust the system and therefore are not likely to use it effectively.
- Review it – the “brain dump” is not static. The point of writing things down is not to get them out of your mind and then forget about them. You have to review the list regularly.
- Do it – zen habits addresses this one, How to Actually Execute Your To-Do List: or, Why Writing It Down Doesn’t Actually Get It Done
Related Posts:
22 Ways To Overclock Your Brain
Quotes - May 14
Time Management Tip
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Comments
Great points, Ian. For keeping it simple, a small pocket sized notebook works best for me. At day’s end, ideally everything in it gets processed, and I’ve got a clean sheet for the next day. I’ve dropped the “I’ve gotta get fancy and techno-hip” idea. And daily processing goes a long way to actually getting the things done.
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Thanks for continuing the debate! I posted a link here on my post!
Geoff