I have been using GTD for a while now (1 year? 2? Has it really been that long?). By now I have mostly passed the “tinkering” phase and my system has become integrated with my daily routine. Having said that, I am still finding small ways to improve and optimize the whole process.

This morning I was looking over my Today list in Things and I realized that there were two tasks on my mind but not in the system. Safari bookmarks aren’t synching to my laptop properly and I have a memory upgrade for my daughter’s iMac that needs to be installed. I initially resisted adding those tasks to Things with the justification that they are little things and I would take care of them this evening. Of course, I have had the memory upgrade for over a week now and it has yet to be installed.

These “little things” were becoming a source of stress because every time I would walk past the iMac or log onto the laptop I would think: “Oh, yeah. I need to do something about this…but not right now.” And yet, I resisted adding them to my list in Things. Once I became aware of this I thought of several tasks that I had been holding in my head. Getting those tasks into things relieved some of the stress and gave me more confidence that they would eventually be done.

Now all I have to do is become more disciplined about doing the things on my list as opposed to just moving things around.

Tags: gtd, productivity