Clearing the mind is one of my favorite things with GTD. You cannot lose. To me, it’s one of the quickest ways to feel better if I’m stressed out, feeling overwhelmed or trying to mentally manage the ankle-biting things that have my attention. In a short period of time, I can sweep my brain of any nagging bits–from buying stamps to wondering what’s I should do with my investments. And what’s amazing to me, as easily as the brain will hold on to that stuff, it will just as easily let it go. It’s not a strong fighter if it trusts I will process, organize & review what I’m collecting. All 5 of those GTD phases are interconnected like an ecosystem that works together.
In my GTD Twitter class this morning, doing a Guided Mindsweep, a few people asked why they would write things down in a mindsweep that are already on their lists? There are a few common reasons why things will creep back into your mind:
You didn’t clarify enough. If your mind thinks there is more planning or brainstorming to do about that, or what you captured as a next action is not the next physical, visible step, it will take it back.
You’re not reviewing enough. If your mind doesn’t trust you’re looking at that choice often enough (Are we doing anything about this??), it will take the job back. The Weekly Review is gold. It’s not just clean-up time, it’s reassurance time for your mind that you’re “on it,” even if that’s a decision to let it incubate some more on Someday.
Surely this happens to me! I thought I was alone writing things down even if they are on my lists, because they are still on my mind. And usually during processing the things on my lists change because there was this item captured.
Initially I thought the system still needs tweaking if I need to capture things that are already on the lists. Over time, I accepted that my system is bound to fall behind me. Such thoughts which need to be captured are then just extra opportunities to get current, apart from the weekly (ahem…) review.
Thanks for reassuring that writing down stuff that is on our mind is a good idea, even if it is on our lists.
Very true Kelly. I just wandered onto this site, inspired into a Google search on “getting things done” having read and blogged about “Eat That Frog” by Brian Tracy. So I’m new to all this, but delighted to see so much good productivity advice on this site. Will come back. RSS. Click. Done!
I find there’s another reason things appear in my inbox again: when they’re ready to come off my Someday/Maybe list.
Sometimes something on my Someday/Maybe lists grabs my attention as I’m going about my day. When that happens, I capture it just like anything else, and when I process it I take it as a clue that I might want to start taking action on that project.
Ideally that would all come up in a review, but sometimes you’re not in the right mindset when you’re reviewing to notice how important a potential project is. If I start seeing it come up over and over, I know something’s telling me to pay attention.
I got so much from the guided mindsweep. And your finetuning tips are priceless.