This week, in a special episode, I explain why it is important to question your assumptions about how you go about doing your work and achieving your goals. 

 

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Script

Episode 120

Hello and welcome to episode 120 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

Last week, on my YouTube channel, I posted my latest Todoist setup and it sparked quite a lot of questions. In recent months my whole to-do list organisation structure has gone through some radicle changes and that was because when I began my annual systems review last October, I decided not only would I look at how I was organising and managing my work, I would also question my assumptions about how I think a to-do list manager should be organised. 

Before I get into explaining my thinking and why I changed my system so radically, I just want remind you that my Productivity Mastermind course on building your own workflows is out now and the early bird discount period will be ending tomorrow (Tuesday).

This course takes you beyond the to-do list manager and into building a custom daily workflow for yourself then ensures you get your most important work done each day and gives you a framework to focus on making daily 1% improvements to the way you do your work and live your life so you are always making progress on your goals and developing the right habits to build the life you want for yourself. 

It’s a great course and will transform the way you work today to a more effective way of building on habits and making improvements where you identify you want to make improvements.

Full joining details are in the show notes. 

Now, like most people who have read and implemented David Allen’s Getting Things Done approach, system, method or best practices (whichever way you want to call it) I bought into the belief there were just two ways to organise my to-dos. By context—people, place or thing—and by project. And for the last eleven years, that's how I have organised my to-dos. 

At various times I had up to fifty project folders and well over twenty to thirty different contexts. After all, this was the way to organise things right? I needed a place where I could review all my projects, open loops and tasks. 

Now, I guess like most people who have thrown their hats into the GTD ring, you quickly discover that you are spending a lot of time reviewing stuff. There's a quick daily review and there's the massive weekly review--The one or two hours each week where you review everything—On top of that you need to regularly process your inbox (at least every 48 hours) It often felt like I was doing more reviewing than actual doing, which never seemed right to me for a method or system that claimed to help you to “get things done”.

One of the funniest things I have come across are GTD purists telling people if they are not doing a full weekly review each week they are not practising GTD. This completely misses the point. It’s called “Getting Things Done, not “Getting Reviews Done”. The whole point is doing the work, not reviewing the work. That’s just the old proverbial shuffling papers to look busy trick. It doesn't get the work done. It just reorganises work. 

Now, of course, knowing what work you have on and where everything is is important, but you should not be spending so much time reviewing stuff either. If you apply a little common sense you would know where a project status is and what needs doing next—or if you are properly engaged with your work you should do.

As I was questioning my assumptions, I began wondering why