I previously wrote about how Getting Things Done (GTD) and Tracks have been useful in keeping organised at work. When GTD is working, things generally feel good. Even when there is a high workload, there is also a sense of control.

There are a couple of areas when I tend to ‘fall off’ and let things get out of control.

###Overloaded during shutdowns During a unit shutdown/maintanance period, I spend most of my time away from my computer so am unable to enter tasks. Also during a shutdown, I have a very high number of small tasks constantly coming in.

During the last shutdown, my method was to accept that I was going to have to use paper but to avoid my normal problems with paper systems.

  • I carried an A6 notebook around in my pocket at all times.
  • The front was for general notes/working
  • The back was for tasks.
  • At the start of each day, I would review the active todos (from both the paper book and tracks)
  • I would write down the active todos that had (or at least could) be done that day in the back of the book.
  • During the day I would score off any completed tasks and add new tasks at the bottom.
  • At the end of the day, any incomplete todos would be sorted:
  • Any todos that were for a future day would be copied into tracks and deferred
  • Any that were still active were copied onto the next page
  • The old page was then ripped out so the active todo’s were always on the back page.

This got around my main problems with paper systems:

  • Handwritten notes never lasted more than 24 hours
    • They had to get rewritten at the end of each day.
    • This meant I could always read/remember what I meant
  • Kept organised
    • The old stuff is always getting ripped out
    • Kept what I was actively working on clear.

###Underloaded during quiet times During quiet periods (over holidays etc when the office is quiet) the problem can often be that it is too quiet and I only have one or two tasks to worry about. The problem arises when I don’t bother to use the system because ‘it is so quiet, of course I can remember to carry out that task’. Inevitably I then forget about said task until it is overdue and someone is asking why I haven’t done it yet.

I need to trust the system and keep using it even in quiet periods to ensure that I am actually working on the most important task at each time.