Structured Procrastination and Autopilot
Apr. 3rd, 2011 02:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsA friend of mine recently pointed me to an essay, Structured Procrastination, in which the author extolls the virtues of GTD by structuring how he puts this off.
To that, I'd like to add my own method, which I got from somewhere else and modified to my satisfaction. It's called "Autopilot."
Autopilot is fairly standard GTD. Buy a pocket-sized notebook, some moveable pagemarks, a good pen and a decent pair of scissors. Put a pagemark on one page along the top: that's your first list of to-do items. Put a pagemark on a different page along the side: that's your page of long-term projects. If your notebook has a pocket in the back, put a few spare pagemarks in there.
Unlike traditional GTD, you never "move" to-do items around. You use the notebook as you would regularly, taking notes on un-marked pages. If you have tracking pages (I have one for exercise, one for weight, and one for my cats' diet, since we're still figuring out what they eat), put pagemarks on the bottom for that. When you find yourself bored or available, find the first page and scan it for undone items. Either you'll see an item that can be done, or can be put off, or you're never going to do. Do it, strike it, or skip and go to the next item. If you get to the bottom of the page, go to the next page.
I use a hand-drawn square as an icon indicating "to do." I only ever used these on pagemarked pages.
That's it. Once a day or so, convert your notes into action items. Once you've cleared a page, use the scissors to cut off the upper-right-hand corner. That makes flipping through the notebook to "incomplete" notes pages easy.
As long as things actually get written down in my to-do list, they get done nowadays. Somewhat remarkable.
To that, I'd like to add my own method, which I got from somewhere else and modified to my satisfaction. It's called "Autopilot."
Autopilot is fairly standard GTD. Buy a pocket-sized notebook, some moveable pagemarks, a good pen and a decent pair of scissors. Put a pagemark on one page along the top: that's your first list of to-do items. Put a pagemark on a different page along the side: that's your page of long-term projects. If your notebook has a pocket in the back, put a few spare pagemarks in there.
Unlike traditional GTD, you never "move" to-do items around. You use the notebook as you would regularly, taking notes on un-marked pages. If you have tracking pages (I have one for exercise, one for weight, and one for my cats' diet, since we're still figuring out what they eat), put pagemarks on the bottom for that. When you find yourself bored or available, find the first page and scan it for undone items. Either you'll see an item that can be done, or can be put off, or you're never going to do. Do it, strike it, or skip and go to the next item. If you get to the bottom of the page, go to the next page.
I use a hand-drawn square as an icon indicating "to do." I only ever used these on pagemarked pages.
That's it. Once a day or so, convert your notes into action items. Once you've cleared a page, use the scissors to cut off the upper-right-hand corner. That makes flipping through the notebook to "incomplete" notes pages easy.
As long as things actually get written down in my to-do list, they get done nowadays. Somewhat remarkable.
