It feels so good when two ideas come together perfectly.

Years ago, I just lit up while reading David Allen’s book Getting Things Done.  One of the important concepts is how “open loops” cause stress.  You know how there are certain things that annoy you, get in your way, or are just weighing on your mind?  It could be anything from the way the water pools on the bathroom counter when you pump the soap, to the tedious form you have to send back to the health insurance company; the more times you think, “I REALLY have to do something about that,”  the more stress it creates.  This stress blocks you from being creative, enjoying life, and achieving your potential.

Basically, leaving those “mental loops” open makes you loopy.

You have to close those loops by doing something constructive about the problem.  Unfortunately, you can’t always drop what you’re doing and fix the thing you noticed/remembered/dreamed up at that exact moment, so you need a system to capture all those ideas and tasks.  The rest of his book is about his very organized system for keeping on top of those projects, tasks, etc.

Well, life changes and I had completely forgotten about the GTD system, when I saw a review on Lifehacker.com about “Autofocus“.  Basically, it’s a list - just one long running list in a notebook of all the things you need/want to do.  Now I’ve been doing that for years, and I have the sixty gillion notebooks to prove it.  But here’s the brilliant bit - nine times out of ten, I can do something about one of the items on the list, but haven’t finished it.

For example, “get estimate from electrician”.  Well, then you call the guy and leave a message and wait for a call back so you can make an appointment.   Now what?  I have to cross something off my list, otherwise I don’t get any of the satisfaction of keeping the stupid list in the first place and just want to tear my hair out.   But it’s not finished.  And if I cross other things off the page and move to a new page, I’m going to forget to go back and see what was leftover - I always do.  I could write every tiny detail of what it takes to finish the task: “call electrician”  “call electrician again”  “ask neighbors for new referral of electician who will return calls” “call new electrician”.

But I don’t need written proof of how annoying my life can be.

So the brilliant bit is:  when you act on an item and it is not finished, cross it off and rewrite it at the end of the list. Okay, maybe I’m just an idiot, but in 37 years I did not figure that out on my own, so maybe you didn’t either.

I’ve been keeping my new, improved, Autofocused list for a few days now and - you know what?  I really have gotten more done and fewer things have fallen through the cracks.  If you visit the Autofocus link above, there’s an explanation and tutorial about some more parts of the system, all the info is free.

Whatever your system for getting things accomplished, go close  those mental loops before your brains fall out!

1. audre Says:
   February 21st, 2009 at 12:54 am

   Thanks for the “loopy” article and the Autofocus link. I’ve been trying out different methods recently to get myself organized, but none have lasted more than a couple of days: too high maintenance, too high tech, learning curve too steep or just plain too fussy. This one is simple enough that I “got it” right away!

   audre