Sanity Check

Truthfully, there is not a single human being that multi-tasks. We're all creatures who occupy time and space, with single-thread of primary consciousness. Like a computer CPU that processes instructions sequentially, albeit at a blinding pace, about the best we can do is switch tasks quickly and appropriately, and re-orient ourselves on the fly to each task's current state and data. In other words, multi-tasking is really just illusory. The efficiency of task switching is the real skill that enables some people to get much done in an 8 hour day and others, well...not so much. I prefer the feeling at the end of the day that I have spent my time wisely and moved the needle forward on the projects and tasks that matter. This is why I follow the principles of GTD.

The GTD principle is keep a list of ALL pending projects tasks in an external system (i.e. not in your head) and to define the very next action for all of them. Its so simple, yet profound. When I complete a next action for a project, I take 20 seconds and record the next next action that is required. Doing this consistently means that when I switch to the next project displayed in my Today view, having already defined its next action, I save on valuable re-orientation time and I can go straight into execution mode.

Using eProductivity for my Lotus Notes mail file (same tool David Allen uses) keeps me disciplined to "next action" all my projects. But further, eProductivity leverages Lotus Notes' main document / response document architecture so that you can organize and link all the related emails, calendar items, and reference documents to the relevant project or next action. The result is that whenever you view your project or next action document t all the related linked documents are visible in an embedded view. Context is everything.

For example, take a typical server upgrade project that has a life of one month. Let's say in the end, this project requires 50 emails, 5 meetings resulting in 5 minutes documents, and 20 reference documents. When you switch tasks and focus on the next action, you may need to refer to some particular information contained in one of those 75 documents. How much work is involved in searching out that info? In eProductivity,  if you've been linking pertinent documents to the action or project document as you go, the document you need is sitting right there in the embedded view. Can you accomplish this same thing using a folder created for that particular project? Yes, but you will have to go to your folders and find it. The power of eProductivity is that what you need is where you need it...in context.

I am addicted to eProductivity and am proud to admit it.