Based on Shannon's recommendation, one of the books I'm currently reading is Getting Things Done by David Allen. Now, I know that everyone doesn't get all excited about organization stuff like I do, but man, oh, man, I love it! From the time I was a little kid, I loved things like sorting. You know, dumping things out into one big pile and then sorting it by colour or size or tastiness. I've always loved making order out of chaos, making sense out of gobbledygook. I used to ride my bike as far as I could, trying to get lost, so that I could have the adventure of finding my way back home.One of the things that really appealled to me about this book is that at the heart of it is the belief that if you capture all of your "to dos" in a system that you trust, you don't have to keep it in your brain! I want to liberate my brain! I had an impulse to do this quite a while ago. I was feeling overwhelmed and decided to just write out everything I could possibly think of that I had to do just to get it out of my head, so I could feel some empty space in there for thoughts to rattle around in. That's one of the reasons why morning pages and journalling are good for me; they clear my busy brain!
At the front end of the Allen's system there's a fair amount of work but some of it involves sorting and labelling and making lists - mmm, yummy. And right now by the look of my desk:
I could really use it. Now, I'm sharing this mess with you because I want to be able to celebrate with you when it looks all pretty and ordered. Celebrating is very motivating to me :) Hey, I guess I could have used that as my flawed self for SPC, hehe.
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4 comments:
Hi Jamie,
I really like the tone of this post. You seem to know yourself so well, and joke with yourself. I, too, have always been interested in organization. I'm very good at spatial organization -- people hire me to help them. But I'm terrible at temporal organization. I've thought of reading this book. I'll follow the breaking news on your blog.
Oh, I bought this book sometime in April but it's just sat on my shelf ever since (a bad trait of mine - buying books and never reading them. I've been inspired by your post to take it down and read it.
PS: I get excited about organising stuff and making lists.
YAY for Getting Things Done! :) I found it an amazing book and am using the system now and I really like it.
There are definately some things that even if you don't do the whole process are really helpful, its a realy great read
I love it! And I love making order out of chaos, too. Well, I don't necessarily like the work involved in getting to order, but... ;)
And are you still doing morning pages? Have you been doing it since we did the blgging AW? If so, I am absolutely, completely impressed! I think about it often...but I've fallen off the wagon, so to speak.
Good luck with Getting Things Done!
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