David Allen says

“You’d probably find yourself  with a much larger list of things you had taken on to get done as a result of  feeling so great from getting the existing stuff done”  (paraphrased)

You author concurs, but has an additional thought:

You might learn something about  ‘completion’: “the calm amidst  storm”

You see when I ask people in a seminar what they would feel like were I to wave a wand over their heads and complete everything that needs to get-to-done in their worlds, they seem to have a visceral experience from the inside out right before my eyes.

They seem to experience the joy, the peace, the rest of completion without actually having completed anything (unless some of them can travel at Star Trek or Star Wars speeds at an individual level and like the comic book hero the Flash, can move faster than my eyes can see).

Thus I conclude that this feeling of completion could be experienced at will from the inside out on demand.

One of the subtleties of framing desired outcomes as completion statements is that the statement itself moves one’s focus into pre-experiencing completion.  In fact for those who truly articulate the completion they are intent on achieving, they literally experience the benefits of completion every time they look at the list of projects needing completion.

Is this how your to-do list makes you feel?

It could…
Simply script your projects  and even your next action statements in the completed past tense with any  necessary descriptive bells and whistles embedded.
Then watch how they begin to  allow you to experience completion before completion has been realized.
Further, if your next actions are crafted  in an attractive enough manner, they actually begin to entice you to engage  with the incomplete items as soon as time presents itself.  Often this emerges  out of a desire to actually experience the reality of completion on the  physical versus just the psychological plane (which beats the fear of  deadline approach any day in my book).

The feeling this produces is my definition of the “calm amidst the storm”.

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GTD asks us to do a lot of of writing. It encourages us to write as we brainstorm, even on a cocktail napkin if necessary. It suggests we identify next actions in writing, and it even recommends we carry around something to capture thoughts and To Do ideas (next actions & projects) with everywhere we go. If we’re going to do all this writing it might be worth reflecting a moment on why it’s so worthwhile to do.

The Limit

There’s a reason we have blackboards in classrooms, white boards in conference rooms and why I will go to great lengths to make sure I have a white board in any consulting room where I do coaching or therapy. You’ve likely heard of the famous 7 plus or minus 2  chunks of information that we’re able to hold in working memory at any one time. Because of the upper-limit to our cognitive capacities, our speaking and auditory capabilities top out at roughly one thread at a time. That’s it. One. That one thread can move more or less quickly, but we can’t speak in several parallel threads at once. We also can’t listen accurately to several conversations at once. We can switch back and forth among them rapidly and catch the gist of them, but it is rapid switching rather than really doing more that one at a time. Our limited working memory also sets the boundaries of the complexity of thoughts that we can hold in mind. That is unless we cheat a bit. Here are two major ways we can cheat and feel good about it:

Parallel Processing

Here is where the writing comes in. Writing acts as extra-somatic memory—memory that resides outside the body. Let’s say I have a client that is trying to figure out what might be causing her child’s tantrums. So I ask her to tell me about a specific instance, which is where we usually start. As she tells me about the tantrum I begin sketching out a diagram of what she’s describing up on the whiteboard. It might start out with the phrase “Zoo Tantrum” in the middle, circled. As she cites possible contributing factors, several lines begin jutting out, each with a another phrase, such as “overstimulated”; “low on food”; “feeling jealous” about what his sibling ordered for lunch that he wished he’d ordered; and even reasons like the child having a “temperament” that makes him more prone to irritability in stressful circumstances.

With the diagram on the board, my client is able to shuttle back and forth from each of those ideas to represent all of them mentally, sometimes side by side, sometimes one after another, creating a sort of parallel processing—representing several ideas virtually at once. Or at least quickly enough that they can all be juggled in rapid succession to make comparisons that it would not be possible to make nearly as quickly if we were limited only to talking about those same ideas. My clients often find looking at a diagram of their problem so compelling that they jump out of their seat, needing no invitation, and start adding to the diagram. It is almost as if they can’t stay seated because the power of the ideas being generated is just too much to merely talk about. So writing things down has an effect that is a lot like adding a giant chunk of RAM to your computer, and very inexpensive RAM at that, which enables a powerful kind of parallel processing.

Freeing up RAM, by Using Your Hard Drive for Storage

The next piece is more widely known, but still well worth looking our attention. Our 3 x 5 notecard, our Outlook plugin, or the note we take on our phone, all function as extra-somatic memory in a another important way. This sort of memory is a bit more like computer storage, such as your hard drive on your PC, or the storage space on your mp3 player. David Allen has made the following metaphor a centerpiece of GTD: Offload information from your mental RAM so that it is freed up for other tasks like creativity and flexible thinking. That notepad or hipster PDA  you’ve got in your purse is functioning as a hard drive. If you get the info out of your RAM and onto your hard drive, you don’t have to keep using up your valuable, much less available RAM space, your working memory, to keep the ideas represented. So if writing to enhance thinking was like artificially extending (remember we’re cheating here) your RAM capacity—how much brute RAM you have to work with; this storage idea is more like making sure not to clutter whatever capacity of RAM you have in the first place with information that could easily be kept somewhere else.

Well why can’t we just jot things down once we get home or just do so every once in a while? That is the brilliance of GTD’s admonition to practice “ubiquitous capture”, always having some way to record those thoughts immediately, by the bedside, in the car, at the grocery store. One of the first authors whose work I fell in love with used to practice exactly this skill of ubiquitous capture. John Steinbeck used to carry a small notepad with him everywhere he went, and furiously jotted down notes in all kinds of circumstances. He had even been known to interrupt a romantic interlude, yes, that’s what I mean, to jot down a thought or image that he didn’t want to lose. Now I don’t think you have to make ubiquitous capture quite that ubiquitous, but the sheer dedication that Steinbeck had to capturing valuable thoughts, I think, makes a memorable example. I’m sure his lover at the time found it memorable too. This is also a reminder that being really smart doesn’t obviate having to write things down. Brilliant people like Steinbeck know the value of cheating, and it actually enabled his brilliance to flower as it did.

So all those little ideas that you’ve got zipping around like so many gnats add up and clog up your RAM. Of course the actual functioning of the brain is more complex than our RAM analogy. The miscellaneous To Dos and responsibilities aren’t just taking up RAM, they actually require using up additional cognitive resources, for instance executive function, which Oliver Starr previously posted about, to shift our attention around like a spotlight onto what we’re trying to keep track of. But for our purposes, offloading those ideas and images immediately leaves you with only the single idea, “check my ‘trusted system’” to keep track of, rather than the myriad details we would have buzzing around otherwise.

Finally it is worth giving a nod to how much writing  has affected the lot of humankind. Most of the conveniences we have today would not be around if it weren’t for this special bit of extra-somatic memory, which science, much of art, and so many of our greatest achievements rest upon—and which we usually take for granted. And now that we’ve got access to this ability to cheat, not just with pen and ink, but with an array of digital devices as well; when we choose not to write it down, voice note it, etc we’re choosing to toss away a giant chunk of our exceedingly valuable RAM. So next time you do a little paper and pencil brainstorming, send yourself an email, or draw a diagram so you can understand something better; take a second to remember what those little tools are doing for you. That extra RAM is there for the taking. Grab extra RAM more often. It’s darn close to free.

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We all feel shy at times.  Some of us find groups intimidating, others feel self conscious one on one, still others can’t stand to be the focus of attention for fear that people will see something wrong with them.  The truth is that everyone has insecurities and everyone has faults.  While we’re busy worrying that everyone else is secretly noticing how badly we suck at something, chances are they are really worrying about everyone noticing how badly they suck at exactly the same thing.  For all but the truly exceptionally self-assurred among us a few tips on how to feel less shy would probably come in very handy.

If you agree, check out  ThinkSImpleNow.com .  They got as a great article on how to overcome shyness as well as a ton of other content that will lift your spirits, improve your self esteem and help you remember that everyone is unique and special and also that we’re all just human. I’ll be that our two resident cognitive scientists, Jennifer George and Lynn O’Connor have even more helpful tools and enlightened commentary on shyness and how to fight it.  Perhaps one of them will weigh in on this post?

As a bonus you might want to check out another article from  ThinkSImpleNow.com that covers all the stuff we collect and some helpful methods for getting it under control.  Do you have any tips on decluttering your life that you’d like to share?  Please do in the comments.

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I’m one of those unfortunate people who loves trying out new software for my GTD system. So far, I’ve always gone back to the online, tried and true, Vitalist (www.vitalist.com  ) for contexts/next action lists (projects too if needed).  But that hasn’t stopped me from doing that experimenting or “tweaking” as some optimists call the time I waste fooling around with new organization/GTD programs. I’ve made this lame excuse: “Every time I enter my next action data into a new program it allows me to review everything in greater detail than I do in a weekly review.” That was as far as I got in explaining my sneaky kind of procrastination behavior. It began to feel even shameful to wile away a whole afternoon exploring some new program.

I felt a lot better about my “try new software”  habit when I read a report from the latest issue of Neuron, as described in New Scientist. In an experiment, researchers demonstrated that our love of adventure and novel objects, is based upon our hard wiring, we could say on our basic nature.  It seems that every time we explore, investigate, try out or learn something new, the reward center of our brain starts firing, much as it would if we were expecting to win a lottery, a card game, a horse race  or any kind of competition. My guess is trying out new GTD software is yet another way I flood my restless brain with dopamine.

This fact about how we’re naturally wired is long known in business and advertising. It’s why companies may put out a product with absolutely no changes, except for the packaging. People buy the new, even if it is more expensive and less convenient. We all fall for something novel. So now, maybe I can get off my case about trying out every new GTD program.

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Editor’s Note:  This article which originally appeared in New Scientist was forwarded to my attention by Dr. Lynn O’Connor, one of our contributor’s.  I felt that it would be of interest to GTD times readers - after all, who doesn’t benefit when you can get someone else to get things done - for you…

Eight ways to get exactly what you want
07 May 2008
Dan Jones
Alison Motluk

Lifting the lid on the science of persuasion
Cajole your boss into giving you a raise, win someone round to your point of view, or persuade your partner it’s their turn to put out the trash - getting people to do what you want can be very handy. Persuasion is a key element of all human interaction, from politics to marketing to everyday dealings with friends, family and colleagues. “Persuasion is a basic form of social interaction,” says Eric Knowles, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. “It is the way we build consensus and a common purpose.”
Unfortunately persuasion is both notoriously difficult to pull off and almost impossible to resist when done well. Psychologists have long been fascinated by persuasion - why some people are more persuasive than others and why some strategies work where others fail. Over the next six pages we bring together some recent insights into the science of persuasion.

For those who don’t want to be persuaded, there are lessons here too. Knowing the strategies charmers and advertisers adopt can help you resist their guile.

[Read more →]

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Just came across this announcement from O’Reilly Media for a book I imagine will be of interest to quite a few GTDtimes readers: “Your Brain: the Missing Manual“.

From O’Reilly’s dexcription of the book:

Description
Your Brain: The Missing Manual is a practical look at how to get the most out of your brain — not just how the brain works, but how you can use it more effectively. What makes this book different than the average self-help guide is that it’s grounded in current neuroscience. You get a quick tour of several aspects of the brain, complete with useful advice you can apply to everyday situations.

And don’t miss the Gallery of Illustrations from Your Brain: The Missing Manual.

For more detail on what this book contains, the table of contents is also available online.

Editor’s Note: If you have authored a book that you think would be relevant to the GTD Community, please make us aware of the publication. Likewise, if you are aware of any books that you feel other GTD’ers would like and wish to share a review, feel free to submit it to GTDtimes care of: Editor at GTDtimes dot com.

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Editor’s Note: this is the first piece from another new addition to the amazing team of GTDtimes contributors, Lynn O’Connor, Ph.D.. Dr. O’Connor is a clinical and social psychologist, a researcher, educator and consultant. She is a professor at the Wright Institute, Berkeley, teaching doctoral students in clinical psychology. Her lab, the Emotion, Personality and Altruism Research Group (EPARG ) housed at the Wright Institute, is focused on studies of personality and psychopathology, with an emphasis on our fundamentally altruistic nature. She has been studying empathy-based guilt for almost two decades. In addition, she has a small private practice where she works with individuals as a consultant and psychotherapist. Dr. O’Conner will be writing articles on various aspects of the social and psychological aspects of GTD and things related.

Research on intelligence is also finding psychological components to levels of performance. When children are taught that intelligence is fixed, heritable, and set for life, many of them back off and put little effort into academics. Only those who have already been labeled as “high IQ” are off to high performance. When however, intelligence is reformulated and children (or adults) are introduced to the idea that intelligence is expandable, and grows with effort, many not initially labeled high IQ come out of the woodwork and become high performers. We have been thinking incorrectly about the concept of IQ. Intelligence is expandable. We can improve performance if we understand that how we do on a task is a function of our effort. Carol Dweck from Stanford has been studying what is being called the “effort effect.” A great summary of her work is found in an article written by Marina Krakovsky.

When I read Dwecks work I began to think about organizing in the same way. I always thought being well organized was a function of genes, heritable, you either had it or you didn’t. I didn’t, and I thought it was hopeless, I would never be organized. Understanding expandable intelligence led me to reconsider my organizational problem, and that led me right to David Allen and GTD. I jumped on the GTD wagon, finally getting that like intelligence, the ability to be organized was a function of effort and experience. I’m a big believer in understanding and accepting our genetic limits, but our limits as members of our species make us far more changeable than we imagine. That’s a quality of being human, the ability to learn entirely new skills and adapt to new environments.

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A recent article in Newsweek asks this fascinating question: is EF more important than IQ as a determinant or predictor in scholastic and professional endeavors?

How that question gets answered may well be the most important single factor in determining the way our children will - or at least should- be educated. According to the article, studies conducted with preschool aged children showed that those kids educated using techniques that help to develop executive function performed far better than their conventionally educated peers.

What’s more, in spite of the fact that education for maximizing EF appears to be much more frivolous and playful then a traditional literacy oriented curriculum the EF groups significantly outperformed their matched peers in all areas included their subsequent ability to learn to read, write and correctly perform mathematical equations.

This new thinking has the potential to be transformational if the powers that be are willing to embrace the realities of this data. The facts are too powerful to ignore; they even answer some nagging questions about people that appear to have the brightest of headlights (IQ’s approaching 200) yet seem to be unable to match socks, tie shoes or arrive somewhere in a timely fashion.

The reasons for this may be based upon the very substantial differences between IQ and EF. According to one physician, Dr. Richard Petty who has just written a short article on the topic:

“There is an important idea in neurology and psychology called “Executive functioning.” This refers to our ability to be able to make and carry out plans, direct our attention, focus and also to control our internal states: our impulses and emotions and to be able to switch from one task to another. In other words it is a key part of our ability to self-regulate our behavior, mind and emotions.

I can’t help but wonder if this also means that there will soon be another disorder affecting children and adults: EFDD and AEFDD (Executive Function Deficit Disorder and Adult Executive Function Deficit Disorder respectively). I’m sure that the lab rats in the white jackets are already hard at work at Glaxco and SmithKline, Ortho, Lilly and the other big pharma firms…after all this is another multi-billion dollar blockbuster dream come true for the industry; a likely easily diagnosed, incurable but eminently treatable “condition” that requires a lifetime of medical maintenance. I can hear the aforementioned company’s CEO’s shouting “Hallelujah!” from here.

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Editor’s Note: Smart drugs, also called nootropics are a relatively recent phenomenon for most people. Although some folks have been aware of, and utilizing, a variety of drugs that appear to measurably improve intellectual performance, concentration, wakefulness, energy, memory and more, to date there has been little coverage of these compounds in the mainstream press and also a paucity of research on safety and efficacy.

That stands to change however as new drugs like Provigil - which shows promise in correcting many problems from the effects of sleep deprivation to the fatigue associated with MS - begin to be more thoroughly investigated for off label uses. Further, aging baby boomers that are not willing to allow the aging process to slow them down, continue to drive forward the prospects of any product that can help them stay young longer.

As a former researcher with a certain amount of expertise on this topic, I would be happy to include more posts on compounds like Provigil if GTDtimes readers like this material. Please let us know in the comments.

Editor

Blogger Johann Hari posted an account of his recent experiment with the new smart drug, Provigil (also called modafinil), and it’s caused a lot of discussion in the blogosphere. Here’s a quote describing the effects he felt after ingesting his first pill:

Perplexed, I got up, made a sandwich – and I was overcome with the urge to write an article that had been kicking around my subconscious for months. It rushed out of me in a few hours, and it was better than usual. My mood wasn’t any different; I wasn’t high. My heart wasn’t beating any faster. I was just able to glide into a state of concentration – deep, cool, effortless concentration. It was like I had opened a window in my brain and all the stuffy air had seeped out, to be replaced by a calm breeze.

He didn’t experience any particular side effects, but gave it up for fear of all the things we still have to learn about the drug and its relationship with the brain. The idea of a magic, consequence-free smart drug to give you effortless concentration and productivity is tremendously tempting, don’t you think? Would you try it? Or do you prefer the old fashioned way?

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Editor’s Note:  One of our new contributing cognitive scientists Jennifer George weighs in with a short post on procrastination and attachment.  Can anyone beside me relate to what she’s saying here?

 My fellow procrastinators and I are well acquainted with the mental drama that goes on as we torture ourselves about that important task left undone. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that the thing we’re not doing signifies all sorts of icky emotions and unconscious ideas about ourselves and our lives.

In our more lucid moments, we can see that there really is nothing fundamentally different about playing GTA IV versus writing that paper that’s due tomorrow. Both activities involve synthesizing information, making decisions, and moving our hands and eyes to make the right things happen on our computer screen.

The real difference between the two is what Buddhists call “attachment” — the clinging, coveting emotions and beliefs we have about ourselves and the world, including pride, fear, and desire. In more modern terms, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy describes our habitual maladaptive thoughts as “cognitive distortions.” Both schools argue that examining our existing thought patterns and developing new, productive ones can help us reduce suffering and build more useful behaviors.

It may not be enlightenment, but next time you’re not doing something you’re supposed to, think about the attachments, emotions, and thoughts that are getting in your way. Remember that they are illusory and temporary, and try to squirm out of their grasp for a while

*cartoon from CoddledEgg Blog

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