Getting Going Again: Day 18 Update

Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 9:28
Mark Forster in Do It Tomorrow, Getting Going Again

There are a couple of lessons that I have been learning:

1) How easy it is to go wrong

My failed experiment has had a severe knock-on effect, not helped by the fact that I have been out of the office a lot in the second half of this week. As a result I have not succeeded in re-establishing the Do It Tomorrow system. Today I am conscious that I am beginning to slip behind badly. Now this is the point at which a lot of people start saying things like: “I’ve got too much to do to use DIT at the moment. I’ll get back into it when I’ve caught up with my work.”

What they should be saying of course is: “I’ve got too much to do NOT to be using DIT at the moment. I’ll get back into it straight away and then I’ll easily catch up with my work.”

2) How easy it is to get right again

To get back on top of my work I need to do three things:

1. Admit that I have got behind and declare a backlog.
2. Draw up my normal Will Do list for Monday and put “Clear Backlog” as the Current Initiative.
3. Get moving on the Will Do list on Monday.

That’s it! What could be simpler? I’m now instantly back on top of my work!

Related articles:

How to Get Rid of Backlogs

Previous posts in “Getting Going Again”

Buy Do It Tomorrow

Article originally appeared on Get Everything Done (http://markforster.squarespace.com/).