Chaos Tamed
Here I sit a week after diving into my office/life reorganization process. This process was triggered by the paralysis that my chaotic life had brought to my living and ministering, and by the purchase of a book: David Allen’s Getting Things Done.
What do I have to report? It is amazing. At first I was very intimidated by the sheer volume of stuff that I had allowed to accumulate undone in my life. It took 3 days (not continuous, but ongoing) to sort through everything. I still have a couple stale areas to sort through and purge (file cabinets that I haven’t filed anything in for years), but I have been trying to work the process. Last night as I finished reading the book, I decided I needed to redo part of what I had done to match the program better. So I started some of it last night and will be doing more of that today.
The biggest part is to capture what Allen says is the most important question: What is the next action to move this project/task forward? That’s part of what I have to reassess. Some of my “action items” do not really answer that question, but now that I understand better what he is talking about, I can refine things. The other part is my project list. I have not really compiled the list like he recommends and that I now see as helpful.
Near the end of the book, there is this quote from a church in Sussex, England from arount 1730…
A vision without a task is but a dream, a task without a vision is drudgery, a vision and a task is the hope of the world.
But even after only partially implementing things for a few days I am amazed at how many things I am accomplishing already. It is really working. Now to keep it working. That is important.
Now if I could only get our cat to stop biting us.
