Stop wasting so much time figuring out what to do
I was on a retreat this weekend, and do you know what one of the little pleasures was for me? Coming to the dining room at mealtimes and being presented with a single option — simply accepting what is offered. Why is this lack of choice a comforting treat rather than an annoying limitation? Because having to choose from dozens of options — having to decide what to do every minute of the day — can be exhausting, and stressful. And, like the dinner menu, many of the decisions we face every day are entirely unimportant.
I live in New York City. More than any other single place on this planet, perhaps, it offers lots of options. This can be exhilarating, but it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. On any given night, there are a dozen amazing events I could attend. On any given day, there are a dozen things I could do to advance toward my goals.
Now, though, thanks to technologies that open up the entire world to us through our cell phone, cable TV and laptop, this characteristic of New York City is becoming more prevalent for everyone, everywhere.
Getting things done
Task management guru David Allen devotes a lot of his attention to the issue of choice. As he sees it, one of the biggest obstacles to getting things done occurs in that moment when we have to decide what to do next. Allen says that often it’s much more efficient to just do something reasonable rather than spend time deciding what to do. His approach, dubbed “Getting Things Done” or GTD, can be overly fussy, but it has a lot of useful techniques.
To oversimplify, its key feature is preparing in advance so you know what needs to be done and can be done in different settings and at different times; then, depending on where you are or what you’re working on, it’s easy to identify what you could be doing, and you just do the next thing on that list. You don’t waste time deciding what to do. You don’t even complicate your lists with the kind of priority coding used in most task management systems. You just do one of the things that needs to be done. Over time, you get everything done and you don’t waste a lot of time deciding the order.
People who don’t fret so much over unimportant choices are more confident and productive. I can’t help remembering an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, when Captain Picard and Beverly Crusher have temporarily gained the ability to see each other’s thoughts. When they come to a fork in the path, and the captain picks a route, Crusher discovers that her leader often makes choices without really knowing which is better….
[Read the rest of What Works: Freedom From Choice at bustedhalo.com.]
