{"id":142428,"date":"2020-07-07T14:12:41","date_gmt":"2020-07-07T14:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/?p=142428"},"modified":"2020-07-07T16:24:41","modified_gmt":"2020-07-07T16:24:41","slug":"down-to-earth-with-a-thump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/2020\/07\/07\/down-to-earth-with-a-thump\/","title":{"rendered":"Down to Earth with a Thump"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My GTD\u00ae origin story is evergreen. There was a point in my life when I had a technical, fairly transactional role that I was doing well in, and to prove that no good deed goes unpunished, I was promoted to manager. I was rubbish at it: woefully unprepared for the rash of new commitments and responsibilities that this entailed, I was putting stress on myself, my team and the people I cared about. After nearly dropping a significantly-sized ball, I got my act together by Googling \u2018how to be organised\u2019. I bought a copy of the ‘Getting Things Done\u00ae’ book and a notepad, and haven’t looked back since.<\/p>\n

Every time I tell this story, I get nods of familiarity and recognition. Most people who move from front-line roles into management have experienced something similar. Being all-of-a-sudden responsible for people can be daunting, and the necessary lifting of sights from what\u2019s directly in front of you on the desk to take in more of the big picture isn\u2019t something we are generally taught. I found the combination of clarity over my commitments, and perspective of the bigger picture that GTD affords, absolutely critical in making that transition.<\/p>\n

But, what happens when you need to go the other way? The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted us all in different ways: 9 million people in the UK have found themselves furloughed, and many of those who have remained in employment have reduced hours, and are having to adjust to different roles and expectations.<\/p>\n

In normal times, I lead a small team. A few weeks ago, I found myself instead being a one-man-band with a portfolio of projects to deliver. Not oversee, or manage, or be the aAccountable person while someone else did the work, but the actual Doer of Things. It is fair to say that after 15 years in management, I\u2019m a bit out of practice. It\u2019s also fair to say that my GTD system is geared up more for a manager\u2019s life: my Delegated Projects list is as long as my own Projects list; lists of things I\u2019m Waiting For and Agenda items get a lot of action, and my Weekly Review\u00ae is structured around my Areas of Focus and Responsibility to ensure that everything is getting the proper amount of attention. It\u2019s broad-strokes and high-level, and it serves me really well. But it wasn\u2019t going to get these projects out of the door.<\/p>\n

One of GTD\u2019s many strengths is its ability to flex and scale to fit your world. In any given moment you may need to have a wide-angle view of all your commitments, or you may need to zoom in on a particular Project that requires some focus. It\u2019s never either\/or. So I rolled up my sleeves, and got to work on my system.<\/p>\n

The first thing I did was to address priority \u2013 I\u2019m going to be in the weeds for the foreseeable future, so the longer-term strategic projects will have to take a back seat for now. Moving these onto a new \u2018Don\u2019t Pan(dem)ic!\u2019 list took them out of my general view, but I\u2019m comfortable that if\/when things start to return to some semblance of normality, they\u2019ll be sitting waiting for me with the thinking already done. Similarly, some of my Areas of Focus and Responsibility need to be dialled down for this period. For example, flying solo for a while means no line management tasks, so everything in that area could be safely stowed away for later.<\/p>\n

Setting aside my \u2018old job\u2019, as it were, gave me psychological space to engage with the new things on my plate. I could go about defining the new work, identifying the outcomes I wanted and the Next Actions that would set me on my way. Some of this was very straightforward; a clear end goal was already set, and I just needed to find the next physical, visible action to keep advancing towards that state of completion. In a weird way, these jobs feel like they take care of themselves.<\/p>\n

There were a couple of gnarly cases that were less cut-and-dried, with short deadlines and ambiguous expectations. Understanding the purpose of the work and a vision of success was essential in helping me come up with the right approach \u2013 a light-touch version of the Natural Planning Model\u00ae<\/a> acting as a conversation guide with my stakeholders. Finally, the outcome\/action thinking of GTD stopped me from becoming overwhelmed by an unfamiliar slate of work by focussing me not on the enormity of the whole, but on the doability of the task.<\/p>\n

At some point, I\u2019m sure a version of normal will establish itself. I\u2019ll go through this process again, taking my pre-pandemic commitments out of mothballs, assess them against my new priorities along with my new commitments, safe in the knowledge that my GTD system is flexible enough to support whatever that looks like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My GTD\u00ae origin story is evergreen. There was a point in my life when I had a technical, fairly transactional role that I was doing well in, and to prove that no good deed goes unpunished, I was promoted to manager. I was rubbish at it: woefully unprepared for the rash of new commitments and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":142429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_eb_attr":"","gtp_columnspro_styling":"{}","gtp_paragraph_styling":"{}","gtp_heading_styling":"{}","gtp_spacer_styling":"{}","gtp_video_styling":"{}","gtp_group_styling":"{}","gtp_cover_styling":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,314,311,323,3547],"tags":[3974,3600,3844,51,53,132,3973,3169,82,349,3972],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142428"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142428"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=142428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}