I made a small change in one of my habits that I don’t recommend.
It’s not that it’s a bad change — far from it — it’s NOT the case that I, all of a sudden, decided to do without my favorite capture point.
The story is a simple one. I started a project that has a tremendous number of time demands.
At the start of each day, I realized that I was starting in too much of a hurry, and needed to spend some more time Emptying, before doing things like checking voicemail and email.
I implemented the following practice:
Step 1 – check to see which items are incomplete from the prior day. Put the in a reliable place.
Step 2 – look at today’s schedule and configure it to my liking
Step 3 – empty my paper pad that serves as my primary capture point
Step 4 – download email and listen to voicemail, while moving as many items as possible away from these areas intended for temporary storage
Step 5 – schedule any new items into my calendar
As I said before, I don’t recommend these steps to anyone. I also don’t say that they are useful.
I AM saying that the process of adjusting one’s habits to the circumstances at hand is a critical one that no professional who is serious can ignore. It lies at the heart of the Time Management 2.0 approach.