One of the most relieving experiences for me was when I did my first mind sweep. I was taking a GTD course and the instructor asked the class to do a mind sweep. That is, get every to-do, must-do, want-to-do out of your head and on to a piece of paper. At first I struggled with what to write? OK, I had a few obvious things write down, but then I got stuck. To spur us along the instructor threw out a few questions (aka triggers) to get our minds sweeping;
- Is there a birthday or anniversary that you need to purchase something for?
- Are there chores around the house that you have been putting off?
- Is there a trip you would like to start planning for?
- Are there questions you want to ask your boss the next time you meet him/her?
...and so on, and so on.
As the instructor asked these probing questions, it generated loads of to-do's in my mind. I quickly scribed those onto my paper.
Once everything was out in front of me, I felt a sense of relief. A sense that everything and anything sitting in the even most remote parts of my mind were out in the open. Out for consideration. Out for me to develop a plan of action.
Doing an initial mind sweep is a must do activity for those new to GTD. The output from your mind sweep sets the critical base for which to build your GTD system. It sets the stage for keeping your mind like water.
I also find it useful to periodically set aside some quiet time and perform a refresher mind sweep. I try to stay in constant mind sweep mode and record everything in my Moleskine notebook, but doing a periodic full mind sweep ensures all my mind-buffers are clear.
--It's like a mind reboot. For those who run Windows XP, you know that a good reboot is essential to keeping your system running efficiently!
There are some great sites on the Internet with excellent, probing, mind sweep enhancing questions or as they are called in GTD-speak "Incompletion Trigger Lists". Here are links to a few trigger lists that I would recommend you review as you enter mind sweep mode.
1 comment:
Good advice, and if you use an electronic GTD it needs to be one that is available all the time. I've been using an application that provides access to my GTD on my Windows computer at work, my Mac at home, and even goes with me on my cell phone. Its available from a neighbor or friends computer, or even at the library. I wrote a couple of recent blog posts about my experiences with the app at http://johnkendrick.wordpress.com
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