Stop Thinking About Your Work
I have been working a lot lately to figure out the best way to approach my work week. Even though a lot of my responsibilities at my church are very task oriented, most cannot even be started without a lot of thinking ahead of the task.
This is somewhat obvious. You should think before you do something. And yes, it will be obvious from this post that I have read and try to apply David Allen’s book Getting Things Done
. But, reading and actually living it are two very different things.
One of the problems I constantly battle is the fight between thinking and doing. They should work together, but I am realizing that I think and do back and forth a lot. Even worse, I start to work on parts of the task that are easy, then have to stop part of the way to think through the rest delaying the entire project. Instead of that chaotic approach, I should think first then do.
Whether that is for monthly planning, weekly or daily… when I think thoroughly first, then focus all my attention on doing second, I actually get much more done.
So, my simple attempt is to get ALL or as much of the thinking each week done either before the week starts or as early in the week as possible, then work to make the thoughts a reality.
Thinking is work, but it does not get much done.
Hour to hour work is not that simple of course. There will be situations that arise each week that I have not planned for or completely thought through. I will have to stop and think. Conversations will happen and meetings will happen that add more work that needs to be thought about and and converted to actions. But, I want to get the thinking down to acting as early as possible.
Thinking is definitely hard work, but in reality it does not get much done.
It makes what you need to do much more clear and focused. But thinking by itself is not the goal. Action is the goal. I want to get to action as soon as possible because that is the only way work can get done. [Unless you work in a Think Tank – then congratulations. Thinking is your work.]
Here are some things I try to do to become clear on what I am actually supposed to do.
- Go through my email to make sure I am not missing tasks. Clear my email to zero if possible.
- Send emails and communicate for clarification from coworkers to get all of my questions answered as much as possible ahead of time.
- Write every action that I need to take down in my system.
- Do not write down anything that does not matter or that will only add to confusion about what the real action should be. If something is not relevant to the task or my life, delete and get rid of it from paper and my mind.
- Think through all of the details until actions are the only steps left. An action may be further thinking on a specific part down the path of the project, but at least that is now an action on my list itself. I can do that thinking later. If I cannot think through everything right then, then I need to make it an action to think about later.
After thinking, stop thinking and act.
A lot of stress comes into my life when I work up until the last minute. My realization recently has been that I create that scenario by not thinking and planning as much as possible first, and then doing the plan. I get distracted by constant thinking about something and do little. I am changing that.
Of course this is just what I am going through and it may not apply to what you do and the work you need to accomplish.
Have you dealt with this issue? What strategies are you using to get things done in your life and work?
