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Sounds like you are an overachiever. The big implicit assumption of GTD is that, while it makes you more productive, there is still a limit on how much you can

Sounds like you are an overachiever. The big implicit assumption of GTD is that, while it makes you more productive, there is still a limit on how much you can take on. Workload is not specifically addressed, but implicitly the overflow will go to the Someday folder. I think the answer to this problem is not any productivity trick, but to aim for exponential growth of your business, career, etc. so that Delegate becomes the primary workhorse instead of Next Actions. Prioritize actions you perform and projects you start so that they are conducive to a long term self-sustaining increase in your productivity. And accept that you may have limited success/luck in unleashing the exponential and that some projects will forever stay out of your linear reach.

BeetleB 4y ago
> Sounds like you are an overachiever. Not at all. I'm not trying to achieve all, or even most of those things. I know I won't even be able to do a tenth of them. One of the core ideas behind GTD is to get these things out of the mind and into a trustworthy system. My Someday/Maybe list is huge because I get it out of my mind and put it somewhere. How many of them I get to do in my life is not at all a concern I have. > Prioritize actions you perform and projects you start so that they are conducive to a long a self-sustaining increase in your productivity. When your list is hundreds of items long, and GTD tells you to prioritize every week, that is unsustainable. For my work GTD, things are simpler. The scope is limited, and there's not attachment to any project. The job dictates most of what needs to be done and it makes prioritizing almost trivial. It's the GTD for the non-work stuff that explodes.
- bachmeier 4y ago
  > When your list is hundreds of items long, and GTD tells you to prioritize every week, that is unsustainable. One of the nice things about GTD is that you make everything explicit. It quickly becomes obvious when you have too many active projects, nudging you to decide which project are really worth doing. The same goes for having too many next actions. > It's the GTD for the non-work stuff that explodes. Great if you're actually getting all that non-work stuff done, but I just can't imagine you're doing hundreds of non-work items each week.
  - BeetleB 4y ago
    > It quickly becomes obvious when you have too many active projects The issue I'm discussing isn't the number of active projects, but the number of someday/maybe projects. > Great if you're actually getting all that non-work stuff done, but I just can't imagine you're doing hundreds of non-work items each week. See paragraph above. The issue I'm complaining about is that GTD tells you to review the Someday/Maybe list often (e.g. every week). I'm pointing out the infeasibility of that. Culling the Someday/Maybe list is fundamentally problematic in GTD, as the whole point is to get these ideas out of our head and into a list somewhere.
    - quesera 4y ago
      A simple (if impure) solution is to add a secondary "Someday/Maybe" list. Call it something like "Eventually/Remotely-Possible". Limit your S/M list to a comfortable number of entries, and drop the ones that don't make the cut to E/RP. Review S/M regularly, review E/RP only when curious, or when one of the items becomes of renewed interest. I'm an archivist by nature. I don't like to delete items. E/RP can grow to thousands of items, and that's OK. Occasionally one will be revived. The rest will be keep each other company.
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        I think the complaint isn't that one couldn't try different ways to manage the problem, it's that the system doesn't address it at all.
        BeetleB 4y ago
        Yes, precisely. I've found solutions similar to the other commenters. My complaint is: 1. This is a common problem - I'm not unusual. 2. GTD's approach to this problem doesn't really work - hence everyone here listing how they solved it in a way that differs from GTD (i.e. not reviewing it weekly).
        quesera 4y ago
        I don't see this as an issue. I don't think I've ever met a system that fully addressed all requirements of all participants -- in any category of systems. There's no pretense to divine scripture here. Adopt the good bits, avoid the dogma.

BeetleB 4y ago

> Sounds like you are an overachiever. Not at all. I'm not trying to achieve all, or even most of those things. I know I won't even be able to do a tenth of them. One of the core ideas behind GTD is to get these things out of the mind and into a trustworthy system. My Someday/Maybe list is huge because I get it out of my mind and put it somewhere. How many of them I get to do in my life is not at all a concern I have. > Prioritize actions you perform and projects you start so that they are conducive to a long a self-sustaining increase in your productivity. When your list is hundreds of items long, and GTD tells you to prioritize every week, that is unsustainable. For my work GTD, things are simpler. The scope is limited, and there's not attachment to any project. The job dictates most of what needs to be done and it makes prioritizing almost trivial. It's the GTD for the non-work stuff that explodes.

bachmeier 4y ago
> When your list is hundreds of items long, and GTD tells you to prioritize every week, that is unsustainable. One of the nice things about GTD is that you make everything explicit. It quickly becomes obvious when you have too many active projects, nudging you to decide which project are really worth doing. The same goes for having too many next actions. > It's the GTD for the non-work stuff that explodes. Great if you're actually getting all that non-work stuff done, but I just can't imagine you're doing hundreds of non-work items each week.
- BeetleB 4y ago
  > It quickly becomes obvious when you have too many active projects The issue I'm discussing isn't the number of active projects, but the number of someday/maybe projects. > Great if you're actually getting all that non-work stuff done, but I just can't imagine you're doing hundreds of non-work items each week. See paragraph above. The issue I'm complaining about is that GTD tells you to review the Someday/Maybe list often (e.g. every week). I'm pointing out the infeasibility of that. Culling the Someday/Maybe list is fundamentally problematic in GTD, as the whole point is to get these ideas out of our head and into a list somewhere.
  - quesera 4y ago
    A simple (if impure) solution is to add a secondary "Someday/Maybe" list. Call it something like "Eventually/Remotely-Possible". Limit your S/M list to a comfortable number of entries, and drop the ones that don't make the cut to E/RP. Review S/M regularly, review E/RP only when curious, or when one of the items becomes of renewed interest. I'm an archivist by nature. I don't like to delete items. E/RP can grow to thousands of items, and that's OK. Occasionally one will be revived. The rest will be keep each other company.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      I think the complaint isn't that one couldn't try different ways to manage the problem, it's that the system doesn't address it at all.
      - BeetleB 4y ago
        Yes, precisely. I've found solutions similar to the other commenters. My complaint is: 1. This is a common problem - I'm not unusual. 2. GTD's approach to this problem doesn't really work - hence everyone here listing how they solved it in a way that differs from GTD (i.e. not reviewing it weekly).
      - quesera 4y ago
        I don't see this as an issue. I don't think I've ever met a system that fully addressed all requirements of all participants -- in any category of systems. There's no pretense to divine scripture here. Adopt the good bits, avoid the dogma.