Most people's problem isn't that they have too much to do and therefore need to find out how to get it all done, it's that many of the things they have to do aren't ultimately worth doing in the first place.
And then Zen, as I understand it, isn't about doing, it's about being. Activity in Zen is an effortless extension of being, of acceptance.
I don't like using any computer tool, because they are all focused on making sure you never lose tasks. Even a simple text file doesn't lose a line unless you tell it to.
But... I sometimes flip back through meeting notes from six months ago, and notice that by and large I don't follow up on my "action items" and haven't done the things I wrote down as my critical things to do in the next month. The only things that get done are the ones to be done quickly after the meeting. Everything else fell off... and you know what? It should have! I have not suffered for not doing them, I did something more valuable instead.
I've tried the text file, but it goes to a hundred lines too quickly. Writing stuff down is better, it's a backup memory store but if you don't keep actively copying things over they disappear. And I'm yet to lose something that important.
On the opposite extreme, I like my bug trackers. There's a mental adjustment to the fact that I have hundreds of bugs at any given time (I'm in charge of my project and the default assignee), and it can even take years to make that adjustment, but now that I have it is a great thing. There's a few current high-priority tasks, and background noise. Its sort of the same principle in reverse, when everything is important nothing is, so only the few things that truly matter are on my mind. It's that middle mass of difficult-to-manage line items by the tens at a time that doesn't work for me.
Comments
You forgot the next step: why do you need to get anything done in the first place ?
I came here to say this.
Most people's problem isn't that they have too much to do and therefore need to find out how to get it all done, it's that many of the things they have to do aren't ultimately worth doing in the first place.
And then Zen, as I understand it, isn't about doing, it's about being. Activity in Zen is an effortless extension of being, of acceptance.
I don't like using any computer tool, because they are all focused on making sure you never lose tasks. Even a simple text file doesn't lose a line unless you tell it to.
But... I sometimes flip back through meeting notes from six months ago, and notice that by and large I don't follow up on my "action items" and haven't done the things I wrote down as my critical things to do in the next month. The only things that get done are the ones to be done quickly after the meeting. Everything else fell off... and you know what? It should have! I have not suffered for not doing them, I did something more valuable instead.
I've tried the text file, but it goes to a hundred lines too quickly. Writing stuff down is better, it's a backup memory store but if you don't keep actively copying things over they disappear. And I'm yet to lose something that important.
On the opposite extreme, I like my bug trackers. There's a mental adjustment to the fact that I have hundreds of bugs at any given time (I'm in charge of my project and the default assignee), and it can even take years to make that adjustment, but now that I have it is a great thing. There's a few current high-priority tasks, and background noise. Its sort of the same principle in reverse, when everything is important nothing is, so only the few things that truly matter are on my mind. It's that middle mass of difficult-to-manage line items by the tens at a time that doesn't work for me.