Question: Can I just slip stuff back into the in-box without
deciding?
Answer: no.
"Getting 'in' to 'zero'?" is part of the Allen Grail. Refusing to
decide is a major stress builder. Decide, act, move on.
Once all incompletes are on the table, Allen says, most people
discover that they have 30 to 100 projects requiring anywhere from
120 to 200 next actions. This is how GTD converts overwhelming
stuff into something you can actually do. "Spend more time with
spouse" is a vague project; "go biking together next Saturday
morning" is an action step.
"The system turns the amorphous nature of work into something like
crunching widgets," says Eric Hubbard, president of Ravenswood Bank
in
Chicago and a longtime GTD devotee. "There's a sense of
completion. I define the work once a week or so, and through the
week I crunch the widgets."
Much else is involved in the Allen system, as detailed in Getting
Things Done and in a later book, Ready for Anything: 52
Productivity Principles for Life and Work. This includes tickler
systems, various suggestions for lists, calendar rules, 50,000-foot
views, good ideas for filing. A useful workflow chart can be found
at
www.davidco.com. But one of
the most critical elements, according to Allen and many of his
followers, is the weekly review, a time set aside to get "clean,
clear, current, and complete." You can do another (much shorter)
RAM dump. Process notes you've taken. Review and revise task lists.
Add things, drop things, or move them to a Someday/Maybe list. If
commitments and action steps aren't reviewed periodically, Allen
warns, the dogged mind will again start trying to remember and
remind. Then you'll be back to mind like gravy, plagued by those
three a.m. shoulda-dones.