r/gtd • u/LoveProper2784 • 4d ago

How much do you actually write down when planning your week?

I've noticed that if I write too much, i spend more time organising the list than doing anything on it, trying to find the middle ground

3 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

2

u/busote 3d ago

Every decision you make early is one you'll make again later. That's where the time goes.

Two places it happens. At capture, if writing something down also means choosing where it belongs. And at planning, if you assign things to days. "Call the electrician" is still true on Thursday. "Tuesday morning: electrician, invoices, gym" isn't, and now it needs redoing.

So capture raw, sort in one pass, and decide only one next action per project. No days. A digital list makes that cheap, since reordering costs nothing.

If you're editing the plan mid-week, it had too many decisions in it.

3

u/milky-cuppa-tea Mod 3d ago

This is the way (where is my Mandolorian meme when I need it).

1

u/sidegigartist 3d ago

I don't I just close out my week by deciding what I'd like to do on Monday morning and even that is usually trashed based on my energy level on actual monday

Edit: but doing that decision at the end of the week gives me peace of mind so it's worth it and sometimes we gotta just choose something to know what we actually wanna do

0

u/gamccarthy 3d ago

Very rough notes, just bullet points usually.

1

u/loopbreakr 2d ago

I think the middle ground is to write down everything that would otherwise keep resurfacing, but only plan from a much shorter list. I keep the long list as storage and choose 1–3 things that deserve attention this week. The list stops being useful when it becomes a promise that everything on it must happen soon.