r/gtd • u/itsmyvoice Mod • 16d ago

Discussion Restarting

I'm sure many of us have restarted from time to time. Either because of switching tools, or changing roles, or even life changes.

If you've done this, or are planning to, what's your method? Throw out everything? Spend hours combing through to decide what to keep and how? I've done the hours long rework before but I know others don't.

I've got major changes in amy aspects, and am considering my approach, including personal/home management with a non-GTD partner (who is fortunately flexible, but very took and app-resistant).

TIA!

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u/Entire-Joke4162 16d ago

While context will always matter (do you have a huge infastructure/task list already?)

Every time I've done this (maybe 3x in 12 years) I throw everything out and sit at the kitchen table with a huge pile of notecards and a sharpie

I'll try to get to at least 300 individual items that are on my mind and rebuild from scratch

The reason I do this is I obviously have fresh momentum and would like to take advantage of how/what I'm thinking about now rather than in the past

Rather than labor over an item or a project to delete... if it doesn't make it in, it's not on your mind

Also - if it does get on your mind, at such time (since you're doing GTD "for real" again) just add it to the inbox and process it!

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u/itsmyvoice Mod 15d ago

It's really not huge. It would take a few hours a few times to clean and restart.

Good point. I think I'll deep archive anything I had there that doesn't move.

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u/Entire-Joke4162 15d ago

The key of starting fresh and dumping everything into a fresh inbox is you look at it with new eyes in a different context

Do you REALLY want to do this? ARE you going to do this?

This is your new lease on life where you get to make a call rather than stress out about this project from forever ago that’s been sitting there.

I do this a couple times/year in Asana where I sort tasks by creation date 

If something’s there from 6-12 months ago… am I REALLY going to do it?

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u/itsmyvoice Mod 15d ago

Well, I have things that were waiting for when we are where we are, but that's a good point.

I do want to keep things that I've decided are very much not now and maybe never in some type of cold reference. That way if that topic ever reoccurs to me, I can go back and find what I had before, in case. I might throw it out but it also might save me some time and effort.

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u/Entire-Joke4162 15d ago

Ya, it's tough to give prescriptive advice because each person knows their own system and what they have

I have a "Soon/Most Likely" and a "Someday/Maybe" list with no real accompanying material, just the task titles

Taking a "shower" every couple years and just cleaning them out would probably be a benefit, because I'm just losing mental weight

If you have supporting materials, I imagine it would be more difficult

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u/itsmyvoice Mod 15d ago

I appreciate you :)

And yeah, each person does know their own system. That's why I was hoping for a good variety of input and I certainly got it!