I Love to Hate my Comfortable Framework
Nick Duffill weighs in on my GTD In the Grip post with some insightful comments that resonate very deeply with me. In particular, I relate to the ambivalence articulated by the statement statement below about how we create comfortable frameworks that we love to hate and cannot tear ourselves away from. ouch. Thanks, Nick.
For most people, habits that constrain performance are a comfortable framework that we love to hate and cannot tear ourselves away from. By adopting habits that have a predictable outcome, we have exercised a choice, and we prefer predictability over uncertainty. Even if we continually say we want to change and will change, only one or two members of the committee in our heads is actually convinced, and the silent majority still exercise their veto. This is perhaps the reason that changes in habit and approach arise from life-changing traumas and events - it takes something of that magnitude to actually enforce a change.
Since adopting GTD, I have learned to live with a to-do list that could keep me occupied for the next two to five years. I luxuriate in thinking that this is a bad thing and that I am failing to make significant progress each week, but in reality it’s not like that. By taking action, I am taking decisions - deciding to do one task in a hundred and leave the other 99 unattended. Instead of beating myself up for failing to also complete the other 99 actions, I can tell myself that I chose not to do them. If they were truly important, I would have done them. Actions speak louder than words.