I never adopted (or tried to adopt) GTD but from what I understood, the one thing I found helpful is the idea that if you've written something down as a "next action" and you're still procrastinating on it, there's a good chance that you didn't REALLY write down the very next simplest action - and also that the anxiety connected to the task and/or project is what makes you push it back. So the goal then becomes to try and really break down what the next action should be, the smallest unit of action you can have wrt that project, and write THAT down instead - which is a way to combat the anxiety (at least for me it is).
Sometimes I write down "send tax form" because it's a simple task and I think it should work as a next action, but the truth is, as long as I haven't taken the time to look for my stamps and to get the box en envelopes out from under the dictionary, *it's not going to get done*. So I learned now to identify what the *real* next action is (find the stamps). Either I write that down, or, if I don't have too much to do, I do it right away. now that "send tax form" has become "find stamp" + "retrieve box of envelopes" + "fold form in envelope" + "locate the post-it with the address" + "address and stamp the envelope" + "drop the envelope in the mailbox", well, it looks REDONK on my todo list, but there IS actually a chance that slowly, it will get done - and I have banished some of my anxiety.
That's a lot of rambling that's probably irrelevant to you, and I4m sorry for that TMI-process shit, but that's what I really found helful hearing about the GTD approach. Breaking down even the small stuff to even smaller stuff, learning to identify what stops you - that is the BIG question, and it helps. What stops me often is logistics shit, like I describe, or deeper emotional stuff that needs to be worked through - working on both those aspects is good for me on the anxiety front, and having really short small steps for the stuff I need to do helps me getting it done.
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Sometimes I write down "send tax form" because it's a simple task and I think it should work as a next action, but the truth is, as long as I haven't taken the time to look for my stamps and to get the box en envelopes out from under the dictionary, *it's not going to get done*. So I learned now to identify what the *real* next action is (find the stamps). Either I write that down, or, if I don't have too much to do, I do it right away. now that "send tax form" has become "find stamp" + "retrieve box of envelopes" + "fold form in envelope" + "locate the post-it with the address" + "address and stamp the envelope" + "drop the envelope in the mailbox", well, it looks REDONK on my todo list, but there IS actually a chance that slowly, it will get done - and I have banished some of my anxiety.
That's a lot of rambling that's probably irrelevant to you, and I4m sorry for that TMI-process shit, but that's what I really found helful hearing about the GTD approach. Breaking down even the small stuff to even smaller stuff, learning to identify what stops you - that is the BIG question, and it helps. What stops me often is logistics shit, like I describe, or deeper emotional stuff that needs to be worked through - working on both those aspects is good for me on the anxiety front, and having really short small steps for the stuff I need to do helps me getting it done.
er. I hope that was semi-interesting, heh. <333