Many time management books demonize the idea of doing things someday or later. I agree that having a long-term vague sense that lots of things will be done later is not productive. However, I think that what’s even worse is having a list of next actions and projects that are filled with things you are not really working on. Allowing non-active projects and tasks to clutter up your lists and your focus does not make you productive.
The best solution is to keep a list of things that you would like to do in the future, but are not actively putting time and energy towards now. I call this my pending list or my later list. (GTD fans, David Allen uses something similar called a someday/maybe list.) A later list lets you clearly delineate what you are not working on, but want to work on in the future.
When you review your lists of tasks and projects and realize that you are not really working on something but it’s been on your list for a while, ask yourself if it truly belongs on your active lists right now. Perhaps it would be better suited to your later list. As you finish active projects, if something on your later list has become compelling you can always add it back.
In the work world it can sometimes be helpful to have projected start and finish times on the items on your later list, primarily to help you coordinate with others. For most people, though, their personal goal lists are best kept simple: active or later. Even long-term goals can be active if you are working on them and making progress on them now.
The importance of the active lists versus your later lists is that you have made a clear and conscious choice about where your energy is going and where it is not yet going. You are neither trying to do that later task now, nor trying to hold it in your mind for the future. You’ve written it down, and it’s safe to let go of worrying about it. You’ve clearly decided on a manageable set of tasks and projects that you are furthering now. Do you have a list of things that you’ll do later?
Want to catch up? This post is part six in a series. You can also read about being more efficient, empowering yourself with the right focus,, harnessing excitement, committing to less and the series introduction if you’d like to catch up.
In our group, we sort our tasks into the four quadrants, with a goal of choosing at least one item for quadrant four: neither urgent nor important. The director in our group refers to these items as "not going to do." However, I think rather than just focusing on items we are NEVER going to do, we should also include items we are not going to do NOW, but may do later. your article builds a good case for that and I plan to share it with my group. Thanks!
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