{"id":22591,"date":"2024-11-20T17:44:02","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T01:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/?p=22591"},"modified":"2024-11-20T17:47:24","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T01:47:24","slug":"the-numbness-of-blended-stacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2024\/11\/the-numbness-of-blended-stacks\/","title":{"rendered":"The Numbness of Blended Stacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"David<\/a>You will experience an unnecessary level of mental fatigue and numbness in your environments and organizational systems by simply mixing up things that represent different agreements with yourself.<\/p>\n

The most obvious case is where there are stacks of things that include items that have actions associated with them and things that just need to be filed or tossed. Often this is true of piles of reading material\u2014magazines, junk mail, email printouts, copies of articles, etc. Most people do not make a clean distinction, visibly or psychologically, between what they still tell themselves they should read, and what should be stored, routed, or just thrown away.<\/p>\n

Similarly, thick project folders, tabletops and databases have often lost their value as operational tools in people\u2019s lives. The majority of what\u2019s inside project and client folders is reference and support material. But they also often include things that potentially have Next Actions and Waiting Fors associated with them, untracked in other control systems.<\/p>\n

When your systems do not obviously distinguish between various actions required or desired with the contents, your brain will still feel obligated to make that sort every time it sees it. That\u2019s way too much trouble, especially when we\u2019re in the heat of daily battle, so the brain has to shut down rather than doing the detailed re-thinking required. Numbness ensues. Unfortunately, we don\u2019t seem to go selectively numb\u2014it tends to cut off the source of inspiration and enthusiasm as well.<\/p>\n

With a proper segmentation of the nature of our \u201cstuff\u201d, it is amazing to notice the immediate change for the better in clarity and energy. This is the beauty of the GTD Workflow Diagram<\/a> in helping you walk through that distinction. With a little effective categorizing, you can stop having to keep thinking about having to be doing so much work!<\/p>\n

[Note: This essay appeared in David Allen\u2019s Productive Living Newsletter. Subscribe for free here<\/a>.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a little effective categorizing, you can stop having to keep thinking about having to be doing so much work!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,1,716,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-david-allen","category-featured","category-free-resources","category-productivity-tips","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Numbness of Blended Stacks - Getting Things Done\u00ae<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With a little effective categorizing, you can stop having to keep thinking about having to be doing so much work!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2024\/11\/the-numbness-of-blended-stacks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Numbness of Blended Stacks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With a little effective categorizing, you can stop having to keep thinking about having to be doing so much work!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2024\/11\/the-numbness-of-blended-stacks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Getting Things Done\u00ae\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gettingthingsdone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-11-21T01:44:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-11-21T01:47:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/DA_N05A7894b-rt_1265x834@72.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1265\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"844\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Forrister\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@gtdtimes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@gtdtimes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Forrister\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2024\/11\/the-numbness-of-blended-stacks\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2024\/11\/the-numbness-of-blended-stacks\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"John Forrister\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/#\/schema\/person\/70ae12caed20f00c81b3d14c55267c2d\"},\"headline\":\"The Numbness of Blended Stacks\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-11-21T01:44:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-11-21T01:47:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2024\/11\/the-numbness-of-blended-stacks\/\"},\"wordCount\":328,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2024\/11\/the-numbness-of-blended-stacks\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/DA_N05A7894b-rt_1265x834@72.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"David Allen\",\"Featured\",\"Free Resources\",\"Productivity Tips\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2024\/11\/the-numbness-of-blended-stacks\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2024\/11\/the-numbness-of-blended-stacks\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2024\/11\/the-numbness-of-blended-stacks\/\",\"name\":\"The Numbness of Blended Stacks - 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