OK, I’m never going to be Merlin Mann, but I had my own personal epiphany during a meeting that sometimes the best way to focus on the speaker is to take notes about other stuff.

One of the really helpful metaphors David Allen uses in his book Getting Things Done is that of RAM in one’s brain. Every project you are working on in your head is using up RAM and hurting your efficiency. You need a reliable way to “catch” everything you might need to do and a disciplined and reliable way of reviewing what is caught. Everything needs to be “outside your brain.”

What’s great about that metaphor is that it really captures why people give up on methods like GTD. GTD itself is another thing that ends up taking up “RAM’ in many peoples’ brains. If you don’t commit to a disciplined approach to learning GTD methodology, then you end up with more distractions rather than less. (And, if you were the kind of person who already had a disciplined approach to getting things done, then you probably wouldn’t need GTD training in the first place!)

When I was taking Greek in college (which I totally had to repeat in seminary), my professor assured the class that getting an A average would be much much easier than maintaining a C average. The course builds on itself. If you get a C one week you will be naturally prone to get a D the following week. Thus, the only way to maintain a C is to continually try to make up for lost time.

Learning GTD involves a similar dynamic. If you don’t really strive at it it becomes just another thing that is not getting done and another thing slowing you down.

I’m not an A student in GTD. I’d like to think that I’m maintaining a B. I don’t think I’m being too harsh or soft on myself in coming up with that grade…. Anyway, I was at a meeting and I was finding it impossible to focus. It’s not that I wasn’t listening. I have the capacity to listen with a lot of distractions (other times I completely space out, but that wasn’t happening in this case). But, even though I was right where I was supposed to be, I kept feeling this nervous impulse to leave and go somewhere else.

It finally occurred to me what the problem was: I hadn’t really been reviewing the things I was collecting that needed to be thought through and documented. I had a bunch of things I needed to do beginning with figuring out everything I needed to do.

So my grade in GTD was pretty low. But i did have one thing going for me. I had made a point of buying a spiral-bound pad of perforated index cards. I got the spiral because it was big enough to stick a pen into.

So I took out my pad and began writing everything I could think of in small notes. It took thirty seconds. I had assumed it would take longer, but it didn’t. As soon as you have more things worrying you than you can encompass in one thought, it seems, by definition, like you have an eternity of tasks. As soon as an external list is begun, the list becomes finite.

And I was instantly calm. I was able to stop fidgeting and not only listen but listen with appreciation. It was like flipping a switch.

Michael Hyatt has a great post on the art of note-taking. I will add to it, that, while note-taking can help you stay engaged, it might sometimes be helpful to jot down notes about other stuff–stuff that is keeping you from being engaged. This isn’t ideal, but if you find yourself distracted by projects that need attention, and you can’t focus on why you’re at the meeting, it might be worth it simply to jot down everything you can think of at the bottom of your page (you can start from the last line and work up to save space). Why the bottom? Because you want to be able to tear off that part of the sheet of paper and detach it from your real notes and throw it into your in-box.

Oh, that reminds me. This probably worked because I have already put an in-box on my desk. Without it my note jotting might not have worked so well. Because I knew I could tear off the card and throw it in my in-box, I knew I wouldn’t lose it or forget to review it. David Allen talks about people who think that in-boxes are for other people to give you stuff. No, the in-box is for you as well–to have a place where you know you will be able to find everything you have to do.

I repeat that this is not ideal. But if you are not able to focus, there is no harm in trying. Let me know if you try it if you think it works.