I have been a fan of Getting Things Done for maybe two months now. It’s a neat system.
However, from reading crazy guy’s story about graduating in three semesters, one little thing I’ve realized is that you have to take the “wait factor” of each task into consideration.
For example, washing and drying your clothes has a VERY HIGH “wait factor,” because after you start the laundry then you just chill out. In this situation, if you want to optimize your time, you should have some other task to do while you’re waiting.
OTOH tasks also have a “concentration factor.” If I’m compiling code, and the compile is tricky, I really can’t concentrate on much else. This kind of task needs to be done all at once.
By thinking about these two new variables, I have successfully resisted the temptation at work to check/reply to email, unless I’m doing something with a very high wait factor. For example, if I’m compiling a program, I just tell the shell to beep at me when the shell’s silent, and then I can go about reading email or doing other things with a low concentration factor. Or, if I’m doing something with a low concentration and high wait factor, I can do something else (like program) where I have to concentrate.