I’m not entirely sure that I’m sold on the system, yet. I spent a little time today trying to visually organize my projects in list form, organized into some key areas of life. It’s very much a product of reading David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Allen’s system is all about making sure you write things down, under the premise that information stuck in your head leaves no room for actually, you know, getting things done. (For the curious: I’m using Evernote right now for most of my electronic data capture, and a cost-effective Moleskine wannabe from Hobby Lobby for paper data capture.)
The benefit of organizing things visually is seeing the extent of the projects I’ve committed to. It’s been good / healthy / hard to move projects that realistically can’t be done right now to the “Future / Maybe” list that I’m keeping separately. It’s been a little overwhelming — it’s easier to not think about the scope of things when they’re not staring you in the face — but it’s good.