There’s an excellent sketcch show on CBBC called Stupid. One of the recurring characters is the “Want it? Can’t have it!” girl. Her gimmick is offering something that someone really wants then, at the last moment, pulling it back.

I don’t know about you but sometimes I feel the universe is like that: it holds out the promise of something you really want, let’s you get so close and then, at the last moment, snatches it away.

Obviously that’s an unhelpfully negative viewpoint. How can we reframe it into a positive?
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Today I want to do a little time travel. Don’t worry, it’s just a thought experiment - we won’t be meeting any Daleks! The experiment is in two parts, the first of which is probably familiar to you. The second might be new.

Let’s start by assuming you can travel back in time to have a word with your earlier self. How far back you go is up to you - one year, five, ten, whatever. What advice would you give your earlier self?

I’m not talking about the winning lottery numbers here! I’m thinking more in terms of general advice (”You need to change career” or “If you don’t get fit you’ll have major health problems”) and priorities (”Spend more time with your family”). In particular I’m thinking of things that you probably knew at some level back then, but either ignored or were just “too busy” to implement.

If you’d had that advice back then, advice from yourself of all people, would you have acted on it? I suspect you would. And that could have changed your life today for the better.

OK, on to part two. You can probably guess what’s coming next…

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Like many people I’m a fan of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) organisation and productivity system. However it’s not quite perfect for me - fortunately it’s flexible enough to be personalised.

The problem I have is with “Context”, and from what I’ve read I’m not the only one. The idea of the Context is a good one that probably works well in a traditional office. It might be a place you need to be (eg client site or broom cupboard) a person you need to see (eg boss or someone important) or an object you need to have (monthly sales figures, key to stationery cupboard, etc). This model doesn’t work so well for those of us who work at home for ourselves. My main conext for the day is simply “Mac”. I’ve tried splitting this into things like “Mac: research”, “Mac: email”, “Mac: fun” etc but this feels like a fudge.

I could just drop the idea of context completely, however most of the GTD software tools out there support it so it seemed more sensible to try and make some use of it.

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Motivation can be a tricky thing at the best of times. Even when we’re powerfully motivated that feeling can dissolve like a whisp of smoke.

A common example of this - at least for me - is the reaction just after achieving something, some sort of milestone or interim goal.

Logically I’m on a roll and should be able to follow through. However the time just after a major achievement is often when my motivation is most at risk. It’s almost as if my subconscious is saying “Go on, take a break, you’ve earned it”. Or, less positively, “Was that it? Was it really worth the effort?”

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