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Your To-Do List’s Sexy and Secret Lover
The ʺWaiting Forʺ list - a list of everything you’re waiting on at any moment - is a great part of the GTD system.
If you’re waiting on an important email, letter, phone call, text message, response to a voicemail, or even a package from eBay, you add it to your Waiting For list.
And then you review your list a few times a week so nothing slips through the cracks.
The list is that simple, but it’s amazingly effective at reducing your stress and making you more productive. It also makes you look like a superstar. (Well, even more of one in your case.)
Here are two tips to level up and make your Waiting For list even more powerful:
Group the items by context I have my list divided into categories like email, Internet things, texts, phone calls, and paper mail. Grouping items by what they are (or by location, like “home”, “office”, and “cottage”) significantly reduces the time it takes you to process, organize and prioritize stuff in the list
Keep track of how long you’ve been waiting for something I always jot down the date I started waiting for something. That way I know whether someone is late to get back to me when I look at the list, and I can use that information to politely remind that person to get their stuff together