How To Get Things Done With No Deadline

From the wonderful and inspiring blog by famed Buffy writer Jane Espenson,
some advice about how to finish projects regularly without setting
yourself artificial deadlines - which rarely work for me, so the job ends
up expanding to fill the time allotted for it:

"Well, save me from myself, because the answer seems to be: take on
another project. Suddenly, that distant deadline looks a lot closer,
doesn't it? Because I know there's that other thing that also has to get
done in the same amount of time. Now I'm working -- fast, smoothly,
without a lot of hand-wringing and pacing. Just writin' without thinkin'.

My father always says 'give the job to the busy person.' He means that the
reason that the busy person has so much work on their desk is because
everyone knows that they're the one who will get it done. There's a lot to
be said for making yourself the busy person."

http://www.janeespenson.com/archives/00000204.php

This idea makes me feel a little scared, even gives me that sensation in
my gut remembering what it can be like to be overwhelmed with commitments.
And yet I think there's wisdom there. As I greatly improve my organization
and hence ability to manage multiple projects, I actually find I *want* to
take on more. For instance, becoming the VP of education of Queen's
Toastmasters. In general, these projects are getting done - largely
because I see the other ones lined up behind them.

Zooming In

I've been working at getting good at projects that require a lot of tiny
errands that have to be done at specific times and places, like doing my
taxes. So getting things done smoothly without a lot of mental effort. But
when it comes down to it, there are certain projects that just demand
extended concentration - and those include any project that really takes
creativity. I've just read two articles, one in Time and one in Walrus,
about how harmful multitasking turns out to be, and I think they mean this
kind of project.

So I think of it as "zooming in" on a task, an image I like because it
includes the most important part: excluding things that are outside the
focus of the task. To do good writing, for instance, it really seems like
I have to have pushed other things out of my mind - and off my desk. Off
the desk is easy, I just dump everything in my inbox (or file it away if I
want). Then thanks to my Zillion Folder Filing system, I can have a folder
in front of me with *just* the things that are relevant to that project.
Often it helps to grab a fresh piece of paper.

Clearing a space mentally is harder. When you've got half a dozen
deadlines or undone tasks - even other parts of the same project - nagging
at your mind, it gets hard to concentrate for more than 10 consecutive
seconds. The only solution I've found is better time management. You have
to be sure that you have *plenty* of time to focus on this one thing, and
nothing else. That means budgetting that uninterruptable time, at least an
hour usually, and making *hard barriers* on either side of that time to
stop other tasks from seeping in, even if they are urgent. Often for that
to happen I have to make sure I've decided when those things *are* going
to get done. This is why I try to always block out my day the night
before: "project A before lunch, and not even thinking about project B
until after lunch"

Of course the other thing that can prevent focus sometimes are other, more
emotional issues: guilt, insecurity, all those negative inner voices.
Those can be reflective of bigger things than the scope of this blog, but
two quick strategies that sometimes work: arguing with those voices, in
writing (what the psychologist Martin Seligman calls disputation); and
sometimes when I can't actually do the work, I can *plan* the work - as in
the tactic I read somewhere of pretending you've given up on the task, but
you have to write a detailed list of instructions for what the person who
*is* going to finish it needs to do.