Ones and Zeros

I’ve been using a version of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) organization approach. Personalized of course, my needs will be different from yours. There are plenty of places to read about GTD (here, here, or here for example) so I won’t write about that.

But it did occur to me recently that all tasks, no matter what your organizational methods are, fall into three broad categories.

First, the tasks that combat entropy; I’ll call them maintenance tasks. These are the tasks that involve fixing things and cleaning things, and preventing bad situations from getting worse. Changing the oil in your car (or aircraft), fixing a leak, repairing a fence, etc. These tasks are about maintaining the status quo. Homeostasis for your world.

Second are the recurring things that head off entropy ahead of time. If the first category is maintenance, this category might be preventative maintenance (PM). Weeding the garden, washing dishes, doing the laundry, mowing the lawn, buying food, or if you’re a farmer: planting and harvesting. These tasks help to maintain the status quo too, but are less reactive and more planned. This is the stuff you do to keep your life the way you want to live.

Last, and generally the smallest category are the things you do to improve your life. These are the investment tasks. An accountant might call these the “capital investment” tasks where you improve your surroundings, improve yourself, or improve your work or your community. You’re investing your time and effort to raise yourself or your world to a better place.

One way to think about these might be time-related. Maintenance tasks are reactive and in the current moment. PM tasks are tactical and looks ahead for a short term. Investment tasks are purely forward-looking and helps you fulfill your aspirational goals.There’s a balance between these types. If everything is of a maintenance nature, then you never get ahead of a reactive situation. If all your tasks are maintenance or PM tasks, then you never improve your situation. But if all your tasks are investment tasks, your current world falls apart.

Since we’re often supported when younger in college or school, we put more of our time in investment tasks then. Our lives can be simpler then too. As we age more and more of our time goes into maintenance and PM tasks. But improvement can happen at any age. Part of making time for this is to simplify life. That reduces the time required for maintenance and PM tasks and frees up more for investment into new things. As in all things there is a balance that we can control.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 06:32 and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.