[[!tag gtd]]

I'm still climbing back onto the GTD bandwagon. One of the things that helps me a lot is my morning checklist. I have a cron job to e-mail it to me every morning, a bit before I usually wake up. When I get to the home office, I go through the checklist to make sure I get at least the basic things done.

Some highlights from my list:

• check that phone is charged and non-silent
• check that there are no uncharged rechargeables (charge if any)
• start new daily journal file
• clean up office desk from unusual clutter
• check calendars
• check all inboxes: feeds, tickler, inbox.mdwn, notebooks, physical, fridge door, phone notebook, N810 inbox, e-mail

As you can see, most of the things on the list are very small. This is by design: it's easier to get started in the morning if you don't have to take big steps.

Also most of the things don't require much in the way of brain activity. They're still important: if I didn't have a checklist item to charge my phone each morning, I'd always have an empty battery.

As long as the checklist e-mail remains in my inbox, I know that I'm not done with it. Sometimes there are interruptions and I have to do something else first, but it's easy to get back to the list.

While I've been climbing back onto the bandwagon, I've been quite diligent in following the checklist, and I've quickly gotten up to speed each morning. The past couple of days, I've slipped, and my productivity vanished. The question is, did I skip the checklist because I was tired and feeling lousy, or did I feel tired and lousy because I skipped the checklist?