Matthew Cornell

Have you ever had the following happen? You're doing something (a chore, writing, whatever) and your mind says "Hey, you really ought to ____." In my case the ____ has been:

• wear safety goggles (while using a crowbar to break break up a wooden pallet)
  
• check out that wet wood around the shower stall (while showering)
  
• get my bike's freewheel fixed (while riding it)
  
• go to bed (when I'm feeling really tired)
  
• ...

In all of these cases my mind was doing the right thing - identifying situations that needed my attention. In the first one I listened, but in the other two I delayed. Now, had I been following David Allen's principles, I would have written these down and placed them in my Inbox (the collection step of his process), then put them in the appropriate Next Action categories to be done as soon as possible. However, I didn't do this, and as a result they both got worse and created additional stress. For the shower issue, I let it go too long, which resulted in some wood rot and insect infestation (plus anger, shame, etc.) In the bike case, my delay created the added time pressure of needing to get it fixed soon, since the bike was up for auction. If I had only acted sooner, things would have been better.

My artist friend, who was a fine woodworker in a previous life, said his boss at a NYC shop used to talk about this:

You got that Steven James quote right. He would use that phrase with an action. For example he would take an open gallon of paint and move it away from the edge of a table and into the center and look at you and say "If you think something's going to happen, it probably will."

I'd be curious to know if others have had this happen, and how they addressed the problem. In my case, I'm trying to use these experiences as lessons to help re-invigorate my GTD discipline, esp. the collection phase.