Don't wait. Except when you should.

When should you act? And when should you wait?

I have two pieces of advice, that may seem contradictory:

1. Handle stuff as soon as you can, when it shows up.

2. Wait until the last constructive moment to decide or do anything.

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OK, first one:

1. The longer you wait, the longer it takes.

The more you linger to deal with the emails and paper-based inputs you have accumulated, the longer it will usually take you to clarify and organize them, if you have a standard (like mine) of reducing backlog to zero. The “clarifying” step of the GTD process requires the most thinking effort—who is this from? why did I even get this? what do I need to do about it, if anything? where does the document go (trash, reference, project support info, etc.) once I’ve clarified it?

When you put off this thinking for longer than a day (or two or three or more), the more mental effort it will take to reconstruct what that input was about and reduce or eliminate your backlog. Research on memory suggests that if something is more than seven days past, it’s extremely difficult to remember or recreate what happened, and what it’s about. Not a long time. but magnify that by as many unprocessed things you have. If you zero out your in-baskets daily, it’s not such a drain on your energy to get things clear. If you collect unprocessed stuff for days, weeks, months, you would probably need a long weekend (or more) of doing nothing else but cleaning house.

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OK, now number two:

2. Avoid deciding or doing something as long as you can hold off, responsibly.

There are times and situations in which it could be more productive to wait to engage with making a decision or acting on something until it would be critical if you don’t. This is particularly true when new information is likely to arrive that would change your call.

In the most mundane example, waiting to respond to emails you’ve been cc:d on about stuff that you’re not required (yet) to do anything about. I’ve spent many hundreds of hours with senior people having them delete tons of emails they’ve accumulated that are now out of date, given how things have progressed.

On a more subtle and strategic level, it could mean waiting for the environment to shift before making a judgment call that would have lots of impact. For instance:

• Avoiding a product launch until it’s the best call, given what the competition might be doing in the meantime

• Deciding to marry (or divorce) until more input from relevant people is known

• Making a new hire before sufficient due diligence about the person

The way to hold both pieces of advice at once? Clarify fast, decide patiently. Processing an input gets harder every day you leave it. But acting on a decision before the environment has settled can cost you more than the delay would have. The question worth asking is a simple one: will waiting give me better information—or just more backlog?

Good luck!

David