Getting (the easy) Things Done

The problem with having a computer-free weekend, is that I get into work, supposedly ready to be all productive, and have 217 blog posts waiting for me to read... I did a pretty good job of distracting myself over the weekend, too, but at least it was with real life things for a change. Yesterday, however, I actually got somewhat organised. I managed to clear my floor of debris (it must be tsunami season in New England, although mine wasn't that artistic) and trudged through the snow to buy some shiny new organisational toys.
Probably a year ago, I bought Getting Things Done during my last short-lived attempt to get organised. The idea of the book is basically to create a system to keep track of everything you need or want to do and review it regularly enough that you don't have to worry about forgetting or missing anything important. It seemed like a good thing to start with at the moment, because I've gotten to the point lately where I'm avoiding even thinking about what I should be doing because I can't bear the associated guilt at not having done anything productive in so long.
I made a big, long list of everything I should be working on and the next step I could take on each one and it did make me feel a lot better just to have identified what needs to be done and have some sort of plan. I even went to bed early last night in the hopes that I'd be able to get into the lab at a reasonable hour.
Not even the prospect of being able to check my email again after more than 48 hours was enough to get me out of bed when my alarm went off, but I did make it into lab by 10am, which is a pretty significant improvement (let's see if it lasts beyond today). One of my first emails was from my advisor suggesting we go to a talk at another institution so I couldn't start implementing my plan, but at least I was actually at the lab in time to make it to the talk, unlike the last time.
When we got back from the talk, I was planning to just read a few blogs, but I got sucked into working my way through all the unread posts. It feels so productive to be able to clear out that list! I also managed to cross about 20 things off my list; they were mostly non-work-related things, but there were quite a few I've been forgetting to do for weeks. I did get around to doing some work, which is more than I can say about most of last week, but hopefully I'll get more done tomorrow.