From the course: Time Management Fundamentals

Taking an inventory of your gathering points

From the course: Time Management Fundamentals

Taking an inventory of your gathering points

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- Let's explore the principle of space. We'll start by finding out how many gathering points you have. First, a couple of definitions. A gathering point is a physical or digital space where anything unprocessed gathers. Unprocessed means anything that's unresolved, meaning you haven't fully decided what you're going to do with it, when you're going to do it, or it's not where it belongs. If any one of those three things is missing, what, when, or where, then it's unprocessed. When you understand these definitions, you'll see that gathering points are all around you. Anywhere tasks, papers, projects, and so on gather is a gathering point. And the more gathering points you have, the more switching cost you pay. I've provided a worksheet you can download to determine how many gathering points you have. For each type of gathering point, add one on the worksheet. In the example, at the top of the worksheet you'll see email inboxes. So if you have three email inboxes, such as personal, work, and a hobby inbox, then the number you put there would be three. For desk areas, if you have two piles of paper on your desk then you would write two, and so on. Pause this video now and complete the gathering points worksheet. For many people, the worksheet you just completed is an eye opener. Prior to completing this course, the average person has between 30 and 40 gathering points. The lowest I've seen from someone prior to completing this course is eight. That person was a focus master. The highest number I've ever seen from a chaos master is 161 gathering points. If you're way above average like this, that's okay. In fact, it's a good thing, because you have a greater opportunity to save time. Whatever your number, we're all going to try to get to the same target, six or fewer gathering points. And you're already on the path to making that happen.

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