The capture habit

Allen's premise is that the mind is for having ideas, not holding them. Anything undone occupies attention until it is done or parked somewhere trusted, and it does its reminding at the wrong moments, at three in the morning, never when you can act. A head full of open loops is anxious, and an anxious mind is the one that procrastinates, because every task competes with every other for the same worried attention. Capture starts with a sweep: hours spent writing down every commitment, project, worry and idea, which typically produces a hundred items and a physical sense of relief. Then it is a habit: whatever arrives, from a colleague's request to a thought in the shower, goes into the inbox. The inbox must be one place, and it must be trusted, which is what the weekly review maintains. For starting, the payoff is specific: the big task no longer has to carry the anxiety of everything else.