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You have some excellent writing skills bigcloits and have introduced some new thoughts for me to think about. I've already been thinking about brainstorming more, or at least thinking about what projects should possibly have more brainstorming.

Here's another thought on the halo effect. Maybe it's our subconscious throwing up resistance at us. We tell ourselves these things need to get done. These things are important to me. And the little piece inside of us that resists our good attempts to distract us with throwing other things for us to do right now. Things that aren't as important suddenly seem extremely important.

There is a book called "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield that is an excellent read that talks more about this.

One good example of the halo effect is processing my email inbox.

If I get to an email with a link I want to read, I usually click on it and read. Or if I want to respond to an email that is going to be a lengthy response I'll respond instead of putting those actions into the system and continuing to process the email inbox. (take this post as an example)

I find that just putting something into the system to do later, takes away some of the compulsion. The item isn't as important to do later on as it is when I first get it.

I also find I am more aware of the distractions when I am using a system like GTD than if I wasn't.