Getting Things Done by David Allen

I’ve dedicated the weekend to adjusting my personal productivity systems and processes. This effort has been at least partially driven by one of my Christmas presents, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.

I have adopted several of David’s concepts and many were already part of my arsenal. Others simply didn’t seem to work for me.

David lays out an entire system for, well, getting things done, and doing so in a stress-free way. The book is well-titled! While you’ll have to read the book to pick up on the many nuances, I can summarize a few of his guiding principles.

1) Be In The Moment – Focus all of your mental abilities on the task at hand, whatever that task may be. To do this, you cannot have other tasks, or lists, or appointments that you’re trying to remember cluttering your mind. Implement systems to capture all of your tasks, your lists, project details, appointments, contact information, etc., and ensure that these things are captured outside of your mind. Thus, freeing your mind to focus.

2) You Must Capture All Of Your “Stuff” – Your system will not work, you will not trust it, and it will not leave your mind unfettered to focus on the task at hand if you do not capture absolutely ALL tasks, lists, appointments, etc. You must be exhaustive.

3) Maintain An Ongoing Project List – David defines a project as any to-do item that will require more than one step to complete. Review this list at least weekly.

4) Next Actions Must Always Be “Actions” – David suggests that you do the hard thinking about a task/next-action as you’re depositing it into your system. As an example, “Brakes fixed” is not a next-action. You can’t simply do “brakes fixed.” Rather, you may note a next-action like “Call garage to book appointment to get brakes fixed.” The former example requires thinking before execution, and thus may lead to procrastination. The latter example requires no thinking whatsoever, only doing.

5) Have Buckets To Collect All Of Your “Stuff” – Examples include a waiting-for file for items that you’ve assigned to someone else; a someday-maybe file for items that are not actionable, but may be someday; a tickler file to allow you to mail things to yourself in the future, etc.

There are many other reviews available on the web. I believe this one is quite accurate.

I highly recommend Getting Things Done. Reading it is easy. Implementing the systems will take a little longer.