Category: Productivity

David Allen begins Getting Things Done (GTD) with a bold promise:

It’s possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a positive sense of relaxed control. That’s a great way to live and work, at elevated levels of effectiveness and efficiency. It’s also becoming a critical operational style required of successful and high-performing professionals. You already know how to do everything necessary to achieve this high-performance state. If you’re like most people, however, you need to apply these skills in a more timely, complete and systematic way so you can get on top of it all instead of feeling buried.

In the remaining pages, David fulfills his promise by laying out a systematic approach that he has developed and refined over about two decades of organizational coaching. And unlike many other books on organization that introduce readers to broad concepts and principles, David offers concrete, step-by-step instructions on ways of organizing that he has repeatedly found effective in hundreds if not thousands of real-world situations.

That’s the essence of coaching: it’s not “introduce the concept, let the students figure out the details for themselves.” A good basketball coach, for example, teaches sound shooting technique by instructing players on effective form. It’s possible to be a good shooter with bad form, but it’s a lot less likely and takes a lot more work. Likewise, it’s possible to be effective at organizing your life and work by developing your own system from scratch. But if someone has taken the time to distill decades of experience into one book that has not only strategies for success, but also the nitty gritty tactics, why go out of your way to invent your own methods?

David Allen is the John Wooden of personal organization trainers. And just as Bill Walton and Lewis Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) bought into Coach Wooden’s system to win 10 NCAA basketball titles (including seven in a row) for UCLA, you would do well, no matter your natural personal organization talents, to apply David Allen’s system to your life.

When I arrived home after my plane ride, I decided to just take David’s advice. He suggested getting an electronic label maker so filing would be fun and easy, so I did it. He made other office-supply suggestions for maximum efficiency, so I spent about $100 (including the label maker) to get what he said would be useful. He said it would be good to clear a couple of days to do an initial organization and to clear out the underbrush, so instead of taking the day after Thanksgiving off as I had previously planned, I used it dive in.

In the next few days I’ll be writing more about that experience, what I learned then, what I’ve learned in the year since then and how much more I’ve yet to really learn.

If you’re like many people, you’re probably coming into a weekend that will give you some free time. I think one of the best things you could do to get more out of your coming work week, and work weeks yet to come, would be to get a copy of GTD and read it straight through, and then resolve to apply what you learn. Or, as David says, to apply in a more systematic way what you already know, but perhaps haven’t taken time to consciously consider.

And while you’re at it, pick up one of Coach Wooden’s books, too. I especially recommend Wooden on Leadership.

Technorati: GTD, David Allen, John Wooden, UCLA, Basketball

It was on a trip to Jacksonville last November that I first read about GTD, David Allen’s Getting Things Done, in some blogs about personal productivity: one from Michael Hyatt, which led me to Marc’s Outlook on Productivity, which led to a presentation by Jeremy Wright, which I listened to and while following along with the Powerpoint.

After watching a presentation that seemed to make sense, and hearing everyone in these blogs (including Merlin Mann) talking about how fantastic GTD is, I decided that instead of reading articles from people who were applying David Allen’s system, it would be smart to get it straight from the source, and read his book. So I stopped by the book store on the way to the airport, and bought Getting Things Done for the plane ride home.

I was hooked.

GTD was one of the best purchases I’ve made. The system absolutely made sense, and what I loved most about it was how down-to-earth and practical it was. Books about strategic thinking can be both inspiring and deflating: they create aspirations for operating at a higher level, but don’t teach you how to clear the underbrush that creates all of the fires you constantly seem to be fighting. So as a result you develop the appetite for living more intentionally, but get either frustrated or guilty because the day-to-day press of “stuff” weighs you down.

GTD isn’t like that; it gives you immensely practical tools for dealing with the crush of “stuff” that is a reality in our always-on information society, so you can make time to do the strategic part.

Over the next couple of weeks, as I approach my one-year anniversary with GTD, I’m going to share some highlights of the practical benefits I’ve derived, the areas in which the immediate benefits have been tremendous, and some areas in which I still need work. I wrote about (and showed) some of the benefits in this post. I plan to elaborate on what has worked well (and also hopefully re-establish some habits that have become less habitual.)

I hope people reading this will find the example helpful, and that maybe you also would share your experiences, either through comments or trackbacks. I’d love to hear practical tips and pointers you can offer.

But more importantly, I hope you will do what I did: read the book for yourself instead of getting it second-hand.

Technorati: GTD, David Allen, Merlin Mann, Productivity, Getting Things Done