David Allen, Getting Things Done
Gonna be honest: I saw a clean copy of this book for $1 at the local Goodwill and figured I’d heard about it enough over the years (mostly from Merlin Mann) that I should check it out. Only after reading it did I realize how much of the book’s contents have been stripped out and repurposed in so many things that I’ve read. (The book is almost 15 years old now.)
Some notes, below.
“If it’s on your mind, your mind isn’t clear.”
Anything you consider unfinished in any way must be captured in a trusted system outside your mind, or what I call a collection bucket, that you know you’ll come back to regularly and sort through.
The weekly review
Most people feel best about their work the week before their vacation, but it’s not because of the vacation itself. What do you do the last week before you leave on a big trip? You clean up, close up, clarify, and renegotiate all your agreements with yourself and others. I suggest that you do this weekly instead of yearly.
Allen suggests blocking out two hours early every Friday afternoon, to “clear your psychic decks so you can go into the weekend ready for refreshment and recreation, with nothing on your mind.“
Get the ideas out of your head so you can do something with them.
Allen recalls advice from his English teacher on writing papers:
Write all your notes and quotes on separate three-by-five cards. Then, when you get ready to organize your thinking, just spread them all out on the floor, see the structure, and figure out what you’re missing… [O]nce you get all the ideas out of your head and in front of your eyes, you’ll automatically notice natural relationships and structure.
“All you really need is lists and folders.”
Making lists, ad hoc, as they occur to you, is one of the most powerful yet subtlest and simplest procedures that you can install in your life.
Don’t use your email inbox as a to-do list.
This is one I’ve learned the hard way:
Most people use their e-mail "in” for staging still-undecided actionable things and reference, a practice that rapidly numbs the mind: they know they’ve got to reassess everything every time they glance at the screen… getting “in” empty doesn’t mean you’ve handled everything. It means that you’ve DELETED what you could, FILED what you wanted to keep but don’t need to act on, DONE the less-than-two-minute responses, and moved into your reminder folders all the things you’re waiting for and all your actionable e-mails.
Do It, Delegate It, or Defer It
This is the best way I know of to get through your inbox:
1. If an action will take less than two minutes, it should be done at the moment it is defined.
2. If the action will take longer than two minutes, ask yourself Am I the right person to do this? If the answer is no, delegate it to the appropriate entity.
3. If the action will take longer than two minutes, and you are the right person to do it, you will have to defer acting on it until later and track it on one or more “Next Actions” lists.
Always ask yourself, “What is the next action?”
Maybe the most important part of the book, Allen emphasizes again and again that a next action is literally the next physical thing that needs to be done to advance things along. So, if you’re making a list, the next action isn’t “get the oil changed,” it’s “find the number for the mechanic” and then, “call 1-800-CAR-PARTS and schedule an appointment,” and then “drive to mechanic on Tuesday.”
This has helped me a great deal when making to-do lists.
Keep a Someday/Maybe list.
Someday/Maybe’s are not throwaway items. They may be some of the most interesting and creative things you’ll ever get involved with.
See Steven Johnson’s “Spark File”
As should be clear from the notes, this book is worth way more than $1.
Filed under: my reading year 2015
betzistar
