Iย love to read andย I love to take notes about what I read.ย Today I thought Iโd share some notes from one of the most important books I read in the past year:ย Getting Things Doneย by David Allen.
Iโve always uncharitably stereotyped people who are meticulously organized or highly dedicated to task management systems. I have no admirable justification for being this way. Itโs mostly the by-product of a tendency to romanticize approaches to work that are primarily fueled by inspiration, creativity, and spontaneity. In a single fell swoop, David Allen destroyed that stereotype for me while also making workflow management seem like something that didnโt need to come at the expense of my affinity forย inspiration, creativity, and spontaneity.
The central premise of the book is that a personalized and efficient system of organization is the foundation for creative work.ย What I love most about Allenโs system is that itโs primarily philosophical in nature. That is, Allen doesnโt really care if you use Evernote or Trello or Asana or digital folders or file cabinets or whatever. Whatโs most important to his system is that you capture the proper mindset and use the tools that are right for you.
Here are three insights from the book I found most valuable:
1. The mind is for having ideas, not holding ideas:ย The mind is at its best when itโs making connections and generating ideas, not when itโs struggling to remember where things have been placed and what needโs to be done. Being organized is not an end in itself. Itโs a way of facilitating flow.ย Once you decide to do something, your mind creates an open loop. An open loop is any task, obligation, or plan that hasnโt been properly defined and delegated. When we have open loops, our mind uses lots of energy to nag us about them. This hinders creative thinking and creates cognitive overload. When you close your open loops, you free the mind up to do what it does best. Close open loops by building an external brain. An external brain is a well organized and reliable system for capturing, clarifying, organizing, reviewing, and executing your open loops.
Related quote:
โYour ability to generate power is directly proportional to your ability to relax. Anything that does not belong where it is, the way it is, is an โopen loop,โ which will be pulling on your attention if itโs not appropriately managed. In order to deal effectively with all of that, you must first identify and capture all those things that are โringing your bellโ in some way, clarify what, exactly, they mean to you, and then make a decision about how to move on themโฆif itโs on your mind, your mind isnโt clear. Anything you consider unfinished in any way must be captured in a trusted system outside your mind, or what I call a collection tool, that you know youโll come back to regularly and sort through. You must use your mind to get things off your mind.”
2. If it has your attention, capture it. Once youโve captured it, clarify it. Once youโve clarified it, organize it:ย Your capturing system is the place you โholdโ your ideas until you clarify them. Your clarification process is what you to do in order to decide what youโre going to do with what youโve captured. Your organizing system is where you โholdโ stuff after youโve decided what youโre going to do. When I buy groceries, I capture them by placing them in a bag, putting them in my car, and placing them on the counter when I arrive home. I clarify each item by defining what it is and determining what needs to be done with it. Once I clarify the items, I organize them by placing them in their proper places (ie the fridge, the freezer, the medicine cabinet, the bathroom cabinet, etc.). Donโt start with organization. Instead, start with asking yourself โWhat are the things that command and demand my attention?โ Then ask โWhat needs to be done about those things, who needs to do them, and what does it mean to be done?โ Then ask, whatโs the best place for me to put my action items in order to ensure they are remembered and completed?
Related quote:
โIf you donโt empty and process the stuff youโve collected, your tools arenโt serving any function other than the storage of amorphous material. Emptying the contents does not mean that you have to finish whatโs there; it just means that you have to decide more specifically what it is and what should be done with it, and if itโs still unfinished, organize it into your system. You must get it out of the container. You donโt leave it or put it back into โinโ! Not emptying your in-tray is like having garbage cans and mailboxes that no one ever dumps or deals withโyou just have to keep buying new ones to hold an eternally accumulating volume.ย What do you need to ask yourself (and answer) about each e-mail, text, voice mail, memo, page of meeting notes, or self-generated idea that comes your way? This is the component of input management that forms the basis for your personal organization. You canโt organize whatโs incomingโyou can only capture it and process it. Instead, you organize the actions youโll need to take based on the decisions youโve made about what needs to be done. Whatโs the Next Action? This is the critical question for anything youโve captured; if you answer it appropriately, youโll have the key substantive thing to organize. The โnext actionโ is the next physical, visible activity that needs to be engaged in, in order to move the current reality of this thing toward completion.โ
3. Review your system regularly:ย Every week you need to review the things youโve captured, clarified, and organized to make sure youโre clear and concrete about whatever you need to be clear and concrete about. Periodic review is essential for building trust in your system. If you donโt establish and stick to a routine of review, your mind will stop trusting you and it will take back the job of trying to remember everything. Much of your day-to-day life is spent up close and in the weeds handling details. The weekly review allows for the opportunity to step back and view the big picture. Whatโs working? Whatโs not working? What needs to be cleaned up? What needs to be reconfigured? The weekly review will help with this.
Related quote:
โFor most people the magic of workflow management is realized in the consistent use of the reflection step. This is where, in one important case, you take a look at all your outstanding projects and open loopsโฆon a weekly basis. Itโs your chance to scan all the defined actions and options before you, thus radically increasing the efficacy of the choices you make about what youโre doing at any point in time. All of your Projects, active project plans, and Next Actions, Agendas, Waiting For, and even Someday/Maybe lists should be reviewed once a week. This also gives you an opportunity to ensure that your brain is clear and that all the loose strands of the past few days have been captured, clarified, and organized. Most people donโt have a really complete system, and they get no real payoffโฆfor just that reason: their overview isnโt total. They still have a vague sense that something may be missing. Thatโs why the rewards to be gained from implementing this whole process are exponential: the more complete the system is, the more youโll trust it. And the more you trust it, the more complete youโll be motivated to keep it. The Weekly Review is a master key to maintaining that standard.
Here are three simple action items anyone can follow based on the above three insights:
1. Get it all out of your headย โ capturing the data that demands your attention must become a part of your lifestyle. Go all the way with this. Donโt hold some things in your head and other things in your capturing system. This will simply negate the power of your capturing tools. You must build a system you trust and trust the system you build.
2. Minimize the number of capturing systems you useย โ keep it simple and avoid using more apps, tools, files, etc than are necessary. This will just overwhelm you and produce disorder. Use tools that are simple, accessible, and versatile enough to meet your needs.
3. Empty your capturing tools regularlyย โ Failure to empty your capturing tools is like failing to take out the garbage. It makes everything stink and it stops your tool from doing what itโs designed to do. Emptying your capture tools does NOT mean finishing everything you capture. โEmptyingโ simply means having a periodic review period where you clarify the things youโve captured and then move them out of your inbox (capturing system) and into their proper files/folders (ie. calendars or action lists).
This article appeared at FEE.org at:ย ย https://fee.org/articles/3-basic-principles-for-getting-things-done/