I've always thought of myself as a reasonably well organised individual. However, after reading David Allen's 'Getting Things Done' I realised that there were areas of my personal time management that could benefit from applying the GTD system.
Dave Allen’s GTD is a solid, well-written and sensible guide to improving
time management. He describes his book as a ‘compilation of more than
two decades worth of discovery about personal productivity’. Indeed,
throughout the book there are snippets of information from Allen and thoughtful
quotes on all aspects of time management from setting time aside to getting
the basics of a filing system together: ‘You increase your productivity
and creativity exponentially when you think about the right thing at the
right time and the tools to capture your value-added thinking’.
The book is broken down into three parts: ‘The Art of Getting Things
Done’, ‘Practicing Stress-Free Productivity’ and ‘The
Power of The Key Principles’.
Our Jobs Are Changing
Part 1 describes the problems and complexities associated with work today.
Our jobs keep changing and - if we needed further confirmation - we are
being asked to do more and more with less and less time to accomplish the
tasks.
The old systems of time management, we are told, are inadequate to cope
with these problems and the plethora of gadgets and tools to aid us (if
only we knew how to use them) aren’t helping; we become slaves to
the technology rather than the master.
Simple but Effective
Having set the scene, the book then launches into describing a basic -
but effective - system for managing workflow. In essence, this is the foundation
of GTD, the distillation of more than two decades of Allen’s ideas
on improving personal productivity. But it’s the simplicity of the
system and the fact that it is technology neutral (it’s not tied to
a particular gadget or product) that provides its strength. Having become
a convert, I’ve successfully applied the process to the management
of email across several platforms – Zen and the Art of Email Maintenance
- and others – notably Merlin Mann – are also fans.
The final chapter of this part of the book reviews the specifics of planning
and executing projects. I didn’t find this chapter as useful as the
others, but it builds upon the principles outlined above in a slightly different
context.
Stress Free Productivity
Part 2 is about the practicalities of GTD with emphasis on ‘stress
free productivity’. It’s all about tools and tips on implementing
a systematic approach to managing workflow which isn’t dependent on
a particular flavour of technology. The chapters in this part build on the
core process of GTD, focusing on collecting, tidying and maintaining the
information jetsam and flotsam of the average ‘knowledge worker’.
Part 3 of the book tries to bring together the ideas and principles from
the first two parts and relating them to the personal benefits that can
be gleaned from their implementation. At first glance some of the statements
seem pretty mundane: ‘If negative feelings come from broken agreements…
don’t make the agreement’. But looking a little deeper and thinking
about it, it kind of makes sense. Setting unrealistic goals and objectives
that you’ll never complete will just lead to anxiety. A key chapter
in this section is ‘The Power of the Next-Action Decision’.
This centres on the topic of procrastination and how the next-action approach
can help. Again, it’s a simple idea that if put into practice will
have a positive effect on getting things done.
GTD is one of those books that you have to go through at least twice: the
first time to get the basics and the second time to work out the kinks in
the system.
Because GTD does not favour any particular technology, you are free to
adapt the system to your own needs. So, whether you prefer to build your
to-do-list using a low-tech notebook and pencil or to capture them using
the latest Blackberry device, then you are free to do so and the system
still works.
Watch Out for the Zen Email System
But there are areas of GTD where the lack of advice on incorporating technology
into the system is a little too sparse. I found this to be particularly
true on the topic of dealing with email about which the book barely mentions.
Given that we spend so much of our time managing email and we depend upon
it for much of our workflow, I thought more discussion on the subject would
have been justified. I have subsequently incorporated some of the GTD techniques
into my own methods for tackling email management – see Zen and the
Art of Email Management - coming soon to Tetsou.
Tetsou
