Revisiting Getting Things Done
“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.”
The core premise of David Allen’s book Getting Things Done is ambitious to say the least. Yet believe it or not, it is entirely possible and I’ve experienced the benefits of following a few of his basic rules since reading it for the first time. I’m normally very sceptical of any book which you might classify as ’self-help’, but Getting Things Done is actually well worth a read. I now have a system which I’ve been using for a few months, but I thought it would be worthwhile revisiting the book to see if I’d pick up any other nuggets of useful information.
As I read the first part of the book, it seemed that I had made use of most of his advice in some form or another. I use my calendar and task management programs to organise all the stuff I need to do, leaving my mind fairly clear at any one point. Here’s on excerpt that I particularly enjoyed:
…you’ll need to get in the habit of keeping nothing in your mind. And the way to do that, as we’ve seen, is not by managing time, managing information and managing priorities. After all:
- you don’t manage five minutes and end up with six;
- you don’t manage information overload - otherwise you’d walk into a library and die, or the first time you connected to the Web, or even opened a phone book, you’d bow up; and
- you don’t manage priorities - you have them.
Instead, the key to managing all of your ’stuff’ is managing your actions.
A lot of the book goes into the fine detail of implementing this sort of system, but you don’t have to read it all. In fact, the first part alone is all you really need to take in. I found that once I had the basic principles and methodology, I could work out how it fit together with my life. The most surprising thing that you don’t realise until you read the book is actually how easy all of his guidelines are to implement. You don’t need any new skills, just a logical way of using them.
I meet quite a few people who are a lot more stressed out than they need to be, mainly because they have trouble keeping track of their lives. Others have sporadically implemented systems which don’t cover all of their bases, so they end up worrying a lot anyway. If you fall into either of those categories and are curious about improving things, then I’d highly recommend picking up Getting Things Done. It might take a while to get used to, but as I’ve found over the last few months, the benefits are huge. Ever wondered how I manage do do Thunderbolt, Impact, university work and all the other stuff I commit to? Well this book is my secret.
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