Getting Things Done

In the Executive Masters program, I have a lot to get done: Work, home, exercise, reading, homework, papers, presentations. So it's only natural that I start looking for ways to become more productive.

David Allen has firmly established his position as a personal productivity guru. If you surf the net looking for “productivity” it won’t take long before you find references to David Allen and his book Getting Things Done. According to what you’ll find on the web, Getting Things Done is the answer to all our disorganization, wasted time, and incomplete tasks.

Personal productivity techniques I’m familiar with tend to be either tactical or strategic. Tactical techniques tell me that if I get the mechanics of organization and doing right, then I will be more efficient and I’ll get more done. All I need is to be more diligent with my to-do list and my schedule. Strategic techniques tell me that if I get my priorities straight, then I’ll get more of the important things done. All I need is to be more clear on my mission and goals.

Getting Things Done goes beyond both tactics and strategy. It goes to the “personal” part of “personal productivity.” The underlying message I got from the book is this: Everyone has more to do than they ever could complete; the reason I don't accomplish more has to do with subconscious resistance and unresolved feelings that limit me.

As soft and fuzzy as that sounds, Allen doesn’t get soft and fuzzy. Rather than suggesting we need more hugs, Allen presents a lot of practical ways to avoid or transform the subconscious resistance and unresolved feelings.

For example, he says that people feel stressed about not getting enough done because unconsciously they know there are a dozen or a hundred other things that they could have (or should have) done today. That stress makes people feel so overwhelmed that they probably didn't fully complete any of the things they did do that day.

The solution: Write down everything that you think you should/could/might/maybe/want to do today, tomorrow, or someday. Write it down and put it in a file or journal or something that you will review regularly. Once you've established trust with yourself that you will always come back to those things, the stress disappears. You may still choose not to do any of those things. But the fact that you trust yourself to not forget them and to make conscious decisions about them relieves the stress and the negative self judgments attached to them.

Without those negative feelings holding you back, you’ll get more done.

It’s a little more complicated than that of course, and the book presents lots of useful and practical tips on just exactly how to write everything down so that you will come back to it and have fun doing it.

I've started following some of his techniques just in little ways and it seems to have helped me get more things done with less stress. And I enjoy doing it. The real test, of course, is whether I still use these techniques in two years.

The book does have some flaws. It’s not a cookbook, and sometimes I had difficulty translating Allen’s recommendations into things I could really do in my life. I’d like it to be more direct, organized, and prescriptive. But its format does allow me a great deal of flexibility to interpret and implement Allen’s concepts in ways that work for me.

Getting Things Done by David Allen is available on amazon.com. David Allen's web site is http://www.davidco.com/.