{"id":719,"date":"2011-11-02T19:03:07","date_gmt":"2011-11-03T00:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/?p=719"},"modified":"2011-11-02T13:20:28","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T18:20:28","slug":"getting-things-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/2011\/11\/getting-things-done\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Things Done"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has only been in the last year that I actually picked up and read David Allen\u2019s book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity<\/a>.\u00a0 As I\u2019ve mentioned before, my father was an avid follower of Franklin Covey \u2013 this is what I learned about how to structure time and productivity.\u00a0 I\u2019ve also seen how often Franklin Covey does not work for people \u2013 clients with binders never opened and frustration.\u00a0 This is just another reason there is such a plethora of systems for people \u2013 one way doesn\u2019t work for everyone.\u00a0 David Allen doesn\u2019t care what tools you use, he outlines his way of organizing your time and productivity.<\/p>\n

A major component of David Allen\u2019s Getting Things Done approach is the idea that if something will take you less than 2 minutes to accomplish \u2013 you do it now.\u00a0 If it will take you longer than 2 minutes, you then evaluate where it needs to go: into a specific day\/time in your calendar or into your organization system to do later (or to delegate it).\u00a0 If you can successfully apply this, you cannot procrastinate those fast tasks and will in fact getting things done.\u00a0 Also intrinsic to this system is the need to review your system at regular intervals from the daily to the Weekly Review.<\/p>\n

There are 5 stages to mastering work-flow: collect, process, organize, review, and do.\u00a0 One of the steps people gloss over is often the collecting \u2013 it can be hard to really collect all of your tasks, emptying your mind of everything and getting it down on paper (or electronically).\u00a0 Our brains can only hold a certain amount of information at a given time \u2013 we need to have it collected somewhere concrete.\u00a0 Processing is about deciding on the next action item, which I wrote about in \u201cDecide on the Next Action.\u201d<\/a> Organize for him is where you add the action to your calendar or appropriate list.\u00a0 Review is critical to any time management system; you need to stay aware of what is on the horizon. \u00a0Finally, do is for deciding on what you will tackle next.<\/p>\n

One of the most intriguing aspects of what David Allen talks about is his \u201c4 Criteria for Choosing Actions in the Moment.\u201d\u00a0 Many systems focus first and foremost on the priority of the task, not with Getting Things Done.\u00a0 This applies only to those tasks that aren\u2019t important enough to be in your calendar already.\u00a0 His criteria are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Context<\/li>\n
  2. Time available<\/li>\n
  3. Energy available<\/li>\n
  4. Priority<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Context is an easy initial criterion since if the task requires a computer, but you are not near one, you cannot do it.\u00a0 Time and energy available are self-explanatory, and do need to be evaluated before deciding on a task.\u00a0 No matter how high the priority might be to work on \u2018x\u2019, if you do not have the time or energy, it\u2019s better to wait until the initial 3 criteria are in place.\u00a0 I think choosing your next action based on following these criteria could ease the stress I see people putting on themselves \u2013 the rational for why they need to wait.<\/p>\n

    Most productivity systems promote the importance of thinking beyond the immediate \u2013 Stephen Covey wants you to create a mission statement for your life; David Allen is no different, he talks about the six levels for reviewing: the runway or your current actions to 50,000+ feet or life.\u00a0 David Allen clearly outlines what the six levels are and I find this more accessible than a mission statement.\u00a0 Too often this is an area we neglect in our planning, yet is a worthwhile task in order to keep us in line with where we want to be.<\/p>\n

    Although this book was a bit dry, I appreciated many of his ideas.\u00a0 It has flexibility built into it, with the idea that you don\u2019t put things into your calendar that aren\u2019t time sensitive.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been know to be one of those people who will put things into the calendar with the best of intentions and then to avoid it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve learned how important it is to keep the calendar a sacred space and now have another way to approach the other tasks \u2013 to consider the 4 criteria.<\/p>\n

    The key to any system you use to manage your time and productivity is to make time for reviewing.\u00a0 It\u2019s likely most of us fall off our systems from time to time \u2013 I know I do \u2013 but we need to be able to get back on the system.\u00a0 David Allen lays out the steps to hopping back onto it and makes it easier to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen is a classic book on how to manage your time and tasks. See what I thought of it\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[10,8,18,5,20,25,22,15,4,16],"class_list":["post-719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-household","tag-paperwork","tag-postaweek2011","tag-productivity","tag-resources","tag-routines","tag-to-do-lists"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-bB","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":730,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}