Monday, May 15. 2006
Grand Theft Distraction: A Getting Things Done Book Review
Getting Things Done, or GTD, is a small book written by David Allen. It is, as the title suggests, a book explaining a method that you can use to get shit done. When I first heard about it, I had relegated it to a Tony Robbins style "increase your personal productivity" affair. But it make large in-roads with the geek crowd. It seems all kinds of uber-alpha-geeks have drank the GTD kool-ade, and are evangelizing it like David Allen is the son of a carpenter.
Why? At the risk of sounding like a bad televangelist (blogavangelist?), I'll give you the answer: It works. It's that simple. Most people have problems where the day-to-day interruptions and madness interferes with the stuff they need to get done. Some of us have all that going on and a hard time organizing their tasks on top of it. With all of this happening, stuff—sometimes important—slips through the cracks. usually this happens because there is a list of things in all of our heads of things that we need to do, but keep not getting done. These things David Allan says, consume a large chunk of our mental processing and energy because they are not getting done, but they are also not stored somewhere in a trusted system so we can let our minds forget about it.
The system that David Allen presents is a relatively simple one that can easily be applied, whether you are a stay-at-home mother, or a high powered executive, it is all the same. You can implement the GTD (Getting Things Done) system with a set of folders and a pad of note-paper, you can go high-tech and use a PDA along with the PIM software of your choice, or anything in between. The key is to gather all the "stuff" in one big pile, and start to process it all. "Stuff" is all the stuff sitting at your desk, in your drawers, filing cabinets, inbox, voice mail, window/mac desktop and even the stuff floating in your head. Once you have gathered all this stuff (and made it tangible) then you go through each item, one by one, and put it in your system.
The system is very simple, given piece of "stuff" you decide whether or not that item is actionable, and if it is, determine what that next action is, and either do it (if it takes less then 2 mins), delegate it, or defer it to a later date. If it isn't actionable, then either it goes in the trash, goes in a reference system, or gets put in a "someday/maybe" folder. the key to the whole system is "What is the next action?" which is to say, what is the very next thing you can do to bring this item to completion. "Pay the taxes" is not a next action, but "go to the accountants and pick up completed taxes" is. This has the effect of turning a lot of "small" projects into what seems like larger ones, but in fact, puts your mind into a sharper focus, because when you are in the middle of your day, you don't have to spend time deciding what you need to do, but instead go through your next action list, and chug through it, depending on time and energy available, priority, and context.
The hardest part of the GTD system is the initial collection procedure. David Allen says that it can take up-wards of 2 days to go through the initial collection and processing stage, depending on how organized you were before and how much stuff you have. Now I had it easy, I grabbed and started reading the book a few days after I started work at Critical Mass, so the initial stuff collection at work was painless, and it's kept me organized ever since. However, at home, it is a whole different ball of wax. I have since re-read the book, and have only just started to put it in practise for my personal life. Don't do this. You should really go the whole hog and organize your whole life, instead of just your job. If you do it half-assed, you will end up highly productive at work, but your productivity elsewhere will suffer, because it will be so much harder (by virtue of not having a working system in place). Yes, the initial outlay of time is hard, and the collection process is hard, but it is worth it.
All in all, I would say this book is monumentally helpful, whether you stay at home, work at home or work in an office. The initial investment in time is very high, but the return is even higher still. David Allen's style is light, friendly, and not too preachy. It can get a little new-agey-power-of-positive-thinking at times, but this seems to be more of an explanation of the result of the process, rather then part of the process itself.
If you have any problems staying organized and on top of stuff: Go. Buy. This. Book.
Why? At the risk of sounding like a bad televangelist (blogavangelist?), I'll give you the answer: It works. It's that simple. Most people have problems where the day-to-day interruptions and madness interferes with the stuff they need to get done. Some of us have all that going on and a hard time organizing their tasks on top of it. With all of this happening, stuff—sometimes important—slips through the cracks. usually this happens because there is a list of things in all of our heads of things that we need to do, but keep not getting done. These things David Allan says, consume a large chunk of our mental processing and energy because they are not getting done, but they are also not stored somewhere in a trusted system so we can let our minds forget about it.
The system that David Allen presents is a relatively simple one that can easily be applied, whether you are a stay-at-home mother, or a high powered executive, it is all the same. You can implement the GTD (Getting Things Done) system with a set of folders and a pad of note-paper, you can go high-tech and use a PDA along with the PIM software of your choice, or anything in between. The key is to gather all the "stuff" in one big pile, and start to process it all. "Stuff" is all the stuff sitting at your desk, in your drawers, filing cabinets, inbox, voice mail, window/mac desktop and even the stuff floating in your head. Once you have gathered all this stuff (and made it tangible) then you go through each item, one by one, and put it in your system.
The system is very simple, given piece of "stuff" you decide whether or not that item is actionable, and if it is, determine what that next action is, and either do it (if it takes less then 2 mins), delegate it, or defer it to a later date. If it isn't actionable, then either it goes in the trash, goes in a reference system, or gets put in a "someday/maybe" folder. the key to the whole system is "What is the next action?" which is to say, what is the very next thing you can do to bring this item to completion. "Pay the taxes" is not a next action, but "go to the accountants and pick up completed taxes" is. This has the effect of turning a lot of "small" projects into what seems like larger ones, but in fact, puts your mind into a sharper focus, because when you are in the middle of your day, you don't have to spend time deciding what you need to do, but instead go through your next action list, and chug through it, depending on time and energy available, priority, and context.
The hardest part of the GTD system is the initial collection procedure. David Allen says that it can take up-wards of 2 days to go through the initial collection and processing stage, depending on how organized you were before and how much stuff you have. Now I had it easy, I grabbed and started reading the book a few days after I started work at Critical Mass, so the initial stuff collection at work was painless, and it's kept me organized ever since. However, at home, it is a whole different ball of wax. I have since re-read the book, and have only just started to put it in practise for my personal life. Don't do this. You should really go the whole hog and organize your whole life, instead of just your job. If you do it half-assed, you will end up highly productive at work, but your productivity elsewhere will suffer, because it will be so much harder (by virtue of not having a working system in place). Yes, the initial outlay of time is hard, and the collection process is hard, but it is worth it.
All in all, I would say this book is monumentally helpful, whether you stay at home, work at home or work in an office. The initial investment in time is very high, but the return is even higher still. David Allen's style is light, friendly, and not too preachy. It can get a little new-agey-power-of-positive-thinking at times, but this seems to be more of an explanation of the result of the process, rather then part of the process itself.
If you have any problems staying organized and on top of stuff: Go. Buy. This. Book.