Chapter 5 of "Getting Things Done" by David Allen - Book Summary/Review

This post summarizes chapter 5 called Collection: Corralling Your "Stuff"

This time we are advancing more into the second half of the book, which is probably the most useful, since David Allen's advice becomes increasingly practical.

Collection means going through every storage area in every location. Be assured that if you give yourself at least a couple of hours to tackle this part, you can grab the major portion of things outstanding. And you can even capture the rest by creating relevant placeholding notes, e.g. "deal with closet in the entrance hall" or "clean up basement area cupboard". In the real world, you probably won't be able to keep your stuff 100% collected all of the time. If you're like most people, you'll move too fast and be engaged in too many things during the course of a week to get all your ideas and commitments captured outside your head. But it should become and ideal standard that keeps you motivated to consistently "clean house" of all the things about your work and life that have your attention.

There are very practical reasons to gather everything before you start processing it:

1. it's helpful to have a sense of the volume of stuff you have to deal with;
2. it lets you know where the "end of the tunnel" is; and
3. when you're processing and organizing, you don't want to be distracted psychologically by an amorphous mass of stuff that might still be "somewhere". Once you have all the things that require your attention gathered in one place, you'll automatically be operating from a state of enhanced focus and control.

The first activity is to search your physical environment for anything that doesn't belong where it is, the way it is, permanently, and put it into your in-basket. You will come across many smaller and larger items that nag at you, but that you haven't decided either to deal with or to drop entirely from your list of open loops. If you cannot physically put something in the in-basket, then write a note on a piece of letter-size plain paper to represent it. For example, if you have a poster or other piece of artwork behind the door to your office, just write "artwork behind door" on a letter-size piece of paper and put the paper in the in-basket.

Once you feel that you've collected all the physical things in your environment that need processing, you'll want to collect anything else that may be residing in your psychic RAM. What has your attention that isn't represented by something already in your in-basket? This is where the stack of plain paper really comes into play. I recommend that you write out each thought, each idea, each project or thing that has your attention, on a separate sheet of paper. In this instance, it's much better to overdo this process in terms of quantity than to risk missing something important.

If your head is empty of everything, personally and professionally, then your in-basket is probably quite full, and likely spilling over. Then you are ready for the next step, processing, which we will discuss in the following chapter.

Based on: David Allen (2001), Getting Things Done, Penguin Books, p.104-118.

Chapter 4 of "Getting Things Done" by David Allen - Book Summary/Review

This post summarizes chapter 4 called Getting Started: Setting Up the Time, Space, and Tools

From this chapter onwards, we move into the nitty-gritty practical implementation of David Allen's personal productivity system. A lot of the value that people get from his material are good "tricks". Tricks are for the not-so-smart, not-so-conscious part of us. We trick ourselves into doing what we ought to be doing. For example, if I put on exercise gear, I'll start to feel exercising; if I don't, I'm very likely to feel like doing something else. Another example, is putting something e.g. in the front door or on your bag, which you always take with you to work: The smart part of you the night before knows that the not-so-smart part of you first thing in the morning may barely be conscious.

A crucial first step in setting up your productivity system is preparing a workstation with the appropriate space, furniture, and tools. The basics for a work space are just a writing surface and room for an in-basket. If I had to set up an emergency workstation in just a few minutes, I would take a door, put it on top of two/drawer filing cabinets (one at each end), place three stack-baskets on it, and add a legal pad and pen.

There needs to be zero resistance at the less-than-conscious level for us to use the systems we have. Note that good tools don't necessarily have to be expensive. Often, on the low-tech side, the more "executive" something looks, the more dysfunctional it really is. The basic processing tools of a desktop work space are:

• paper-holding trays
• a stack of plain paper
• a pen/pencil
• post-its
• paper clips
• binder/bulldog clips
• a stapler and staples
• scotch tape
• rubber bands
• an automatic labeler or blank sticky labels you can write on
• file folders
• a calendar
• recycling or rubbish bin

You will use plain paper for the initial collection process. Believe it or not, putting one thought on one full-size sheet of paper can have enormous value. Another important part is the calendar. As noted in earlier chapters, the calendar should be used not to hold action lists, but to track the "hard landscape" of things that have to get done on a specific day or a specific time. There are many reminders and some data that the calendar will be used for. However, the calendar will need to be integrated with a much more comprehensive system that will emerge as you apply this method. 

One of the best tricks for enhancing your personal productivity is having organizing tools that you love to use and require as little time as possible during their use. When considering whether to get and use an organizer, and if so, which one keep in mind that all you really need to do is manage lists. You've got to be able to create a list on the run and review it easily and as regularly as you need to. Once you know what to put on the lists, and how to use them, the medium really does not matter. Just go for simplicity, speed, and fun.

Based on: David Allen (2001), Getting Things Done, Penguin Books, p.85-103.

Chapter 3 of "Getting Things Done" by David Allen - Book Summary/Review

Today, we are looking at chapter 3 called "Getting Projects Creatively Under Way: The Five Phases of Project Planning". It is the last high-level chapter before the book dives into the nitty-gritty practical implementation of these very useful productivity principles.

The key ingredients of relaxed control are (1) clearly defined outcomes (projects) and the next actions required to move them toward closure, and (2) reminders placed in a trusted system that is reviewed regularly.

As general rule, you can be pretty creative with nothing more than an envelope and a pencil. And there is a a productive way to think about projects, situations, and topics that creates maximum value with minimal expenditure of time and effort. It happens to be the way we naturally think and plan, but not necessarily the way we normally plan. This natural planning cycle consists of the following five steps:

1. Defining purpose and principles: It never hurts to ask the "why" question. Almost anything you're currently doing can be enhanced by more scrutiny at the top level of focus. This is nothing more than common sense, but common sense that is not commonly practiced. Asking why regularly has enormous benefits, such as defining success, aligning resources, motivating, clarifying focus, and expanding options.
2. Outcome visioning: When you focus on something it will instantly create ideas and thought patterns you wouldn't have had otherwise. Even your physiology will respond to an image in your head as if it were reality. Something automatic and extraordinary happens in your mind and body when you create and focus on a clear picture of what you want. What will this project look like when it'd done? How will you and other people feel about it?
3. Brainstorming: Get as many ideas out of your head written down. Don't judge, challenge, evaluate, or criticize. Go for quantity, not quality. Put analysis and organization in the background. 
4. Organizing: If you've done a thorough job of emptying your head of all the things that came up in the brainstorming phase, you will notice a natural organization is emerging. The key steps here are: (a) identify the significant pieces, (b) sort by one or more components, sequences, or priorities, (c) detail to the required degree. 
5. Identifying next actions: The final stage is about clearly defining the next possible action step for all open loops and allocating physical resources to get the job done. This step is absolutely crucial: creating a list of what your real projects are and consistently managing your next action for each one will constitute 90% of what is generally thought of as project planning.

How much of this planning model do you really need to flesh out, and to what degree of detail? The simple answer is, as much as you need to get the project off your mind. In David's experience 80% of projects are quite simple (e.g. set-up a new printer at home): You will still be doing the full planning model on all of them, but only in your head, and just enough to figure out next actions and keep them going until they are complete. another 15% or so of project might require at least some external form of brainstorming, maybe a mind-map or a few notes in a Word file. That might be enough for planning meeting agendas or your next holiday. A final 5% of projects might require the deliberate and formal application of all five stages.

Based on: David Allen (2001), Getting Things Done, Penguin Books, p.54-81.

Chapter 2 of "Getting Things Done" by David Allen - Book Summary/Review

Summary of Chapter 2 “Getting Control of Your Life: The Five Stages of Mastering Workflow”

Today, we will look at the second chapter of the excellent book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. If you like this summary, consider getting your own copy of the full book. :-)

To manage workflow, there are five stages: We (1) collect things that command our attention, we (2) process what they mean to and what to do about them, and (3) organize the results, which we (4) review as options for what we choose to (5) do. Most people have major leaks in their collection process and many have collected things but have not processed what action to take about them. Others lose the value of their system because they do not regularly review it.

One of the major reasons many people do not have a lot of success with “getting organized” is that they have tried to do all five phases at one time. Most, when they sit down to “make a list”, are trying to collect the “most important things” in some order that reflects priorities and sequences, without setting out many real actions to take. But if you don’t decide what needs to be done about the upcoming birthday of your best friend because it is “not that important” right now, that open loop will take up energy and prevent you from having a totally effective, clear focus on what is important.

Stage 1: Collect:  In order to eliminate “holes in the bucket”, you need to collect and gather together placeholders for or representations of all the things you consider incomplete in your world – that is, anything personal or professional, big or little, of urgent or minor importance. In order to manage this inventory of open loops appropriately, you need to capture it into “containers” that hold items until you have a few momenta to decide what they are and what, if anything, you’re going to do about them. Then you must empty these containers regularly to ensure that they remain viable collection tools.

There are three requirements to make the collection phase work effectively: (1) Every open loop must in your collection system and out of your head; (2) You must have as few collection buckets as you can get by with; and (3) You must empty them regularly. It is also very good practice to always have at least one collection device (e.g. a piece of paper and a pen) ready in any location you might find yourself. This is because your best ideas often come when you relax away from work. Be ready to capture these great ideas before you forget about them.

Stage 2: Process: This stage is all about getting those collection devices (e.g. in-trays and email inboxes) empty without necessarily having to do the work right now. David Allen teaches a neat step-by-step process that goes through the following questions:

Is this item I just took out the inbox actionable?

a.      If not, then there are three possibilities: (a) trash it / throw it away if no longer needed, (b) no action is needed right, but something might be required in the future, so add it to your “someday/maybe” list, and (c) you file it as useful reference material for the future.

b.     If yes, then you do the action directly if it takes less than two minutes (other authors say five minutes). Delegate it if there is a better person to do it. Or defer it to a later point of time, if you are the right person to get it done, but it will take more than 2-5 minutes.

Stage 3: Organize:

For nonactionable items, the possible categories are trash, incubation tools and reference storage. To manage actionable things, you will need a (1) list of projects, (2) files for project materials, (3) a calendar, (4) a list of reminders of next actions and (5) a follow-up list to track things that you are waiting for.

A project can be defined as any desired result that requires more than one action step to complete. If you don’t have a placeholder to remind you about a project, it will slip back into RAM. Your list of projects will be merely an indexed list, while all the details, plans and supporting information will be stored in separate paper folders, computer files and other storage media. Once you have organized your project support material by theme or topic, you will notice that it is almost identical to your reference material and could be kept in the same reference file system. The only difference is that in the case of active projects, support material might need to be reviewed on a more consistent basis to ensure that all the necessary action steps are identified.

Another key to managing complexity is to start a someday/maybe list in which you record everything that you might want to do at some point in the future, but not right now. This is the “parking lot” for projects that would be impossible to move on at present, but that you don’t want to forget about entirely. You would like to be reminded of the possibility at regular intervals. Eventually, you will probably have subcategories in that list called for example books to read, seminars to attend, weekend trips to make and many others.

Stage 4: Review:

It is one thing to write down that you need to buy toilet paper, but another to be at the store and remember it. You need to be able to review the whole picture of your life and work at appropriate intervals and appropriate levels. So at least once week you need to do a weekly review of your projects list, your calendar, your next actions list and the things you are waiting for from other people.

You could, for example, for each Friday afternoon at 4pm have a regular reminder popping up in your Outlook reminding you to do just that: That is,

• Get all your inboxes to zero by doing everything that takes less than 2 minutes straight away and adding everything else to your next actions list. No item should remain in the inbox afterwards.
• Review this week’s calendar to ensure that you did not forget everything.
• Check next week’s calendar to gain a general overview and verify that nothing needs urgent immediate action right now.
• Review all your next actions, follow-up items and someday/maybe list

The more complete the system is, the more you’ll trust it. And the more you trust it, the more complete you’ll be motivated to keep it. The Weekly Review is crucial for exactly that.

Last, but not least we need some criteria to decide what to do in a given moment. That is, if all time-specific and day-specific actions in your calendar have been completed, you need to check your list of next actions, but which specific one should you choose? This can be done via the following framework:

1. Context: Many action items require you e.g. to be at home or in the office. These are the first factors that limit your choice.
2. Time available: If you have meeting in 10 minutes, then this would limit your choices further.
3. Energy available: Some tasks require a fresh mind, others do not.
4. Priority: This is where you need to access your intuition and begin to rely on your judgment call in the moment.

Chapter 1 of "Getting Things Done" by David Allen - Book Summary/Review

Today, we will review/summarise the first chapter of "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" by David Allen. I read the book for the first time about ten years ago and integrated many of its principles into my daily life with very positive impacts on my productivity and stress levels. Time to read the book again to refresh some of the knowledge. If you like the book, you can order a copy e.g. here at Amazon.

Chapter 1 sets the scene for the subsequent chapters and introduces the book's main ideas in a general manner. The basic premise of the book is that it is possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to and still function productively with a clear head and a positive sense of relaxed control. The methods presented in the book are all based on two key objectives: (1) capturing all the things that need to get done into a logical and trusted system outside of your head and off your mind; and (2) disciplining yourself to make front-end decisions about all of the "inputs" you let into your life so that you will always have a plan for "next actions" that you can implement or renegotiate at any moment.

Most people these days have way too much to do and the boundaries of all our projects are often unclear in this era of "knowledge work". And we have not been well equipped to deal with this huge amount of information and tasks. Therefore, we need a system with a coherent set of behaviours and tools that functions effectively at the level at which work really happens. It must incorporate the results of big-picture thinking as well as the smallest of open details. It must manage multiple tiers of priorities. It must maintain control over hundreds of new inputs daily. It must save a lot more time and effort than are needed to maintain it.

Reflect for a moment on what it actually might be like if you were so organised that you could dedicate 100% of your attention to whatever was at hand, at your own choosing, with no distraction? It is possible to stay relaxed and in control despite having lots to do. You can experience what some martial artists refer to as a "mind like water" and top athletes as the "zone". In fact, you have probably already been in this state from time to time. It is a condition of working, doing, and being in which the mind is clear and constructive things are happening. Your mind then acts like water into which a stone is thrown, i.e. the water responds totally appropriately to the force and mass of the input and then it returns to calm. It does not overreact or underreact.

Be careful: Anything that causes to you overreact or underreact in your daily life can control you. Responding inappropriately to your e-mails, your staff, your projects, your unread books and magazines, your thoughts about what you need to do, your children, or your boss will waste your time and energy and achieve less effective results than you would like. Most people give either more or less attention to things than they deserve, simply because they do not operate with a "mind like water".

You've probably made many more agreements with yourself than you realise, and every single one of them - big or little - is being tracked by a less-than-conscious part of you. These are the "incompletes" or "open loops", which I define as anything pulling at your attention that does not belong where it is, the way it is. To manage your commitments well, you need to implement some basic activities and behaviours:

1. Fully trust your system outside your own head: First of all, if it's on your mind, your mind isn't clear. Anything you consider unfinished in any way must be captured in a trusted system outside your own head. It can also be called a "collection bucket", which you know you'll come back to regularly and sort through.
2. Clearly define your next action steps: You must clarify exactly what your commitment is and decide what you have to do, if anything, to make progress toward fulfilling it.
3. Regularly review the content of your system: Once you have decided on all the actions you need to take, you must keep reminders of them organised in a system you review regularly.

You can fool everyone, but you can't fool your own mind. It knows whether or not you've come to the conclusions you need to, and whether you've put the resulting outcomes and action reminders in a place that can be trusted to resurface appropriately within your conscious mind. So your mind keeps reminding you about all sorts of "stuff" that you haven't yet transformed into actionable to-dos. However, it is a waste of time and energy to keep thinking about something that you make no progress on. And it only adds to your anxieties about what you should be doing and aren't.

Before you can achieve a state of control, ease and productivity, you need to get into the habit of keeping nothing on your mind. Many people struggle with this and feel that their projects are overwhelming because you can't do a project. You can only do an action related to it. May actions require only a minute or two, in the appropriate context, to move a project forward. The big difference comes when you really capture and organise 100% of your "stuff" in and with objective tools at hand, and not on your mind. An that applies to everything - little or big, personal or professional, urgent or not. Everything.


Source: David Allen (2001), Getting Things Done, Penguin Books, p.3-23.