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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
