Chapter 9 of "Getting Things Done" by David Allen - Book Summary/Review

This post summarizes chapter 9 called Doing: Making the Best Action Choices

This chapter is all about how to decide, in a given moment, what to do exactly in the face of a multitude of different options. A lot of the answer comes down to trusting your intuition/heart/spirit.

A helpful tool in this context is the four-criteria model for choosing actions in the moment. It recommends making the choice based on four successive criteria:

1. Context: The first thing is to consider what actions are possible given your current location and tools at hand. Some tasks require an internet connection, you being at home or in the office. This is the first filter for your available options and the reason why it's important to organise your action lists by context, i.e. if you have a buch of things to do on one large list, but you can't actually do many of them in the same context, then you force yourself to continually keep reconsidering all of them.
2. Time Available: The second factor in choosing an action is how much time you have before you have to do something else. If your next meeting starts in ten minutes, you'll most likely select a different action to do right now than you would if the next few hours were free.
3. Energy Available: Some tasks require more mental energy than others. Hence, it's advisable to invest your most productive hours (for most people those are in the morning) into the most important tasks each day, while postponing all the small stuff (like responding to emails and phone calls) to a later time. (For more on this check this video from Julie Morgenstern on the topic of "Never Check Email in the Morning".) Therefore, it is good to always keep an inventory of things that need to be done to require little mental or creative energy. When you are in a low energy state, that's the perfect time to tackle them. Careful: It is vital to be organised, because if you're in low-energy state, but your reading material is disorganised, your filing system is chaotic, you tend to simply avoid doing anything at all and then you feel even worse.
4. Priority: Given your current context, available time, and energy you will have to select your next action item based on relative priority. Ask yourself for example "Out of all my remaining options, what is the most important thing for me to do?" At the end of the day, in order to feel good about what you didn't get done, you must have made some conscious decisions about your responsibilities, goals, and values.

Moreover, it is also useful to think of work as falling into three categories:

1. Doing predefined work
2. Doing work as it shows up
3. Defining your work

To be as productive as possible, you need to maintain a good balance between these three types. Many people fall into the trap of getting sucked into the second activity - dealing with things that show up spontaneously - much too easily, and let the other slide. Like many other authors, such as Steven Covey, have noted it is important not to let the (seemingly) urgent crowd out all the truly important tasks in your life. It's easy to get sucked into the "busy" and "urgent" mode, especially when you have a lot of unprocessed and relatively out-of-control work on your desk, in your email and on your mind. If you let yourself get caught up in the urgencies of the moment, without feeling comfortable about what you are not dealing with, the results will be anxiety and frustration.

However, if choosing to do work that just showed up instead of doing work you predefined is a conscious choice, based on your best call, then that is playing the productivity game as best as you can.

Another word of caution: Many people use the inevitability of an almost infinite stream of immediately evident things to do as a way to avoid the responsibilities of defining their work and managing their total inventory. It is way too easy to get seduced into non-quite-that-critical stuff that is right at hand, particularly if your in-basket and your personal organisation are out of control. To often "managing by wandering around" is an excuse for getting away from those amorphous piles of "stuff".

Your ability to deal with surprise is your competitive edge. However, at a certain point, if you are not catching up and getting things under control, staying busy with only the work at hand will undermine your effectiveness.

Based on: David Allen (2001), Getting Things Done, Penguin Books, p.191-210.

Chapter 8 of "Getting Things Done" by David Allen - Book Summary/Review

This post summarizes chapter 8 called Reviewing: Keeping Your System Functional

The purpose of this whole method of workflow management is not to let your brain become relaxed, but rather to enable it to move toward more elegant and productive activity. In order to earn that freedom, however, your brain must engage on some consistent basis with all your commitments and activities. You must be assured that you're doing what you need to be doing, and that it is okay to not do what you are currently not doing. That's why it is so crucial to regularly review and update your personal organisation system.

As a general rule, you should spend as much time reviewing your system as is necessary for you to feel comfortable about what you are doing. In the daily grind of work life, this will probably be an accumulation of two seconds here, and three seconds there. You will probably want to review in the following order:

1. Your most frequent review will be your daily calendar, particularly those time-specific appointments that have to occur at a particular point in time.
2. Check your calendar for all day-specific commitments that need to be completed by the end of the day.
3. If 1. and 2. are taken care of, check your next action list to pick a new item, which needs to be completed "as soon as you get to it". It is also okay to glance over this list from time to time, to reassure you that no item has aged so much that it now has become an urgent priority.

The real trick to ensuring the trustworthiness of the whole organisation system lies in regularly refreshing your psyche and your system from a more elevated perspective. The Weekly Review is the magic key to the sustainability of this process; it is whatever you need to do to get your head empty and your system up-to-date at least once a week until you can honestly say "I absolutely know right now everything I'm not doing but could be doing if I decided to."

Practically, your weekly review could e.g. include the following items:

• Process all notes, loose papers and record any attached action items on your 'next actions' list
• Reduce your email inbox down to empty. Flag relevant items for follow-up and/or record any associated action items on your 'next actions' list
• Check this week's calendar for any items you might have missed
• Check next week's calendar to get an overview over what's ahead and address any issues, e.g. commitments you've made that are no longer possible.
• Review all your next action list to keep them current
• Review all 'follow-up', 'FU' or 'Waiting For' items and follow-up with people as necessary
• If you have sufficient time, review your someday/maybe list. It is ok to skip this item and only review it every 1-2 months.

From experience, it is important to schedule a regular time once a week for this (e.g. an early Friday afternoon is ideal for many people). When the reminder pops up, make sure that it includes the checklist of all the items you need to review.

At regular larger intervals (e.g. every 3-6 months), you might also like to review your higher-level life direction, asking you questions, such as "What is my life purpose?", "What are my current high-level focus areas?", "Am I really living a life that is aligned to my core values?". Set a regular reminder in your calendar and ideally do this review with one or more trusted friends.

Based on: David Allen (2001), Getting Things Done, Penguin Books, p.181-190.

Chapter 7 of "Getting Things Done" by David Allen - Book Summary/Review

This post summarizes chapter 7 called Organizing: Setting Up the Right Buckets

Having a total and seamless system of organization in place gives you tremendous power because it allows your mind to let go of lower-level thinking and graduate to intuitive focusing, undistracted by matters that haven't been dealt with appropriately. But your physical organization system must be better than your mental one in order for that to happen. In this chapter, we'll study the organizing steps and tools that will be required as you process your in-basket.

There are seven primary types of things that you'll want to keep track of and manage from an organisational perspective:

• A "Projects" list (optional if, relative to many of David's CEO clients, you don't have THAT much to do.)
• Project support material
• Calendar actions and information
• "Next Actions" lists
• "Waiting For", "Follow-Up" or "FU" list
• Reference material
• "Someday/Maybe" list

It is critical that all of these categories be kept distinct from one another. Once you know what you need to keep track of (covered in the previous chapter on "Processing"), all you need is lists and folders for reference and support materials. You shouldn't bother to create some external structuring of the priorities on your lists that you'll then have to rearrange or re-write as things change. You'll be prioritising more intuitively as you see the whole list, against quite a number of shifting variables. The lists is just a way for you to keep track of the total inventory of active things to which you have made a commitment.

Calendar: There are two kinds of actions: those that must be done on a certain day and/or at a particular time, and those that just need to be done as soon as you can get to them. Your calendar should only show the "hard landscape" of the absolute essentials, around which you do the rest of your actions. What many people want to do, however, based on the old habit of writing daily to-do lists, is put actions on the calendar that they think they'd really like to get done next Monday, say, but that then actually might not and then need to be carried over (which is a significant psychological burden). Therefore, resist this impulse. You need to trust your calendar as sacred territory, reflecting the exact hard edges of your day's commitments, which should be noticeable at a glance while you're on the run.

Next action items should be organised by context reflecting the respective environment and/or tools that are required to complete the action. For example, you might like to consider the following possible headings/categories:

• "Calls"
• "At Computer"
• "Errands"
• "In Office"
• "At Home"
• "Agendas" (for people and meetings)
• "Waiting For", "Follow-Up" or "FU" (to track things you are waiting for to receive from other people)

This has huge practical benefits. While having a phone and a few minutes of free time, you can work through your"Calls" list or while having some spare time in the city after a meeting you might be able to complete your "Errands". You will also get a great feeling of relaxed control when you know that your "Waiting For" list is the complete inventory of everything you care about that other people are supposed to be doing.

Project support materials are not project actions and they are not project reminders. They are supposed to support your actions and thinking about projects. Therefore, do not use them for reminding, rather determine all "next actions" and record them in the appropriate lists so that your system offers a complete overview of everything you need to get done. Never leave action reminders just hidden in your project support materials. If you don't,then you'll actually go numb to the files and the piles because they don't prompt you to do anything and they simply create more anxiety.

Reference material is much of what comes across your desk and into your life in general. There is no action required, but it is information that you want to keep for a variety of reasons. The problem most people have psychologically with all their stuff is that it is still "stuff", i.e. they have not yet decided what is actionable and what is not. So, cultivate that habit of not leaving any items unprocessed.

Someday/maybe items are not throw-away items, but rather may be some of the most interesting and creative things you will ever get involved with. You may be surprised to find that some of the things you write on the list will actually come to pass, almost without your making any conscious effort to make them happen. If you acknowledge the power of the imagination to foster changes in perception and performance, it is easy to see how having a "Someday/Maybe" list out in front of your conscious mind could potentially add many wonderful adventures to your life and work. Ideally, you subdivide the list with a range of categories such as:

• Restaurant to try
• Clothing to buy
• Trips to make
• Skills to learn
• Hobbies to take up
• Books to read
• Movies to watch
• Party ideas
• Web sites to browse
• Ideas - Misc.

If you have an idea, which you like to review on a specific date, then putting it on your calendar as a day-specific action item is a great way of ensuring that you will do so on a particular day in the future. This will take the thing of the RAM in your mind and allow you to re-assess the idea when you need to. Go ahead and ask yourself: "Is there any major decision for which I should create a future trigger, so I can feel comfortable when I stop thinking about it now?" If yes, put some reminder in your calendar to re-visit the issue.

Similar to the someday/maybe list, you might also like to maintain a range of checklists for example in a convenient online location, such as Google Docs or Dropbox, so you can access them anytime anywhere:

• Personal Affirmations (i.e. personal value statements)
• Travel Checklist (everything to take on or do before a trip)
• Weekly Review (everything to review and/or update on a weekly basis)
• Focus Areas (key life roles and responsibilities)
• Key People in My Life/Work (relationships to assess regularly for completion and opportunity development)
• Buy New Clothing Checklist (noting down you current sizes for clothing items and any other important decision factors, such as questions to ask, when buying new clothing)

Based on: David Allen (2001), Getting Things Done, Penguin Books, p.138-180.

Chapter 6 of "Getting Things Done" by David Allen - Book Summary/Review

This post summarizes chapter 6 called Processing: Getting "In" to Empty

Assuming that you have collected everything that has your attention (discussed in chapter 5, please re-read if you are unsure), your job is now to actually get to the bottom of "in". When you have finished this processing, you will have

1. Thrown away items you don't need
2. Completed any less-than-two-minutes actions
3. Delegated to others what can/should be delegated
4. Included in your organizing system reminders of actions that require more than two minutes to complete
5. Identified any larger commitments (projects) you now have

The best way to learn this and apply the processing system/model (already discussed in chapter 2) is by doing:

• Process the top item first!
• Process one item at a time!
• Never put anything back into "in"!

Top item first: Everything gets processed equally, starting at the top. For each item you decide what it is and what action (if any) is required to complete it. "Emergency scanning" is fine and necessary sometimes, for example if you just returned from a longer retreat and need to determine whether there are any "land mines" in the in-basket that are about to explode. However, "emergency scanning" is not processing your in basket. Therefore, you need to get into the habit of starting at one end and working through it one item at a time. You're going to get to the bottom of the pile as soon as you can anyway, and you don't want to avoid dealing with anything in there.

Process one item at a time: You may find you have a tendency, while processing your in-basket, to pick something up, not know exactly what you want to do about it, and then let your eyes wander onto another item further down the stack and get engaged with it. That item may be more attractive to your psyche because you know right away what to do with it - and you don't feel like thinking about the preceding item, which is in your hand right now. This is dangerous territory! What is currently in your hand might end up on a "hmppphhh" stack on the side because you became distracted by something easier, more important, or more interesting below it. Therefore, focus on one item at a time and only then move onto the next. Otherwise all these unprocessed / half-processed items will eat away again at your mental energy since your subconsciousness feels the weight of this unfinished business / open loop.

Never put anything back into "in": It is essential to eliminate the bad habit of continually picking things up out of your inbox, not deciding what they mean or what you are going to do about them, and then just leaving them there. The first time you pick something up from the inbox, decide what to do about it and where it goes. Never put it back as the inbox is not a storage place.

The key processing question is always "What is the next action?".

It is likely that a portion of your inbox will contain items that do not require any action. Such items fall into three categories:

1. Rubbish / trash: Trust your intuition in what to throw away and be realistic about the space available to you.
2. Items to postpone until possible later use: For example, an idea you had about next year's meeting or an event invitation for in a few months time when you are not 100% sure yet that you will be in town. Such items will either go (a) in your calendar as a day-specific action or (b) on your someday/maybe list. Doing is vital to get these items off your mind right now.
3. Reference material: Manuals, receipts for warranty purposes and other materials/information which might be handy for later use. File this first in a general folder and if one of the sections grows too large, create a separate folder only for that section. You might also like to sort the general folder in alphabetical order from A to Z. A less-than-sixty-second, fun-to-use general-reference filing system within arm's reach of where you sit is a mission-critical component of full implementation of David Allen's GTD methodology. In the "battle zone" of real life, if it's not easy, fast, and fun to file, you'll stack instead of organizing. And then it will become much more difficult to keep things processed.

The next action step you define for the actionable items in your inbox should be the absolute next physical thing to do, i.e. it needs to be a description of physical behavior, e.g. "Call John", "Write down five ideas for next week's staff meeting" or "Talk to the clothing store assistant for advice on which style of suit pants to buy". If you haven't identified the next physical action required, there will be a psychological gap every time you think about it even vaguely.

Once you decided what the next action really is, you have three options:

1. Do it if it takes less than two minutes: If it takes less than two minutes, do it now even if it is not "high priority".  Two minutes is about the "efficiency cutoff" where it is more cumbersome to store and track the item, rather than to do it right now. And if the item is not important enough, then throw it away. Many people experience dramatic increases in their productivity simply from following this two-minute rule.
2. Delegate if you are not the most appropriate person to do it: Delegate the item to another person, specify a clear deadline and track the item on your "FU", "Follow Up" or "Waiting For" list
3. Defer/Postpone it until later: Include reminders of all these next actions on your "next actions" list or on a sub-list for a specific project.

In addition to your next actions list, you might also like to maintain/update a "Projects" list, which gives you a higher level overview over all your commitments that require more than one action step to complete. This is because, if the action step you identified will not complete the commitment, then you'll need some reminder that there is more to do until the project is completed.

Based on: David Allen (2001), Getting Things Done, Penguin Books, p.119-137.

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.