Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

by David Allen

Now write down the very next physical action required to move the situation forward. If you had nothing else to do in your life but get closure on this, what visible action would you take right now?

Capture projects and actions, no matter how big or how small, then determine an action.

Instead, the key to managing all of your stuff is managing your actions.

Clarifying things on the front end, when they first appear on the radar, rather than on the back end, after trouble has developed, allows people to reap the benefits of managing action.

Getting things done requires two basic components: defining (1) what “done” means (outcome) and (2) what “doing” looks like (action).

We (1) capture what has our attention; (2) clarify what each item means and what to do about it; (3) organize the results, which presents the options we (4) reflect on, which we then choose to (5) engage with.

I define a project as any desired result that can be accomplished within a year that requires more than one action step.

If you set up a personal organization system structured as I recommend, with a Projects list, a calendar, Next Actions lists, and a Waiting For list, not much will be required to maintain that system.

The Weekly Review is the time to: Gather and process all your stuff. Review your system. Update your lists. Get clean, clear, current, and complete.

“The first time you pick something up from your in-tray, decide what to do about it and where it goes. Never put it back in ‘in.’”

I am rather like a mosquito in a nudist camp; I know what I want to do, but I don’t know where to begin. —Stephen Bayne

Let me remind you here that a less-than- sixty-second, fun-to-use general-reference filing system within reach of where you sit is a mission-critical component of full implementation of this methodology.

If the next action can be done in two minutes or less, do it when you first pick the item up.

If the next action is going to take longer than two minutes, ask yourself, “Am I the best person to be doing it?” If not, hand it off to the appropriate party, in a systematic format.

It’s important that you record the date on everything that you hand off to others. This, of all the categories in your personal system, is the most crucial one to keep tabs on.

Your resulting @ACTION folder will hold those e-mails that you need to do something about. Next you can create a folder titled “@WAITING FOR,” which will show up in the same place as the @ACTION folder. Then, as you receive e-mails that indicate that someone is going to do something you care about tracking, you can drag them over into the @WAITING FOR file. It can also hold reminders for anything that you delegate via e-mail: when you forward something, or use e-mail to make a request or delegate an action, just save a cc: or bcc: copy into your @WAITING FOR file.*

To spark your creative thinking, here’s a list of some of the topics of checklists I’ve seen and used over the years: Job Areas of Responsibility (key responsibility areas) Exercise Regimens (muscle resistance training programs) Travel Checklist (everything to take on or do before a trip) Weekly Review (everything to review and/or update on a weekly basis) Training Program Components (all the things to handle

when putting on an event, front to back) Key Clients People to Stay in Touch With (all the people you might want to connect with in your network) Year-end Activities (all the actions for closing up for the time period) Personal Development (things to evaluate regularly to ensure personal balance and progress) Jokes

The six levels of work as we saw in chapter 2 (pages 54–56) may be thought of in terms of altitude, as in the floors of a building: Horizon 5: Life Horizon 4: Long-term visions Horizon 3: One- to two-year goals Horizon 2: Areas of focus and accountability Horizon 1: Current projects Ground: Current actions

Because everything will ultimately be driven by the priorities of the level above it, any formulation of your priorities would obviously most efficiently begin at the top. For example, if you spend time prioritizing your work and then later discover that it’s not the work you think you ought to be doing, you may have wasted time and energy that could have been better spent defining the next job you really want.

From a practical perspective, I suggest going from the bottom up instead. I’ve coached people from both directions, and in terms of lasting value, I can honestly say that getting someone in control of the details of his or her current physical world, and then elevating the focus from there, has never missed.

The primary reason to work from this bottom-up direction is that it clears your inner decks to begin with, allowing your creative attention to focus on the more meaningful and elusive visions that you may need to challenge yourself to identify.

What are the hats you wear, the roles you play? Professionally, this would relate to your current position and work.

You may have some of these roles already defined and written out. If you’ve recently taken a new position and there’s an agreement or contract about your areas of accountability, that would certainly be a good start.

Next I recommend that you make and keep a list called “Areas of Focus.” You might like to separate this into “Professional” and “Personal” sublists, in which case you’ll want to use them both equally for a consistent review.

Depending on the speed of change in some of the more important areas of your life and work, this should be used as a trigger for potential new projects every one to three months.

The operational purpose of the Areas of Focus list is to ensure that you have all your projects and next actions defined, so you can manage your responsibilities appropriately.

If you’re involved in anything that has a future of longer than a year (marriage, kids, career, a company, an art form, a lifelong passion), you would do well to think about what you might need to be doing to manage things along that vector. Questions to ask are: What are the longer-term goals and objectives in my organization, and what projects do I need to have in place related to them to fulfill my responsibilities? What longer-term goals and objectives have I set for myself, and what projects do I need to have in place to make them happen? What other significant things are happening that could affect my options about what I’m doing?

Decide whether what you wrote down is something you really want to move on or not. If not, throw the note away, or put it on a Someday/Maybe list or in a folder called “Dreams and Goals I Might Get Around to at Some Point.”

Other basic practices, which, even if implemented initially, easily regress into incomplete, out-of-date, and therefore dysfunctional usage, include: Avoiding next-action decision making on “stuff to do” Fully utilizing the “Waiting For” category, such that every expected deliverable from others is inventoried and reviewed for follow-up in adequate timing Using Agenda lists to capture and manage communications with others Keeping a simple, easily accessible filing and reference system Keeping the calendar as pure “hard landscape” without undermining its trustworthiness with extraneous inputs Doing Weekly Reviews to keep one’s system functional and current

Horizons of Focus—The discrete levels of commitments we make and thoughts we have, personally and/or organizationally Ground: Next actions—The things we deal with at the physical, visible level of activity, such as e-mails, phone calls, conversations, errands, and meetings Horizon 1: Projects—Anything we’re committed to finish within the next year that requires more than one discrete action step. Includes short-term outcomes such as “Repair brake light” and larger-scope projects such as “Reorganize Western Region.” The critical inventory of the Weekly Review. See also project. Horizon 2: Areas of focus and accountability—The segments of our life and work that we need to maintain, to ensure stability and health of ourselves and our enterprises (e.g., health, finances, customer service, strategic planning, family, career) Horizon 3: Goals and objectives—The mid- to longer-term outcomes to accomplish (usually within three to twenty-four months); e.g., “Finalize acquisition of Acme Consulting,” “Establish profitable online version of our leadership training course,” “Get Maria’s college plans finalized” Horizon 4: Vision—Long-term desired outcomes; ideal scenarios of wild success (e.g., “Publish my memoir,” “Take the company public,” “Have a vacation home in Provence”) Horizon 5: Purpose, principles—Ultimate intention, raison d’être, and core values of a person or enterprise (e.g., “To serve the growth of our community in ways that sustainably provide the greatest good for the...