Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

by David Allen

This doesn’t mean that the contents there are the most “important” in some grand sense—only that they must get done.

It’s a good habit, as soon as you conclude an action on your calendar (a meeting, a phone call, the final draft of a report that’s due), to che...

Critical Success Factor: The Weekly Review

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.

Every decision to act is an intuitive one. The challenge is to migrate from hoping it’s the right choice to trusting it’s the right choice.

At that moment there are four criteria you can apply, in this order: context, time available, energy available, and priority.

The Six-Level Model for Reviewing Your Own Work

Horizon 5: Purpose and principles Horizon 4: Vision Horizon 3: Goals Horizon 2: Areas of focus and accountabilities Horizon 1: Current projects Ground: Current actions

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. This is what I call horizontal focus. Although it may seem simple, the actual application of the process can create profound results.

Sometimes, however, you may need greater rigor and focus to get a project or situation under control, to identify a solution, or to ensure that all the right steps have been determined. This is where vertical

We need ways to validate and support our thinking, no matter how informal. Formal planning sessions and high-horsepower planning tools (such as project management software) can certainly be useful at times, but too often the participants in a meeting will need to have another meeting—a back-of-the-envelope (or whiteboard) session—to actually get a piece of work fleshed out and under control.

The Natural Planning Model

1 | Defining purpose and principles 2 | Outcome visioning 3 | Brainstorming 4 | Organizing 5 | Identifying next actions

A great way to think about what your principles are is to complete this sentence: “I would give others totally free rein to do this as long as they . .

One of the most powerful life skills, and one of the most important to hone and develop for both professional and personal success, is creating clear outcomes.

Outcome/vision can range from a simple statement of the project, such as “Finalize computer-system implementation,” to a completely scripted movie depicting the future scene in all its glorious detail.

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.

Most projects, given my definition of a project as an outcome requiring more than one action, need no more than a listing of their outcome and next action for you to get them off your mind.

To a great degree, the highest-performing people I know are those who have installed the best tricks in their lives.

The big secret to efficient creative and productive thinking and action is to put the right things in your focus at the right time.

The biggest issue for digitally oriented people is that the ease of capturing and storing has generated a write-only syndrome: all they’re doing is capturing information—not

Reference and support materials seldom are associated with urgency, nor are they strategic, in the grand scheme of things. Hence their management is very often relegated to a low priority, if dealt with at all. The problem, however, is that your mental and physical workspaces become cluttered with nonactionable but potentially relevant and useful stuff. “What is this?” “Why is this here?” “What should I do with this?” and “Where is what I need to access right now?”

Because digital storage, without much forethought, has become almost automatic, it is very possible to create an environment of constant input but no utilization.

The Action Step Needs to Be the Absolute Next Physical Thing to Do

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. The few times you will actually want to refer to that information (“But I called and ordered that on March 12”) will make it worth establishing this as a lifelong habit.

This Pending group is made up of the actions you’ve delegated or deferred.

Airtight organization is required for your focus to remain on the broader horizon and eliminate the constant pressure to remember or be reminded.

There are seven primary types of things that you’ll want to keep track of and manage from an organizational and operational perspective: A Projects list Project support material Calendar actions and information Next Actions lists A Waiting For list Reference material A Someday/Maybe list

It’s critical that all of these categories be kept pristinely distinct from one another.

The calendar should show only the “hard landscape” around which you do the rest of your actions.

The Most Common Categories of Action Reminders You’ll probably find that at least a few of the following common list headings for next actions will make sense for you: Calls At Computer Errands At Office (miscellaneous) At Home Anywhere Agendas (for people and meetings) Read/Review

Agendas* Invariably you’ll find that many of your next actions need to either occur in a real-time interaction with someone or be brought up in a committee, team, or staff meeting.

Given the usefulness of this type of list, your system should allow you to add Agendas ad hoc, as needed quickly and simply.

People who don’t have their Read/Review material organized can waste a lot of time, since life is full of weird little windows when it could be used.

Some things are their own best reminders of work to be done.

Like some paper-based materials, e-mails that need action are sometimes best as their own reminders—in this case within the e-mail system itself.

It takes much less energy to maintain e-mail backlog at zero than at a thousand.

In order to hang out with friends or take a long, aimless walk and truly have nothing on your mind, you’ve got to know where all your actionable items are located, what they are, and that they will wait. And you need to be able to do that in a few seconds, not days.

Where to Look for Projects Still to Uncover There are three primary areas in which you are likely to have “hidden” projects: Current activities Higher-horizon interests and commitments Current problems, issues, and opportunities

The inherent danger in the digital world is how much data can be spread into how many different places so easily, without coordinating links.

I continually find interesting new ways to track relevant information for various things I’m doing, but I retain sanity only when I keep a clearly delineated and accessible Projects list and ensure that I’m scanning across any related parts of my system regularly

The value of someday/maybe disappears if you don’t put your conscious awareness back onto it with some consistency.

but one of the most creative ways to utilize the calendar function is to enter things that you want to take off your mind and reassess at some later date. Here are a few of the myriad things you should consider inserting: Triggers for activating projects Events you might want to participate in Decision catalysts

Decision Catalysts Once in a while there may be a significant decision that you need to make but can’t (or don’t want to) right away. That’s fine, in terms of your own self-management process, as long as you’ve concluded that the additional information you need has to come from an internal rather than an external source (e.g., you need to sleep on it), or there is a good reason to delay your decision until a last responsible moment (allowing all factors to be as current as possible before you choose how to move on it).

A calendar reminder can serve that purpose.*

Be open to creating any kind of checklist as the urge strikes you.

Appropriately used, checklists can be a tremendous asset in enhancing personal productivity and relieving mental pressure.

Your personal system and behaviors need to be established in such a way that you can see all the action options you need to see, when you need to see them. This is really just common sense, but few people actually have their processes and their organization honed to the point where they are as functional as they could be.

the magic key to the sustainability of the process is the Weekly Review.

It’s going through the steps of workflow management—capturing, clarifying, organizing, and reviewing all your outstanding commitments, intentions, and inclinations—until you can honestly say, “I absolutely know right now everything I’m not doing but could be doing if I decided to.”