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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
David Allen
Read between
August 7 - August 23, 2021
When complexities arrive at perfect times in your life, you are challenged in welcoming and exciting directions. You might experience the thrill of new levels of independence, new types of relationships, new learning and new levels of competition. When this ideal timing happens, you might feel a positive sense of balance and growth.
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Sometimes, though, complexity comes faster than you are ready to handle. At these times, you might feel stressed and anxious, because there may be more change or more things to track than you currently know how to deal with or more homework or more activities or more work to manage than you feel capable of handling.
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There are even times where you are desperate for new complexity—in any form. You might feel uninspired, even bored, in your current circumstances, and believe that you’re more than ready for more. You may be hungry for a challenge. At these times, you might experience a sense of unease until something changes, until there is something novel to explore—a new class, a new hobby, a new relationship, etc.
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The ready state is one of focused, relaxed engagement, which enables you to bring your best to whatever it is that you are doing.
As your life gets more complex, the amount of stuff entering it increases and can be a source of constant distraction. It can keep you from feeling ready, force you to quickly lose focus and perspective, and knock you ‘off.’ If you aren’t careful, stuff can run your life.
The Zeigarnik Effect, as it has come to be known today, states simply that the brain naturally remembers and holds on to anything that is interrupted or incomplete. These interruptions and incompletions are called open loops.
Remember, your amygdala does not have a sense of time. It wants resolution now. However, you obviously can’t close all loops and finish everything while you lie in bed late at night. As a result, your brain nags you (and nags you, and nags you). Any agreements you’ve made or assignments that are coming due soon may come to your attention as you fall asleep.
You don’t have control over your own life or the life of anyone else, no matter how hard you try. Instead, we use ‘control’ here to refer to stability, or ‘control within.’ This means that, given all of life’s realities and your current circumstances and situations—all of life’s stuff—you possess an element of control within it, called operational control. Think of operational control as you do your role as the player of a video game. You don’t have control over the gaming environment or what challenges come your way, as you’re not the game designer. However, you do hold a controller in your
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Perspective is the ability to look ahead, to see where you are going. Perspective is the vision, the ‘why’ behind anything that you choose to do.
To gain control over stuff, you will learn how to (1) capture what has your attention; (2) clarify what each item means and what to do about it; (3) organise the results into categories; (4) reflect on and review what you have identified in each category, so you can (5) engage and do what needs to be done.
In order for the brain to learn to really let go and trust the capturing process, you’ll have to get into the habit of capturing every open loop and piece of stuff that comes your way using your capture tools and buckets. It’s all or none in this process. If your brain doubts that you have captured it all, it will continue to be on heightened alert and actively scan for stuff. The good news is that this practice is not as hard as it sounds. It takes some extra effort as you get started, but once you form the habit, you’ll wonder why you ever tried to hold anything in your head at all. A clear
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The first step toward getting stuff off your mind is to capture it. Capturing involves grabbing physical, digital or mental items and externalising them using capture tools. Placing captured stuff in trusted buckets will ensure that your mind trusts you will look at and deal with it at a later time. Capturing can close open loops even if action has yet to be taken or completion has yet to be achieved.
One Thing at a Time: What Is It?
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IS IT ACTIONABLE? Asking the question ‘Is it actionable?’ will help you determine if the piece of stuff requires any action on your part and will sort every piece of stuff into one of two categories.
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If an item is not actionable, meaning there is nothing you need to currently do with it, then it will take one of four forms: trash, checklist, someday/maybe or reference.
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Nonactionable Category #1—Trash
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Here are some questions to help determine if an item is trash: • Will I truly use it or need it again? • Do I have multiples of the item? • Could I access this item online if I needed it? • Are there any consequences if I don’t have it in the future? • Does the item hold any emotional or sentimental value?
Nonactionable Category #2—Checklist
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A checklist is another form of a trigger list. Checklists contain triggers for specific situations or describe a collection of steps necessary for success. Checklists can serve you in many situations, such as knowing items to pack, things to do before you go somewhere, or the steps you need to take to be ready for a test.
Checklists can be made for a routine or procedure that happens repeatedly. They don’t require any action, though they often contain a list of previous decisions and actions that have proven to result in success but haven’t yet become habit. In creating a checklist, you have an opportunity to save time and make life easier for yourself down the road. This process saves you the energy of having to make the same decisions later and saves loads of future time on carrying them out.
Nonactionable Category #3—Someday/Maybe Lists
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Someday/maybe items don’t require any action but are things you may indeed want to take on someday, if the conditions are right. In recognising and keeping someday/maybe items, you can create potential opportunities for payoff later. Someday/maybe items range from things like movies to see, books to read, trips to take, or wish lists to create to bucket list items like skydiving, climbing Mount Everest, going to Rome, playing in the Premier League, or going to college.
Identifying items as someday/maybe is a huge relief for the brain. You aren’t deciding to never take action on these things, but instead you are cognitively placing them in a category that just says ‘not now.’ This allows these ideas to percolate and grow and develop and also relieves the pressure and guilt that can come with procrastination.
Nonactionable Category #4—Reference
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Actionable Category #1: The Next Action
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The next action describes the single next physical, visible step in making progress on anything. ‘Physical’ meaning that you have to take a specific action, involving actual movement. ‘Visible’ means that you could be seen doing it if someone was watching you.
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when a next action is not obvious, it can result in stress or procrastination.
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So many wonderful ideas end up dying a slow death because a single next action is never identified. Likewise, many ideas that at first seem crazy and impossible actually come to life when carried out with enough next actions.
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The Two-Minute Rule Once a single next action is crystal clear, the next subquestion in the thinking process is to consider whether you can take action immediately. If the action is simple and won’t take very long, the best thing to do is to take care of it right away. The quickest way to close any open loop is immediate completion. The Two-Minute Rule states that if you can complete an action in less than two minutes, do it right away. Get it off your plate, close the loop, and get it off your mind!
ACTIONABLE CATEGORY #2: PROJECT Determining what ‘doing’ (next action) looks like is a critical piece of moving on anything. The close partner of determining what ‘doing’ looks like is knowing what ‘done’ (outcome) looks like. These outcomes are called projects. Project: Any outcome that is going to take more than one action or session to complete.
Remember: You aren’t in control of how much homework your teacher assigns, but you are in control how you handle the homework. You aren’t in control of whom the coaches pick during tryouts, but you are in control of your preparation for tryouts. You aren’t in control of how friends react to the things you share, but you are in control of the way you treat people and how you share your life with others. You aren’t in control of what grade you get on a final, but you are in control how well prepared you are for the test.
You can create conditions for things to happen, even if you don’t have complete control over the results. For example, you can create the conditions for your best performance in a tryout, to be prepared for a test, or for a fun night with friends. If, however, you base your success on external factors that are outside your operational control, you’ll constantly face disappointment. Examples of external factors might include making people happy, getting first place, or having people like you.
Every item of stuff that has been captured requires a decision in order to transform it into a more useful form.
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This process begins with the question ‘What is it?’ Understanding if each item is actionable or nonactionable then divides up all your stuff into two categories. Actionable items will require a next action and a finished outcome. Nonactionable items have to be categorised and ready to file for later as bin, a checklist, someday/maybe, or reference.
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In order to track your actionable and nonactionable items and become organise ready, you’ll want to create a few simple lists and folders. For your actionable items, you’ll need three primary lists. For your nonactionable items, you’ll need two lists and some folders.
Calendar For most people, the calendar is the most familiar of the maps. It’s the first place you’ll look each day to see what actions you’ve committed to.
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1. Time-specific actions (soccer game, band concert, movie time, orthodontist appointment, etc.) 2. Day-specific actions (turn-in dates, concert ticket sales, etc.) 3. Day-specific reference items (birthdays, holidays, etc.)
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Next Action The next action list is a complete list of actions that do not need to happen at a specific time or in a specific location. Actions on this list take the form of the single next steps to move on anything that you decided needs your attention.
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Deciding whether a clarified action should go on your calendar or next action list depends specifically on if the action is time or date specific.
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Projects The projects list doesn’t contain any next actions or calendar items. Instead, it will help keep you on course by containing all the outcomes, or what ‘done’ looks like, on anything you have committed to doing that requires more than one action step or more than one session to complete.
SOMEDAY/MAYBE The someday/maybe list contains items that you decided you might want to do when the opportunity presents itself.
CHECKLISTS Routines and procedures that you’ve decided aren’t yet habits take the form of checklists.
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The basic principle is to organise your checklists in places where you’d use them.
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REFERENCE FILE Nonactionable items that you decided you need to keep but don’t require any action are reference.
If you leave things in ‘in,’ such as an email, then every time you open up your email and do a quick scan, you’ll have to do a small amount re-decision-making. Your brain has to reengage and say, ‘Okay . . . that’s info for this, this is for that, etc.’ Even if you think the process doesn’t take very long, those hundreds or even thousands of emails that you have already made a decision about can continue to hold some part of your attention, which is an unnecessary use of valuable cognitive energy.
Once decisions are made in the clarify process, don’t waste any time making those decisions again. Parking the results of decisions maximises effectiveness with the least amount of effort. There are a few maps that are used to hold the results of decisions and keep you on track. The calendar keeps track of date-and time-specific actions. The next action list keeps an inventory of all the visible next actions. The projects list keeps an inventory of larger outcomes to track. The someday/maybe list keeps a bank of ideas to explore when control is achieved. Checklists help establish new habits.
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The daily review is the first depth in the 3-D review. Its purpose is to help you understand what you need to do today. To determine that, use the two lists that hold all your actions: your calendar and your next action list. At a minimum, try to look at these lists twice each day: first thing in the morning and before you go to bed. You may also find it helpful to include a review of any relevant checklists
GET CLEAR This review helps you gather up any stuff that may have accumulated over the past week. It includes physical stuff, digital stuff and the subtler mental stuff that may be rattling around in your head.
GET CURRENT Getting current helps ensure that the maps you are relying on are complete and accurate. It involves removing outdated reminders and adding any new information. At the end of this part of the weekly review you can confidently say to yourself, your parents, or your teachers, ‘I am current. I know what ‘doing’ looks like [calendar, next actions]. I know what ‘done’ looks like [projects].’
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TO GET CURRENT Review previous calendar entries—
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