Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

by David Allen

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

One of the three uses of a calendar is for day-specific information

Triggers for Activating Projects

If you have a project that you don’t really need to think about now but that deserves a flag at some point in the future, you can pick an appropriate date and put a reminder about the project in your calendar for that day.

Events You Might Want to Participate In

Decision Catalysts

The degree to which any of us needs to maintain checklists and external controls is directly related to our unfamiliarity with the area of responsibility.

Making lists, ad hoc, as they occur to you, is one of the most powerful yet subtlest and simplest procedures that you can install in your life.

All of this means your system cannot be static. In order to support appropriate action choices, it must be kept up to date.

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.

The real trick to ensuring the trustworthiness of the whole organization system lies in regularly refreshing your psyche and your system from a more elevated perspective.

You’re going to have to learn to say no—faster, and to more things—in order to stay afloat and comfortable.

Very simply, the Weekly Review is whatever you need to do to get your head empty again.

Loose Papers

Process Your Notes

Previous Calendar Data

Upcoming Calendar

Empty Your Head

Review “Projects” (and Larger Outcome) Lists

Review “Next Actions” Lists

Review “Waiting For” List

Review Any Relevant Checklists

Review “Someday/Maybe” List

Review “Pending” and Support Files

Be Creative and Courageous

Whatever your life-style, you need a weekly regrouping ritual.

Yes, at some point you must clarify the larger outcomes, the long-term goals, the visions and principles that ultimately drive and test your decisions.

If you’re not con- sciously aware of putting forth the effort to exert self- guided integrated thinking . . . then you’re giving in to laziness and no longer control your life. —David Kekich

You need to assess your life and work at the appropriate horizons, making the appropriate decisions, at the appropriate intervals, in order to really come clean.

Ultimately and always you must trust your intuition. There are many things you can do, however, that can increase that trust.

1. | Context 2. | Time available 3. | Energy available 4. | Priority

At any point in time, the first thing to consider is, what could you possibly do, where you are, with the tools you have?

A second real benefit accrues from organizing all your actions by the physical context needed: that in itself forces you to make the all-important determination about the next physical action on your stuff.

The second factor in choosing an action is how much time you have before you have to do something else. If your meeting is starting in ten minutes, you’ll most likely select a different action to do right now than you would if the next couple of hours were clear.

We all have times when we think more effectively, and times when we should not be thinking at all. —Daniel Cohen

I recommend that you always keep an inventory of things that need to be done that require very little mental or creative horsepower.

This is one of the best reasons for having very clean edges to your personal management system: it makes it easy to continue doing productive activity when you’re not in top form.

One of the best ways to increase your energy is to close some of your loops.

It is impossible to feel good about your choices unless you are clear about what your work really is.

I’ve noticed that people are actually more comfortable dealing with surprises and crises than they are taking control of processing, organizing, reviewing, and assessing that part of their work that is not as self-evident.

In fact, much of our life and work just shows up in the moment, and it usually becomes the priority when it does.

To ignore the unexpected (even if it were possible) would be to live without opportunity, spontaneity, and the rich moments of which “life” is made. —Stephen Covey

But interruptions are unavoidable in life.

Do ad hoc work as it shows up, not because it is the path of least resistance, but because it is the thing you need to do, vis-à-vis all the rest.

It makes sense that each of these levels should enhance and align with the ones above it. In other words, your priorities will sit in a hierarchy from the top down.

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it. —Buddha

The healthiest approach for relaxed control and inspired productivity is to manage all the levels in a balanced fashion.

There is magic in being in the present in your life. I’m always amazed at the power of clear observation simply about what’s going on, what’s true.

The best place to succeed is where you are with what you have. —Charles Schwab

In order to create productive alignment in your life, you could quite reasonably start with a clarification from the top down. Decide why you’re on the planet. Figure out what kind of life and work and life-style would best allow you to fulfill that contract.