Hi Folks,

It’s natural to want to create a system for priority coding (like “A, B, C” or the flagging feature that’s showing up in a lot of software programs) to tell you the most important things to do. But it’s a short-term insurance policy that won’t give you the trust you need when the time comes to take action.

All the best,

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

LEAPING FROM HOPE TO TRUST

Every decision we make about what action to take at any point in time is an intuitive risk. I have twenty minutes before my next meeting—should I call Bob, work on chapter eight, or go get Susan’s opinion on the new software?

The over-simplicity of “A, B, C” or “high, medium, low” priorities or daily to-do lists can never really answer that question sufficiently for any of us. No matter how organized we get, how squeaky-clean our systems and our processes are, or how current our strategic and tactical planning is, we have to ultimately trust our hunches about the best thing for us to do at 10:43am or 3:22pm today. It’s true that we can utilize those prioritizing frameworks to good advantage, from time to time, to help us focus constructively. But to the degree they potentially limit our options unnecessarily and constrict spontaneous, creative thinking that is dynamic to the moment, they do us a disservice.

This excerpt is from the most recent issue of David’s “Productive Living” newsletter. It’s free and sent about every 4 weeks. You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

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Procrastination. I hear about it all the time. My clients confide in me, “I am procrastinating on sending in the contract/mailing the gift/fixing the appliance/etc.” You name it, I’ve heard it. And just between us, I used to think I was the ultimate procrastinator.

Then I heard David Allen say that creative, bright and sensitive people procrastinate the most. I perked up and thought to myself, “Hey, that’s me, smart and imaginative! How did he know? And how very kind of him to describe us (people who procrastinate) that way.”

The GTD methodology resolves procrastination. An example happened to me many years ago. The engine light flashed on in my car. My first thought was, “This is going to cost me thousands of dollars and that’s not in my budget.” I didn’t want to think past the doom and gloom of how much it was going to cost. Also, the idea of getting my car fixed meant figuring out so many other logistics: Do I take it to the Subaru dealer or my own mechanic? How do I coordinate carpooling for my family and myself? The general inconvenience and the unknown overwhelmed me. Every time I got in the car the engine light went on and triggered all those thoughts in my head. For a couple of seconds I would feel the anxiety, but then I distracted myself with something else and forgot about it.

Three months later, after seeing the engine light go on yet again, I thought to myself, “OK, this is ridiculous. I need to practice what I preach.” I took out some paper and asked myself [Read more →]

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In my experience, the greatest successes don’t come from grandiose scenarios of good intentions engendered by temporarily pumped-up motivation. Rather, the most lasting and significant positive effects result from small things, done consistently, in strategic places.—David Allen

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David Allen talks about your GTD tools, and how important they are.

(This video is streaming from YouTube, so it may take a few seconds to load.)

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Chip Joyce, an Account Executive with the David Allen Company, took this photo of his home office. His comment about the photo was, “I’m violating a GTD best practice: something’s on my desk that’s not reference, equipment, decoration, or supplies.”

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There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
—Peter Drucker

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Our friends at Think Visual developed this cool visual harvest of a recent GTD Weekly Review webinar. It really captures the creative fun you can have while getting your weekly review productivity boost.

Click on Start Prezi in the center of the screen.  When it starts in a couple seconds, you can advance the slides manually by clicking on the arrow, or choose Autoplay from the lower-right. You’ll see it zoom into each step, and you may still want to click the full screen option.  Enjoy!

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This excerpt is from a recent issue of David Allen’s “Productive Living” newsletter. It’s free and sent about every 4 weeks. You’ll find essays from David, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

Hi Folks,

Is it possible to still be productive when you feel like you are drowning in a culture of interruptions? You bet. But, the strategies won’t come from traditional time-management approaches. My Food For Thought this month shares my approach to interruptions and how to effectively manage them versus how to just tolerate them.

All the best,

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Curing Interruptitis

I often get this question/pushback as I’m teaching: “All this personal productivity methodology sounds fine and good, but what about all those interruptions that plague me during my day?”

There are plenty of traditional “time-management” suggestions about dealing with “time wasters.” But I’d rather not waste time dealing with time wasters. For most of the people I interact with, the standard tips are either self-evident and in play, or impossible.

So I don’t spend a lot of time on time management tips. Not that they don’t have value—many of them do. But there are a billion exceptions to the rules. I have a more radical suggestion. Two actually.

1. Keep the inventory of everything you have to do current, complete, effectively organized, regularly reviewed, and instantly retrievable at a moment’s notice, while maintaining regular thinking about the projects and bigger things that you really want to accomplish. Then you can much more confidently and maturely differentiate between inappropriate disturbances and unexpected opportunities or useful interactions as they show up.

2. Get your act together about how easily and quickly you can take in any input, store it safely, and effortlessly glide back to whatever you were or now need to be doing, without having to process or complete it in that moment, knowing it will get handled at a better time.

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Procrastination can hide behind busy-ness. Find out more in this excerpt from Todd Brown’s blog post for Next Action Associates.

Too busy? Maybe you’re procrastinating

After a busy day, are you leaving the office tired and satisfied? Or just tired? You’ve spent the day in nearly constant activity. And you may have been procrastinating the whole time.

“Huh?” you say, “I can’t have been procrastinating. I’ve been really busy.”

Here’s the thing: when we’re busy we can easily trick ourselves into thinking that all of that activity means that we’re not procrastinating. We’re busy, sure, but we’re not focused on the things that should really have our attention. If someone were to tap us on the shoulder and say, “that thing you’re doing, is that the best use of your attention right now?” we would hesitate to agree.

We’re busy procrastinating.

The explosion of digital channels and smart mobile technology makes it very easy to integrate busy-ness and procrastination. There are a lot of “channels that lead to you.” Email, sure. But also Facebook and Twitter and instant messaging and LinkedIn and…

The inputs in these channels come at us thick and fast. That makes it tempting to let the real-time arrivals drive us. Procrastination is always only a click away.

Ask yourself: what are the odds that that e-mail at the top of your inbox is the best thing to focus on next? If not and you choose to deal with it anyway, then you’re being driven by “latest and loudest,” letting your channels dictate your priorities.

Or maybe your procrastination looks like this: you’re snacking on quick wins. This is what I quite often see when people say they’re “cleaning up email.” They’re scrolling down into the older strata of their inbox, looking for things that can be handled quickly, ideally without much thought or energy. But in doing that I’ll often see them scroll right past something that’s strategic, critical even. But it’s too big, or too complex. So it doesn’t get any attention.

If you’re struggling with procrastination, then what’s to be done? To get it under control, we need to make getting moving on the right things as attractive and friction-free as possible.

You can read other blog posts and find out more about Next Action Associates, the only Certified International Partner for GTD in the UK, here.

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Trust yourself to do what you really feel like doing, and what you feel like doing will change. Don’t, and it will plague you.—David Allen

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