Deconstructing Getting Things Done: Part 1
Mondays are productivity days at SimpleProductivity blog.
When I planned out the articles for the month, I decided that I would go back and re-read Getting Things Done. After all, it has been years since I read the book from start to finish, and I wanted to see if there were techniques I could put in my productivity toolbox to make things work better.
So I planned it out…the book has three sections, so three articles should do it, right?
(Feel free to laugh out loud here, because I certainly am!)
For this month, plus into June, I will be looking at how to deconstruct Getting Things Done to get it to the basics of the tools: how they work, when to use them, and the reasoning behind them. Today we will look at the first Chapter of the book.
Knowledge Work
The first concept to consider is the amount of information that comes at us on a daily basis. My farming grandfather knew exactly what needed to be done that day. He didn’t have a hundred people clamoring for his attention, and he didn’t have to make too many decisions about what needed to be done.
In this day, we are drowning in information. Emails, news feeds, electronic newspapers, radio, television and other people all dump huge amounts of information on us. We have to at least sort through it all, because there are things in there that cannot be ignored. We also don’t have the ability to set a plan for the day, and have a 100% guarantee it will work out like that. Think about it…have you ever had a day where you decided what to do, and at the end of the day, you had done completely different things because your boss had an emergency?
We have to have a framework that will allow us to be flexible, as well as capturing all the things we need to pay attention to.
Don’t Rely On Your Brain
As David Allen points out, our brains are pretty stupid. His example is when you have a flashlight with dead batteries. When do you remember the batteries are dead? When you’re holding the flashlight, not when you are in a store next to a stand of fresh batteries.
Our brains like to remind us of things at the wrong times, and will keep doing it unless we can convince our brains that it will be handled and not forgotten.
In fact, he says, “There is no reason to have the same thought more than once, unless you like having that thought.” And he also points out that having the same thought more than once is futile…it’s a waste of time and energy on something you haven’t made any progress on.
Our brains should not be relied on. Instead, we have to rely on a better way to manage those things that pop into our heads.
The Philosophy of the System
David Allen is quick to point out that all of his ideas are common sense. In order to work our way out from under the deluge of information, we have to know what that deluge consists of, and handle each item in an appropriate way.
He also points out that the system has to be worked from the bottom up. After all, if you are drowning in email and being overbooked, writing a mission statement isn’t going to get you any closer to being free from the overwhelm.
He also makes a good point: we cannot manage time…time happens, regardless. We cannot manage information overload…information exists outside of us. We cannot manage priorities…we simply have them.
We can only manage what we choose to DO in any given time, with our information, and our focus, within the framework of our priorities.
Next Up…
In the next article in this series, we will take a look at simplifying the concept of “Mind Like Water,” which gets tossed around a lot whenever David Allen is mentioned.
Photo by seanmcgrath. Licensed under Creative Commons.