I’ve just emerged from a two-day marathon of getting my new productivity and time management system up and going…and I’m still not done. On the podcast I mentioned that I recently read David Allen’s popular book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. This book is on the list of life-changing books for me. It has drastically changed the way I think about my work and how I keep track of my life. I realized I had some major flaws in my productivity that were limiting my ability to tackle my goals.
If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it. Sterling just read it as well. We’re both in the process of using David Allen’s principles to set up our lives and businesses. Here are some of the basic tenets of the GTD philosophy:
- Get everything out of your brain and into a dependable system to free up your mental RAM
- When everything is out of your brain, you’re free to fully use your energy to get into a “flow” and perform tasks
- For every project requiring your attention, determine the next action to take
- Keep track of next actions by context (e.g. home, phone, work, computer) and not by “to do” lists and priority
- Do not use your inbox to keep track of to dos
- Your inbox is a collection bucket for input into your life
- For every item in your inbox, decide what the next action is associated with that item and then move that into your system.
- The inbox must be “zeroed out” regularly or it will start creeping back into your head
- It’s just as important to feel good about what you are NOT doing as it is to feel good about what you ARE doing
- Have an easy filing system at arm’s reach where you store all reference and support material
And that is just to name a few of the basics. I can’t wait to get started using this system. As Sterling and I get started with GTD, we’ll be posting to the blog with insights and tips that come up along the way.
In the meantime, let us know in the comments what Getting Things Done principle has impacted your business the most.
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