34;David Allen brings new clarity to the power of intention, the essential nature of relaxation, and deceptively simple guidelines for getting things done. He uses extensive experience, personal stories and his own recipe for simplicity, speed and fun.". 34;Anyone who reads this book can apply this knowledge and skills to their own lives for immediate results."
34;Getting Things Done describes an incredibly practical process that can help busy people regain control of their lives. He is the president of The David Allen Company and has over twenty years of experience as a management consultant and executive coach. After twenty years of coaching and training some of the world's most sophisticated and productive professionals, I know the world is hungry for these methods.
It is your personal guidance, step by step, in the concrete application of the models. This is a vaccination against the daily firefighting (the so-called urgent and crisis demands of a given working day) and an antidote to the imbalance that many people bring upon themselves.”
Getting Things Done
The Art of Getting Things Done
The Six-Level Model for Reviewing Your Own Work
Most of the thinking you need to do is informal, what I call “back-of-the-envelope planning” – something you literally do on the back of an envelope in a coffee shop, with a colleague like you. redeveloping the agenda and structure of. Have you made the main purpose of the project clear and communicated it to everyone who should know? Have you defined all aspects of the project that can now be moved forward, what the next action is for each part and who is responsible for what?
There are probably at least a few components of the natural design model that you haven't implemented. 34;What's a good idea?” is a good question, but only when you're about 80 percent of the way through your thinking. Then, when you're faced with a last-minute urgency, the reactive planning model comes into play.
Let's examine each of the five phases of natural planning and see how we can take advantage of these contexts. When people complain to me about too many meetings, I have to ask, "What is the purpose of the meetings?". Ultimately, you can't feel good about a staff meeting unless you know what the purpose of the meeting was.
34;why” – for the conference, for the staff party, for the abolition of the management position, or for the merger – it broadens your thinking about how to achieve the desired result. For example, graduates of your seminar consistently demonstrate If you do it instead If you can understand this as something you are working on now, for a period of time, before reaching a resolution at the end, you will feel more comfortable giving this part of the process its place.
Put analysis and organization in the background. Analysis, evaluation and organization of your thoughts should be given free rein as well as creative thinking outside the box. In a group planning situation, it is not necessary for everyone to know what the next step is for each part of the project. The final 5 percent of projects may require thoughtful application of one or more of the five phases of the Natural Design Model.
Practicing Stress-Free
If you're committed to fully implementing this workflow process, there are some basic supplies and equipment you'll need to get started. You should be able to make a list on the go and review it easily and as regularly as necessary. Much of the time the action will not be obvious; it will have to be determined.
These actions will need to be written down somewhere and then organized into appropriate categories so that you can access them when you need them. Once you know what to track (described in the previous chapter on processing), all you really need are lists and. Once a calendar is assigned its proper organizing role, most of the actions you need to take stay in a category.
Just like reminders of the actions you need to take, reminders of all the things you are waiting to get back to or that need to be done by others need to be sorted and grouped. I recommend creating one folder for emails that are longer than two minutes and require action (again, you should be able to send many messages right away by following the two-minute rule). Now you can open the "@ACTION" file and view the emails you have identified that you need to spend time on.
There is an obvious danger in stashing reminders of things you need to do somewhere out of sight. You also know that you (and others) have an inventory available when it seems advisable to evaluate the workload(s). In any case, please note that when assessing your project you will need to look at the appendix in order to make use of the data.
Rolodexes and Contact Managers Much of the information you need to keep relates directly to the people in your network. No action is required - this is just information you may need to use in the future. Checklists can be very helpful in letting you know what not to worry about.
You need to be sure that you are doing what you are supposed to do and that it is OK not to do what you are not doing. Your personal system and behavior must be established in such a way that you can see all the actions you need to see when you need to see them. Very simply, the Weekly Overview is whatever you need to do to clear your head again.
Review all relevant checklists Is there anything you haven't done that you need to do.
