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Book Review: Getting Things Done - The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
By Chuck Frey
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Rating:
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Summary:
This book was a big help to me. I've studied numerous time management techniques, but nothing approaches David Allen's simple, practical system!
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Buy this book from Amazon.com
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According to David Allen, author of “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity,” the concept of "time management" is a flawed one. That's because there's no way you can manage time; the only things you can really manage are projects and the action steps associated with them.
Allen has spent many years helping senior-level executives get more organized. What he has discovered is that knowledge workers face several unique challenges. First, unlike production jobs that have discrete tasks, a knowledge worker's to do list is continually in a state of flux. Most executives today face an endless barrage of e-mails, phone calls and new projects, which makes it difficult for them to juggle multiple tasks and priorities.
In addition, many knowledge workers have duties that are almost infinitely expandable. In other words, a creative executive who has identified a new customer need or a business process that could be improved has just expanded his or her list of projects to do’s. As a result, many bright, ambitious executives' find that their work is never truly “done.”
Negative impact on innovation
As a result, many executives today feel an unprecedented level of stress in their jobs. Allen says this is because their "psychic RAM" – their conscious mental storage space – is jam-packed full of thoughts about unfinished projects, problems, goals and other unresolved "open loops" in each role of their lives. As a result, Allen explains, most executives find themselves continually in a reactive mode, and rarely find time to engage in creative thinking or strategic planning time.
To help busy executives cope, Allen lays out a simple, practical and highly actionable strategy for Managing Actions and Projects – “MAP.” Instead of traditional time management techniques or priority schemes, MAP consists of several sets of project and action lists, plus a simple, weekly system for reviewing all of your projects and making sure that all of the next action steps for them are captured on your action lists. This deceptively simple "mind dump" exercise allows you to get all of these items out of your cluttered mind and into a more concrete form, where they can be evaluated and acted upon. This, in turn, gives your mind the confidence to free up more “psychic RAM” for higher value creative endeavors.
Having a complete list of next action steps in writing also helps you to select the single most valuable action item at any given time, according to Allen. Unlike many traditional time management systems, which are very rigid and structured, his “MAP” principles are highly adaptable. You can use anything from sheets of paper to a word processor or Personal Digital Assistant to maintain your project and action lists. What matters is the closed-loop process that Allen suggests, to capture and act upon all of the uncompleted “stuff” in your life.
Allen also provides a set of simple, common-sense methodologies for cleaning up all those large, undifferentiated stacks of filing and reference materials in your workspace, “processing” new, incoming information, how to set up a reference material filing system that really works, and how to unclog your in-box (both the one on your desk and your e-mail in-box).
The author’s ultimate goal is to help you reach a Zen-like “mind like water” state, where stress is minimized and you can clearly decide, from moment to moment, what your next most important action steps should be for your projects.
Web site is a treasure trove of resources
The book is supported by an excellent Web site ( www.davidco.com), which contains numerous articles and tips on how to put MAP principles into practice. The list of articles and tips includes Allen’s description of how he uses a Palm PDA to maintain and update his lists. Another valuable item is a white paper that explains how to set up Microsoft Outlook to work within this system. It is available for purchase online for (price) and is a must read for any Outlook user!
Conclusion
If you’re overwhelmed by the amount of work that you have to complete, are stressed out by the tidal wave of incoming e-mails, faxes and projects from your bosses and other constituents, or even if you wish you could be better organized, then Getting Things Done is a must read!
Submitted on: 2/22/2002
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