Recently, I shared with everyone my Top 10 Books.  At the time I mentioned that I was currently reading “Getting Things Done” by David Allen.  In the comments, Dave Jones, asked me to share my thoughts on the book when I finished.  This post will share my reflections on the book, as well as a few take home points that will help you become more productive.  Please be sure to share your experience with Getting Things Done (GTD) in the comments section below.

Reading and applying tips from GTD will make you more productive. The subtitle of the book is “The Art of Stress-Free Productivity”.  There are two claims in this: 1) You will be stress-free in your work, and 2) You will be more productive.   Obviously, both of these are very appealing thoughts.

The idea that you will be stress-free comes from Allen’s belief that if you have everything on your “to do” list written down and in a trusty system your subconscious mind will stop worrying about the task, stop reminding you about it, and allow your trusted system to go to work. While, I do see the system as a way to reduce stress, and help you relax more, the idea of being completely “stress free”, may be pushing it a bit.

The real strength of the book for me is in providing ways to increase productivity.  The book is designed specifically for knowledge workers; people whose primary work is to use, process, and share knowledge.  Chances are that if you primarily work in an office, you are a knowledge worker, and this book will help you be more productive.  For me, this would necessarily include all three of my major professional areas: being a professor, writing this blog, and building my home business.

The System

GTD is designed to be an entire system, not just a few activities. The system will allow you to take any activity, task, email/voice mail, or project and move it more quickly towards completion.  The system involves five major processes that every activity needs to go through.

1. Collect – writing down and recording everything you need to do.
2. Process – going through everything you have collected and determining whether it can be done quickly, or as part of a project, and then deciding to either do it, delegate it, or defer it until a later time.
3. Organize – taking the activities that you need to do and putting them into actionable lists and set projects.
4. Review – going through all of your lists and projects to ensure that you are doing what you need to do.
5. Do – taking action and getting things done.

Allen’s system comes with a thorough flow chart, and sub systems for each of these five processes to help you move through it efficiently and quickly while not dropping any of the activities you need to do.   The entire system will take significant time to set up and get used to.  You really need to set aside two full days after you have read the book to setup the system in your life.

Beyond the System

The good news is that you don’t need to use the entire system to get a lot out of this book. At this point, I have been implementing a number of elements of the system rather than the system as a whole.  This may change later, but at this point, there are some elements that can fit my life and that I know will make substantial differences in my productivity. When you are reading the book, be open to implementing the entire system, but also realize that you can start with one activity at a time and build up towards the systems he suggests.

Value for Me

Initially, the tips I learned while reading GTD made a bigger impact in my role as a professor than in my blog or business.  As I have gotten better at implementing these ideas in that setting they have now started to naturally carry over into my blog and business as well as other areas of life.  The following are five tips that I have already implemented and that have started to make improvements.  I will list and briefly explain the tips here.  Many of them will become full length articles over the next month or two.

1. Two Minute Policy – Allen suggests that whenever you are processing tasks to ask yourself if what you are looking at can be done in two minutes.  If it can, then do it.  This helps to prevent procrastinating on the small things.

2. Weekly Review – Each week you need to have a time of weekly review where you go through your lists and projects and make sure there are not any outgoing activities that you need to get done, and that all of your responsibilities are written down and set up in the correct part of your system.  This review goes great along with my weekly planning process.

3. Write Everything Down – Every activity that you agree to do needs to be written down.  Simply write it down on a piece of paper and put it in your in box for processing.  By writing everything down you won’t be worried about missing something that you have committed to doing.

4. Folders for Each Project – For each project you are involved in you need to have a folder.  That folder will allow you to place anything that you need for accomplishing that project.  Big projects will have several folders each representing a different aspect of that project.

5. Asking “What’s the Next Action?” – By asking this question of every project you have, you will always know what you need to do next.  Often this next step will be smaller than you had pictured, and may even fit within the two minute rule.  Also, ask this question at the end of every meeting you have, ensuring that all parties go away ready to make progress.

Reading Getting Things Done

“Getting Things Done” is certainly worth reading.  When you pick up the book, remember that it is not a quick read.  Much of the steps that Allen describes require that you take time to think through how that would fit in your life.  Make sure that you read with a highlighter in hand so that you can mark up key areas and return to them later.  Also, have a pad of paper and pen with you so you can write down ideas as you come to them.

One of the reasons it took me longer to read this book than others is that whenever I sat down to read I became inspired to go and get things done! I would sit down with the intention of reading for 30 minutes and would be up accomplishing something after about 10 minutes of reading.  Of course this is a very good thing!  The act of simply reading the book helped me to accomplish more.

This is also a book that you cannot just read once.  I will be returning to this book again in a few months to help me readjust the tools that I have put in place and reconsider ways that I should implement the system as a whole.  I know it will be something that will provide continued value for years to come.

Enjoy the book!

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

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Tags: Action Steps, Getting Things Done, GTD, Personal Growth, Productivity, Stress, success, Weekly Review

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 7:52 am and is filed under Personal Development, Productivity, books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.