One of the most important things to all of us is something we have in abundance and yet we never have enough of; men and women around the world fight for it on a daily basis yet they never manage to increase their reserves nor make the most of the little that they have.
If you haven’t guessed already we’re referring to time.
Time is possibly the most essential resource known to man, without time we are stranded often falling behind in our work, blaming it on the most obvious culprit, our good old buddy time. The most serious problem however, is not the fact we don’t have enough time but rather that we don’t manage our time efficiently enough to make the most of it!
But what if there was a way to better use your time, a universal tool that helps you achieve zen-like status in every aspect of your life, using every ounce of time you have to its fullest potential? What if there was a way to reduce your stress levels and be sure that what you’re doing at any given time is exactly what you should be doing at the time you’re doing it?
In comes David Allen with his solution to all things time and task management; Getting Things Done. If you haven’t read David’s crowning achievement, bestseller and one of the world’s most renowned books on personal task management then you have no idea what you’re missing. Getting Things Done is a one stop shop on achieving complete control of everything you need to do, when you need to do it and how it gets done. It’s a guide to developing a ‘mind like water’ that is both calm yet receptive to everything that crosses its path.
Getting Things Done is a complete guide on creating a system that allows you to stay on top of everything, one so simple that once implemented it requires very little thought to maintain. The system’s simplicity allows you manage both your short & long term activities with such fluid ease that you’ll be scratching your head thinking to yourself ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’.
What David suggests?
Get all your thoughts out of your head and written down in a system you trust and one that you’ll review regularly.
Unless you’ve written an actionable thought down (something you can act upon) the mind considers it an open loop and will keep nagging at you regarding this open loop whether you’re thinking about it or not. Think of that feeling you often have where you know there’s something you need to do but don’t know what and you’ll understand what David means.
He goes on to say that all you need (to start with) is 3 simple lists; an inbox to catch all incoming thought that needs to be acted upon, a tickler list for tasks that need attention but not immediately and a someday list for all the things you want to do someday/maybe.
By doing this you’re effectively reducing the level of information the mind needs to store and giving it more power to actually process this thought into action.
The result?
Increased productivity, efficiency and most importantly much better time management guaranteed.
If you haven’t read it yet we strongly suggest you treat yourself to a copy; you won’t regret it!
