David Allen is widely recognized as the world’s leading expert on personal and organizational productivity. His thirty-year pioneering research and coaching to corporate managers and CEOs of some of America’s most prestigious corporations and institutions has earned him Forbes’ recognition as one of the top five executive coaches in the U.S. and Time Magazine called his flagship book, “Getting Things Done”, “the definitive business self-help book of the decade.”
He is the founder of the David Allen Company, an executive coaching firm using his “Getting Things Done” methodology. David Allen Company presenters, not Allen, regularly give one-day public seminars on the methodology, and Allen himself occasionally gives lectures or sessions.
The Getting Things Done method rests on the idea of moving items of interest, relevant information, issues, tasks and projects out of the mind, by recording them externally, and then breaking them into actionable work items. And this allows attention to be focused on taking action on tasks instead of recalling them.
The first thing you need to do is recognize what’s off in the situation. Then implement the Getting Things Done Methodology.
David’s Getting Things Done Methodology framework is made up of five key action items. They are:
- Capture–identify what has your attention and write it down, record it, or gather everything into a collection tool
- Clarify–Once you have identified what has your attention, process what it means. Are there any action items that they require? If yes, then write down all the actions you need to take. If not, figure out if it’s trash, something to just remember, or something to put on hold
- Organize–Now that you know what has your attention and what you need to do about it, put reminders up where you will see them and organize the details in a place you will look at
- Review–Frequently look back on all of your reminders and lists and make sure to keep it updated
- Engage–Go and get things done
By using these steps you get all of the unnecessary things out of your head so you can focus on what needs to get done today, right now. As David shares, there are going to be times when life gets chaotic, there are going to be fires you have to put out occasionally. Having these steps in place in order to get everything else under control will help you to better address those issues when they come up because you can focus on the fire and know that when it is out you know exactly where to pick up and carry on.
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As a result of not having a process in place to handle all of your responsibilities, commitments, ideas, etc…, you feel stressed out, and things seem out of control. These things keep you awake at night and cause you worry during the day. Ambient anxiety is the feeling of endless opportunity that can impact your health and well-being, but also keeps you from being in the moment while you are trying to concentrate on one thing because your mind is always racing and thinking about other things at the same time. It’s easy to get these things under control if you use David’s five-part framework. Put things in writing, organize them, set reminders–and you’ll be able to see them when needed. There is a lack of awareness among most people about this issue and that it prevents them from being productive.
Getting Things Done involves the ability to say ‘no’ to commitments. Every time you commit to something, it takes energy away from other tasks. So when you say yes, you have to make sure that it fits with your goals and priorities. You need to know what you are trying to accomplish before you can say no to things. If you don’t know what you need to be working on, how are you going to justify saying no to something else? This is another reason why writing things down is helpful. And saying no doesn’t have to sound mean or rude. If your boss comes to you and gives you more work you could go to them and say “You know, these are great projects that you just gave to me. Can I show you what I currently have on my plate and can we talk about the priority of them, because I can’t do them all. If these are more critical, I will need to let something else go.” Before taking on more commitments, you should really think about the ones you already have. Being overcommitted will definitely lead you to be less productive and stressed.
The best way to start the process when you are overwhelmed is you sit down, take an hour and unload everything off your mind. Just make a list. Everybody listening to this or watching this is at some point confused and overwhelmed. Just get it out of your head, just get a little more objective sense of all those options. Any one thing can make your life feel overwhelmed. If you haven’t got it objectified and have control of it. Everybody’s made a list and felt more in control and more comfortable and the world didn’t change what you did, what you changed how you engage with the world. So the first step in engaging with the world is identifying what’s got your attention.
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There are 6 trends that are transforming leadership forever do you know what they are and are you ready for them? Download the PDF to learn what these 6 trends are and what you should be doing about each one of them. These are crucial for your leadership and career development in the future of work!
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