{On April 5, 2013, we will celebrate the 15^th Anniversary of the First Friday Book Synopsis, and begin our 16^th year.  During March, I will post a blog post per day remembering key insights from some of the books I have presented over the 15 years of the First Friday Book Synopsis.  We have met every first Friday of every month since April, 1998 (except for a couple of weather –related cancellations).  These posts will focus only on books I have presented.  My colleague, Karl Krayer, also presented his synopses of business books at each of these gatherings.  I am going in chronological order, from April, 1998, forward.  The fastest way to check on these posts will be at Randy’s blog entries — though there will be some additional blog posts interspersed among these 30.}
Post #9 of 30

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Synopsis presented February, 2002
Getting Things Done:  The Art of Stress Free Productivity by David Allen (Penguin Books/Viking, 2001).

Peter Drucker:  “In knowledge work the task is not given; it has to be determined.”  (quoted by David Allen).

Successful individuals know what they intend to do, and then they put systems in place to make sure that those things get done.

Successful companies and organizations know what they intend to do, and then they put systems in place to make sure that those things get done.

Put these two challenges in the broad category of “strategy + execution.”

2002 was my year to tackle the execution end of this challenge, for individuals and organizations.  In the same year, I presented synopses of Getting Things Done for the individual “execution” challenge, and later in the year I presented Execution:  The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan for the organizational “execution” challenge.  (I will write about this book tomorrow).

In the years following, David Allen’s Getting Things Done is still the go-to book on personal time and life management (maybe add in the books by Tony Schwartz). The Execution book is still the “foundational” book for the organizational challenge, but a number of volumes have since come out to help us better know how to deliver on that organizational execution challenge.

David Allen’s book created an industry.  There are multiple apps to help you with your “GTD” challenge.  And no one has really improved on his basic foundational principles.  In other words, there is no newer book that I would suggest you read – read this book if you have any problem personally with “getting your stuff done!”

(A side note – my current “favorite” web based author is James Fallows.  He has become friends with David Allen after reading his book, and more than once, has described how Allen’s principles have helped him stay more in control in his now ever-more-complex writing, blogging, observing world.).

Here is what David Allen taught us in his book:

#1 – The personal and work life of everyone is more complex, and getting even more so, in this connected, busy, multi-tasking world.
#2 – You idiot.  You can only do one thing at a time!
#3 – If you have any “clutter” (on your desk, in your car, in your brain) you will.get.distracted from what you are working on right now.  Get rid of all the clutter — get rid of all the distractions.
#4 – To do this, you have to have a “place” to “put that stuff,” and a way to recall it (or, a way for it to jump out at you) when it is time to tackle that “next thing.”  He suggests that you have a “next action folder.”  (he really does offer practical suggestions).

Here are some excerpts from his book.  I’ve got quite a few here – they really are worth reading.  (I’ve added emphasis a time or five):

It is possible to be effectively doing while you are delightfully being, in your ordinary workaday world.  —  Teaching you how to be maximally efficient and relaxed, whenever you need or want to be, was my main purpose in writing this book. 

Just when you learn how to enhance your productivity and decision-making at one level, you’ll graduate to the next accepted batch of responsibilities and creative goals, whose new challenges will defy the ability of any simple formula or buzzword-du-jour to get you what you want, the way you want to get it.

On the one hand, we need proven tools that can help people focus their energies strategically and tactically without letting anything fall through the cracks.  On the other, we need to create work environments and skills that will keep the most invested people from burning out due to stress.

Almost everyone I encounter these days feels he or she has too much to handle and not enough time to get it all done.

In the old days, you knew what work had to be done – you could see it.  It was clear when the work was finished, or not finished.  Now, for many of us, there are no edges to most of our projects.  Most people I know have at least half a dozen things they’re trying to achieve right now, and even if they had the rest of their lives to try, they wouldn’t be able to finish these to perfection.

What if you could dedicate fully 100 percent of your attention to whatever was at hand, at your own choosing, with no distraction?

Stuff:  anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesn’t belong where it is, but for which you haven‘t yet determined the desired outcome and the next action step.  As long as it is still “stuff,” it’s not controllable.  It is “an amorphous blob of undoability!”

The vast majority of people have been trying to get organized by rearranging incomplete lists of unclear things; they haven’t yet realized how much and what they need to organize in order to get the real payoff.

You’ll need to get in the habit of keeping nothing on your mind.  And the way to do that, is not by managing time, managing information, or managing priorities…  The key to managing all your “stuff” is managing your actions. 

Clarifying things on the front end, when they first appear on the radar, rather than on the back end, after trouble has developed, allows people to reap the benefits of managing action. 

You don’t actually do a project; you can only do actions steps related to it. 

The highest performing people I know are those who have installed the best tricks in their lives. (RM – a trick: like leaving your briefcase in front of the door to the garage, so you have to pick it up to open the door.  In my case, I fully load my car the night before with everything I need for the First Friday Book Synopsis).

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.  The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”  (Mark Twain). 

When I ask groups of people to estimate when most of the action decisions are made in their companies, with few exceptions they say, “When things blow up.”

Too many meetings end with a vague feeling among the players that something ought to happen, and the hope that it’s not their personal job to make it so.  The way I see it, what’s truly impolite is allowing people to walk away from discussions unclear.  

In my presentation skills teaching and coaching, I teach the simple “Problem – Solution” approach (Monroe’s motivated sequence boiled down to its essence).    Here is David Allen’s Problem-Solution thinking:

• The suggested solution:
Step one:  Capture everything that you need to get done, now later, someday, big, little, in-between – into a logical and trusted system outside of your head and off your mind!
Step two:  Discipline yourself to make front-end decisions about all the “inputs” you let into your life so that you will always have a plan for “next actions” that you can implement or renegotiate at any moment.

I have not always “done” what David Allen proposed.  But I am doing more of it by the month/year.  His approach is solid.

We do have to get things done.  This will help.

A very good book!

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Here is a graphic of David Allen’s “work flow” system.  Click on it for full view: