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Getting Things Done
Allen's idea is to first look at the sources of stress. Whether you're working a cushy corporate job, are self-employed, or are still in college, what makes you feel frustrated and stressed? Unless you have had some major disasters in life, the answer will probably rotate around having too much to do and too little time to accomplish all the tasks. Moreover, people around you don't seem to realize how pressed for time you are as they keep coming up with every possible way to interrupt you.
Business people like to talk about multi-tasking. It fills one with feeling of self-importance, since it's obvious that if one multi-tasks, then he or she is involved in multiple projects, failure on most of which would probably result in the end of human civilization. But as Allen points out (his site contains a promotional WMV/QuickTime video), multi-tasking requires you to persist a bunch of projects (most of them unfinished) in your head.
If you count the time you spend on each actual project, and the time you spend switching between the projects, you'd be surprised how much time is spent on the overhead of going from one project to another. Basically (although Allen doesn't express it in these terms) we all would like to be Knoppix, with everything kept in RAM (our brains), nothing relegated to the hard drive (paper or information-management software), multi-tasking at its best. But as anyone would tell you, Knoppix can be quite resource-intensive, and you do not exactly get screaming speeds with it. We're all wired up like early DOS - single-tasking with everything else assigned to external storage, best at doing one thing at a time, if we're to do it well.
Allen develops a system to deal with projects and everyday interruptions accompanying them. Does the issue that came up require less than 2-3 minutes to respond to? Is it returning a call to confirm the dental appointment or e-mail to another developer saying you agree with his suggestion and would approve of it? If it takes you less than 2-3 minutes, do it right away. Do not file it under "Later," do not postpone it until lunch, because your brain keeps track of this stuff, and this unfinished while loop will be running in your brain, even if consciously you do not think about it every minute. In other words, keep the RAM clean.
Allen advocates the 3-D model, where the Ds stand for "Do it," "Delegate it," "Defer it" and advises all projects and small tasks to be processed in that order. The "Do it" part was described above for the tasks that take just a few minutes. The author promises you'd be surprised how much can be achieved by following this simple rule. At the same time, if the project just requires your approval, and you'd pass it to someone else after that, delegate it. But get it off your mind right away, because it's not yours and thus cannot occupy the precious RAM space. Delegate it -- send the e-mail, fax it away, or transfer it to another person in your organization. And if it's definitely a long task and it needs to be done by you, then defer it to the time slot when you're sure you can sit down and do it (by the time you get rid of all the doable and delegable, you will find yourself with plenty of time left to important projects).
Allen is pretty good at pointing out the various excuses that we come up with to excuse our lack of productivity. The rules sound simple, even simplistic, but that's the key to the efficiency of his system. I liked the author's approach, and adhering to his system seemed to bring a relaxed attitude into my daily schedule, since now I don't have a guilt trip over concentrating on a single task and refusing to multi-task. You can read an interview with an author at About.com. There's also an article about the methodology in Fast Company magazine with descriptive title You can do anything - but not everything. I would recommend this book to anyone who feels stress after work or someone who feels they are not at the top of their productivity and spend too much time doing inessential things.
In his spare time Alex enjoys reading business and technology books. He also keeps a list of free books for readers on a tight budget. You can purchase Getting Things Done from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Unfortunately, the bottom line is that management wants to get as much work out of its workers as possible. So if we increase our efficiency, they'll just pile more work on until we're stressed again.
The real problem isn't inefficiency so much as the weak bargaining power of labor.
All right, everyone together:
"when the union's inspiration through the coders' blood shall run..."
Sure, we could do that.
We could give you a 33% pay increase. For no reason other than you'd like more time to play.
Or, we could give your job to someone less lazy.
What a bunch of whiners people are these days. Shit, your grandfather probably could only dream of a 40 hour work week.
I find my time at work much more rewarding than sitting on the couch watching daytime TV. I get to accomplish something, I get respect from my peers, I get to spend the day discussing things I find interesting with like-minded people.
Is it stressful having to design, code, install, and support software for police and fire stations? Fuck, yeah. When my pager goes off at 2AM because some dispatching workstation froze in the middle of a natural disaster, and lives could literally be on the line, that's some fucking stress, let me tell you. But I wouldn't have it any other way.
McDonalds can provide you the 30 hour work week you want so bad. Some of us actually like working, even if we don't necessarily like our jobs.
We're indoctrinated with work=hard=stress=bad, play=fun=relaxing=good since we're kids. It's not cool to study hard in school, it's cool to smoke and drink beers out back behind the football field. I'm living proof you can do both.
Want to relieve stress? Just log in to slashdot, politely remind people there that only a fucking moron would spend 500 dollars on an mp3 player, even if it does fit nicely in your anal cavity. Read the replies. Instant stress relief.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
They always talk about a worker's productivity, and act like that's what a worker should be striving towards - but how is productivity measured? From the EMPLOYERS point of view - the most work accomplished for the least cost. Sounds great, eh?
The problem is that all of this is based on conning the worker into buying corporate propaganda. Thr TRUTH is, when it comes to compensation for work the relationship between a worker and employer is ADVERSARIAL.
If you are your employer's most productive worker, what does that mean for you? What does that look like if you measure productivity from the WORKER'S point of view?
Well, if you are your employer's most productive worker, then of all of your fellow workers, you are the worker with the LEAST PRODUCTIVE CAREER. You are producing more output for less money.
For once someone should write a book about how to get the MOST from your employer - how to get a productive EMPLOYER, a productive CAREER. How to get the most money for the least work.
Stop working to benefit others, and make more of your work benefit YOU.
"Careers are by their very definition stressful. " no they are not. the become stressful, but they don't have to be.
"If you don't feel at least a little stress, you aren't working hard enough"
thats a pile of crap. I work very hard, but I am not stressed becasue my company know I work hard for forty, and then go home. They promote that.
"Work hard, play hard."
what the hell does that have to do with stress?
Digging a ditch is hard, but it's not stressfull.
No digging a ditch where ytou manager comes in a pestures you every 10 minutes, and that expect you to do it faster then yesterday is stressfull.
"
If you really want a stress-free work environment, repeat after me: "Would you like to Super Size that for just 49 cents more?""
ha..haha..BWAhahahahah.
That may qualify as the most ignorant statment every to be typed on Slashdot. well done.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I have consistently found open space environments to be the biggest stressor in my work. I'm trying to solve complex problems, involving big bucks, but my employer insists this is aided by enforced, incidental participation in every nearby cube meeting and phone call.
More or less, the loudest and the most noise tolerant are the ones who thrive. Never mind that I can shake a passle of bugs out of something that's already "passed" "testing". Because I need some peace and quiet to really hold all of the scopes, interfaces, etc. in my head, I'm at the mercy of my neighbors' schedules as far as getting this done.
People keep using my ideas. But Management won't acknowledge that a few extra square feet, some drywall, and insulation would keep them coming and coming faster. I'd probably also have some evenings and weekends to myself.
H-ll, even my alma mater, a small, well endowed school, seems to be going open space. It's kind of like taking that old joke about "designed by committee", and making it an institutional imperative.
That's a little unreasonable. Companies don't have unlimited funds for labor costs. The only way it would be economically feasible to pay the same for less work is if that work was more productive, i.e. you do the same work in 30 hours that was previously done in 40. If each employee did less work per week, the company would have to hire more workers to achieve the same level of productivity, and if they paid you the same as if you had done the full 40 hours worth of work, they would have to hire 25% more workers. However, that would also increase their labor costs by 25%. The only way it is feasible for your employer to cut your hours by 25%, pay you the same, and not have to dramatically increase their labor costs, is if you can increase your productivity by 25%.
I work a 100 hour week easily and i'm very motivated and productive. Its all about the job and how much you know about how to motivate yourself.
For me its all about comfort while working. I treat myself to a powerful mac and a 23" screen while I program in a language I compleatly adore (ruby).
Productivity problems are the results of disagreement with your work environment. If the environment is inspiring you can stand it for much much longer than 30 or 40 hours.
The book is a little dated now, but still a great read and still has useful ideas.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
All you would do is increase payroll (and associated) expenses by 25%. Twenty five percent! That money has to come from somewhere. Since sales aren't increasing by 25% either, it's got to come from the operating budget, research and development, cutting back on janitorial services, denying that erognomic chair you requested for your bad back last week, replacing the soft toilet paper in the stalls with that stuff that gives you butt splinters, etc, etc.
Or they'll just go bankrupt because their margins got fucked, or they'll move operations out of the country. In either case you will be unemployed and blaming your misfortune on someone else.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
So I've been following such a policy myself, but this ends up having the net effect of putting the small stuff before the big stuff -- one of the big no-nos of time management. At the end of the day, I've gotten a ton of tiny tasks done and a clean to-do list except for the big one that can't be delegated, has to be done, and there isn't enough time left to do.
Does this book address that problem at all? Anybody have any strategies to share?
I think the biggest flaw with this argument has to be with the idea that you can shift gears and take care of small tasks quickly without interrupting a larger task. This article on the tyranny of email pretty much sums it up. If you're in a zone, coding away, and you get a phone call, all those variables and processes, and whatever else you're holding onto and manipulating in your mind get crowded out and it takes you a lot of time to get back up to speed. Taking care of small tasks as they come up can actually take up more time than writing them down and taking care of them after you emerge from your creative cycle.
My impression of the book/method was that it was really focused on executives who delegate virtually all the work they're responsible for, and whose tasks tend to involve phone calls, reviewing documents and signing them, and other executive tasks.
The way it was presented, it didn't seem to be very relevant for someone whose work involves things like spending lots of time actually *working* on things, like writing code, or designing software, or writing a book.
The longest task he ever addresses in the book is the task of getting started with GTD - he advises blocking out a few days of uninterrupted time. Everything else is little bitty things like making calls.
Perhaps my impression is incorrect. But I think Allen would do himself a favor if he rewrote his book for working stiffs, rather than for executives.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Something flashed into the Marxist part of my brain after I read your analysis of the health insurance issue WRT employment.
I wonder if that barrier to leaving a job is exactly what the monied politicians want.
emt 377 emt 4
Time management is one area where employees can help themselves but most causes of stress are out of their control. The stress caused by the work is typically the least of the problems.
Sources of stress in the workplace:
Any one of these can cause excessive stress and it is not unusual to have several of them part of the typical day. The only practical way of dealing with them is just don't let it get to you. Focus on getting through day and try to find a place where things are better. Try to be a calming influence in the office instead of stoking the rumour mill and predicting the worst.
If you look at the office in a certain way, it can even be funny. Certainly, more comic than tragic.
That's a little unreasonable. Companies don't have unlimited funds for labor costs. The only way it would be economically feasible to pay the same for less work is if that work was more productive, i.e. you do the same work in 30 hours that was previously done in 40.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that if & when a company's senior management DOES find a way to get the same amount of work done with fewer manhours, they will just cut the staff proportionally and give themselves a nice fat raise. Just look at the dramatically increasing ratio of CEO salaries to average employee salaries.
The Beauty of Modern Capitalism. Yes, I know, all the other systems suck more.
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This applies to manual labor like assembly line work, but is not very useful for knowledge workers. For one thing, you are assuming that a 25% decrease in time on the job produces an equivalent decrease in output. While this is true at a steel mill, this is clearly not the case at companies like Google, who encourage their workers to spend 12.5% of their time on personal projects. This is not just a perk, they aren't just saying "Work for us for 4 days, get the 5th day free!" Its more like a maintenance schedule for equipment - rotating a fleet of vehicles to make sure they get proper care and regular tune-ups is far more profitable than driving them everyday until they break, and when human brains are your primary business tools, the same guidelines apply but with the added benefit that regular maintenance of the brain consistently upgrades its usefulness.
Despite the recent focus that knowledge workers have received, I'm convinced that companies are still stuck in old ways of managing them, leading to inefficiencies in the economy.
"It's Dot Com!"
Priority doesn't Matter.
The truth of this fact never occurred to me until I read GTD, but what David says in the book is totally true. Read that sentence carefuly- It takes a while to sink in!
When you decide what projects you're going to take on, you need to be brutally honest about which ones you really want to and will be able to complete and then put 100% of effort into them.
At this point, your goals are broken down into bite-sized chunks (called NAs) and are then placed on a completely flat list with no hierarchy or priority and handled in whatever order you feel is most efficient.
What about deadlines, you ask? The GTD paradigm argues that almost all of them are not real deadlines, since there is almost always plenty of time to complete the task, or, the deadline is flexible- Inflexible AND ALSO soon deadlines are extremely rare and just your own imagination.
If I'm not working at work, I sure as hell aren't going to be watching TV or eating bonbons. I'm going to be spending time with friends and family, which are more important. Strangely enough, many more "successful" people realize this, too. How many executives are genuinely good at dealing with people? Most of them, as far as I can tell. People will always be more important than technology.