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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.
...is a book about how to get things started. After that, getting them done is easy.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
This book is absolutely awesome. I haven't even finished it yet (procrastination), but I have already implemented a few nuggets I've picked up, with great results. I strongly suggest this text for anyone who feels they have time management issues.
Also, here's a nifty diagram related to the system that will make sense once you read the book.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
We currently have a 40 hour work-week. If we cut 10 hours from it, get paid the same salary, we'd have more time for recreation and family. That would sure relieve stress. It would also decrease unemployment since employers would need to hire more workers.
Just read slashdot whenever you feel a bout of stress coming on. For me, that's why I'm here 24/7. No time for stress at all!
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..."
What type of definition is this?
Job stress results when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the employee.
In other words it is completely your employers fault, not yours.
That whole page is an absolute bunch of garbage. F'en OSHA
I have found Hog Bay Notebook (for OS X) to be a great support tool for GTD. If have OS check it out, especially the new 3.5 beta.
He missed a comma and some parentheses, that was a list, not a range.
Ie; (26%, -40%)
A whopping 66% variance!
I dunno. Either that or he's using the new math.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I think a lot of stress comes from the pressure to do things in a different way we are not familiar with - something you've done dozens of times using procedure X gets pretty easy and routine. But when you're forced to now use procedure Z to accomplish the same task, suddenly it's unfamiliar, dangerous, uncertain, possibly will fail and what'll we do if it doesn't work, etc.
The trick is to get the right balance of old comfortable with the new & improved, and different people can tolerate different levels of each. Forcing someone who has trouble internalizing new procedures quickly will be stressed in a fast changing environment, while someone who can learn fast will quickly become bored in a repetitive, slowly changing environment.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I find find it hard to imagine you have ever personally worked in the fast food industry.
I did. When I turned 14 I got a job at the local McD's. Later I added Burger King during lunch rush (I'd skip out of class early, run to BK, work, scarf, get to class a tad late).
Believe me when I say this is the most stressful job I've ever had. Your manager may or may not speak the same language as you. Your customers ditto. When the store owner comes in to bust someone's butt, it ALWAYS rolls downhill.
Slick greasy floors (no matter how many times you mop them). A constant barrage of noise. Loading and unloading crate after crate of frozen material in the walk-in. 400F grease splattering nearby.
Your manager knows you're replacable. The customers don't have time to look you in the eye. You'll get yelled at by every 10 year old who forgot to tell you not to put mayo on your burger. YOU know you're in one of the absolute worst dead-end jobs that exist, and you only take it because it's the only one available.
Try it sometime (for 2 years or so) and then come talk to me about how easy we pimple-faced teens could kick back and enjoy our idyllic lifestyle.
-theGreater Ranter.
www.43folders.com
"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.
The central idea of this book, which was not really covered in the Slashdot review, is that you should not be using your brain to remember things about work. Every time you have a thought relevant to work -- an idea, a task to accomplish, a goal to achieve -- you should have some kind of information management system in place so that your thought gets recorded for future review and action.
I married Allen's advice with a cheap digital voice recorder and with a great piece of free Windows software called Keynote. Keynote is a tabbed outliner, where each of the main ten or so components to my life each get their own outline (in my case: speaking dates, website development, to do's, etc). It's really the only software that is keeping me using Windows. I use my Mac for nearly everything else.
Getting Things Done is perhaps the only business book that I intend to re-read. If you feel stressed about your work, and have this lingering feeling you're not as effective as you need to be, I really suggest a weekend with this book. Just know that you should be joining its advice with a software solution like Keynote, plus a (real-world) filing cabinet, as you seek to empty the stuff in your brain into its appropriate places.
Oh, and one more thing. Getting Things Done is a great piece of writing. And how often can you say that about a business book?
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
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
I started reading it two weeks ago. I'm still on chapter one but I'll finish it next week, I swear...
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Simple people talk of people, better people talk of events, great people talk of ideas.
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.
It's called "Das Kapital", you weenie.
Of course it's adversarial. It's also based on factory-thinking, that "productivity" is something you can stack like bricks.
So. Go read up on the IWW (aka the Wobblies), or get job that involves creativity, OR, suck it up.
Sometimes seventeen/Syllables aren't enough to/Express a complete
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
It *is* relevant, though. I've written some articles about GTD on my blog...
t y-gtd-getting-things-done.php
t y-gtd-methods-for.php
t y-gtd-pigpog-method.php
Introduction...
http://pigpog.com/michael/blog/2004/07/productivi
Methods...
http://pigpog.com/michael/blog/2004/08/productivi
The method I use...
http://pigpog.com/michael/blog/2004/08/productivi
Cutting it down *very* briefly, I don't keep a separate projects list, just have next actions with the project on the same line, sort of like...
Call Garage #Replace Tyres
It means you can only have one next action for a project, but saves a bit of overhead trying to match projects up to next actions.
PigPog.
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.
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.