Cutline Speaks

Release Drag Off the System

posted by Morgan on January 15, 2009

How do you "release drag off the system"? This is what I learned last night from David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, who talked about how to achieve stress-free productivity. Referencing a few high-profile executives he has coached, he claims that it's possible to be free of stress and have nothing on your mind. When you are totally lost in a single activity and not thinking of anything else you have to do (like all the email piling up in your inbox while you're reading this post), you're working at your maximum productivity. In fact, he says that you are ripping people off when you're not 100% invested in what you're doing at the present moment (kind of like the "email voice").

Curiously, Allen describes himself as a lazy person, always looking for the easiest way to get something done. At the conclusion of his talk, a woman in the audience asked him, "What is the easiest way to master everything you talk about in your book without reading it?" His answer? All you need is a pen and paper and follow the steps below.

1) Do a mind dump. What has your attention right now? Write this thing down on a piece of paper. Then, capture any project, task, to-do that is not complete and get it down on paper.

2) Clarify what it all means. Read every item on your list and figure what each thing means. Ask yourself: "Can I take action on it?" If so, then you can organize into a specific list. For example, you can create lists for specific projects, house, health, ideas, want to do, etc.

3) Decide next steps. Once you have organized all the things you need to do into lists, go through and decide what needs to be done next. If you don't know where to start on your lists(s), simply start with the one thing that has most of your attention all of the time.

If you want to learn more, including the underlying principles behind his steps to stress-free productivity, then read one of his books. We're reading Getting Things Done for our book club this quarter, so I'm sure we'll all be on our way to getting even more things done in 2009.

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