This summer my family went on a 45+ hour road trip. (Here we are at Niagara Falls). I know, I know, a great opportunity for quality family time. But one or two books on tape while the kids watched a video. C’mon, it’s OK, right?
Somewhere between mile 1700 and mile 1850, on the road to Montreal, I listened to David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Being my own CEO has brought time management demands to a whole new level since the time I worked a corporate job. I thought I knew about most of the really good time management tools, but this model blew that wide open. Three key elements in particular really excited me:
- The world has changed. We have more opportunities than ever but are also doing more, and more scattered, things. Just acknowledging that makes the overwhelm a little bit less “my fault,” which is good for the hard on ourselves out there.
- Getting it down and out of your head leaves you so much more mental space for thinking. I’ve always written things down, but getting it all down has let me tackle the first of several long-term projects that have been floundering on my desk for months.
- Have a downstream process. Bam! I get it. Parts of my To Do list are like a kid’s food on the plate. It gets moved around, but never eaten. With a system, you can know when and how things will get done and focus better on what’s in front of you.
Big happy sigh.
If you do get the book, don’t let doing it perfectly weigh you down. I do tend to be “born again” in my excitement when I discover something. Then I let it settle and just use the elements that work for me.
Enjoy the back to school!
Claire
I feel better already! Systems do help me be confident that “if it’s important, I will encounter it again at the right time”