Since I could remember, I've been obsessed with structure and organization that facilitate clarity and efficiency. I'm always trying to find the perfect way to leverage Jira, Confluence, Trello, and a thousand other tools to make work and life easier. It's gotten better, but it's far from perfect.
Recently, I started listening to the David Allen's audio book, "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity". In only a few chapters, this audio book has inspired me to completely revamp how I "get things done".
While I haven't heard the entire GTD system or even fully grasped everything I've heard, here are a few concepts that have already helped me become more productive at work and helped my family become more productive at home.
TLDR: always put actions, ideas, and reminders in a place that gets them out of your head but always in reach.
"Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them." - David Allen
During any conversation, standup meeting, product demo, or business lunch, things come up that require some sort of action. It could be a follow-up meeting, a development requirement, or even just the need to send an email. People in the meeting will agree that something should happen, but we frequently don't record it anywhere. I've witnessed and been apart of countless incidents where someone says, "let's meet about that later today", only to have a potentially important discussion lost to the ether.
While Andy Young and I were having a conversation, Brad Spangler called Andy's cellphone. Andy told Brad he'd call him back in a couple minutes. I was compelled to add some GTD into Andy's life and slacked him the message "call Brad back". 30 minutes later, Andy looked at his phone, saw the notification, and said something like, "OH RIGHT. CALL BRAD", removing any possibility that Andy would encounter the dreaded "wasn't there something I was supposed to do?"
Sorry for throwing you under the bus, Andy. I'm sure it's an environmentally-friendly bus or something.
Whenever there is an action to take, put it into a next action list. A trap that we all fall into is by filling these lists with things that are not actually physical actions. "Figure out how to authenticate to IS4" is not a single physical action a person can take. There are potentially several steps required to "figure something out". What should actually be recorded as a next action is "schedule a meeting with Jonathan Simpson to gain his IS4 knowledge" or "Google for IS4 documentation".
When your next action lists contain physical activities, it makes completing individual tasks seem less daunting. A stress-free individual is a more productive individual.
The single most helpful tool I've gotten from the GTD system so far is this 2-minute rule.
If an action is going to take you 2 minutes or less, do it. Have to send a short confirmation email? Write it and send it now. Have to make a purchase request, schedule a meeting with Ole, or let the dogs out? Do it now.
Having a clear criterion for completing tasks before they even hit your next action list frees up your mind and your day more than can be described in this post. Give it a shot.
I try to look at my next actions lists (I use Trello boards) on a regular basis, but I frequently forget to. Something that has helped me out a lot is having a recurring alarm in my phone reminding me to go to Trello and look things over. For me, eating (which I do all day long) is the perfect time to check these lists.
The next action lists are only useful if you actually do the tasks on the list. If a task has sat there for a few weeks or months, the list is not serving its purpose. You may need to split that action up into smaller ones or take a different approach.
TLDR: email or physical inboxes are not meant to be storage containers. Clear them regularly.
I've seen 20, 50, 80, even thousands of emails in a single inbox. One word to describe those inboxes: "useless". Does your inbox have the following stuff in it?
- Company announcements that you haven't read yet
- Requests for a status update on some project
- FYI emails about some infrastructure change coming in the next 3 months
- The 70th reminder that you have something due in Master Control
- A reply from Ole saying "+1" to one of Andy's Friday Funnies
- If so, you really should clean it up.
If you keep information of such different content and purpose all in the same place, it's hard to know at a glance what is important and what isn't.
But sorting through so many emails of varying lengths is very time consuming. What do you do with them all? Try sorting things into the following folders/categories:
Information that doesn't require any action, but could be useful later
- Field maps/rosters
- Demo videos
- Company Calendars
- Blog posts from some nerd at the company
I might have to do something with this later... but not right now
- A reminder about the upcoming "Wellness Lunch & Learn"
- A development requirement for a project coming up in a few months
- The 70th reminder that you have something due in Master Control
- For things with an associated time or date, it's best to put reminders in your calendar.
This email is too long for me to read right now
Anything that's longer than you have time to read at that moment
Don't delete emails. You'll regret it.
I've deleted emails only to find out that I needed them a week later approximately 23049857230984572083945 times. Never again. Until your mailbox is almost full, just throw everything you don't want into an archive folder. So what about all the stuff that actually requires some sort of action? Get them out of your inbox and onto a next action list. Is it going to take you a minute or 2 to figure out what that action is? Figure it out. Is it going to take you longer than that? Determine a few actions that could help you figure it out, put them in your next actions list, and schedule any meetings required.
Get them out of your inbox and onto a next action list. Is it going to take you a minute or 2 to figure out what that action is? Figure it out. Is it going to take you longer than that? Determine a few actions that could help you figure it out, put them in your next actions list, and schedule any meetings required.
The inbox is not for holding your mail. It's a fork in the road leading to several different destinations. Don't park your car at the fork in the road. Don't leave stuff in your inbox.
There's a whole lot more to say about this subject, but this post is already long enough, and I haven't even finished the audio book. If you're interested in learning, I'd recommend buying the book or audio book or checking out David Allens' website.
The bottom line is this: regardless of how good your memory is, you can't keep every important piece of information in your head. You need to get it out onto paper or some digital format that you can rely on. If you start to work this way, you will definitely become more productive and be less stressed out about your workload. If you don't want to take my word for it, try it for a couple hours. It's real nice, Clark.