I have to say that for the past few days, I've found myself less stressed, more relaxed, and more in control of my life and my work, and this is a great feeling!
Lately, I've been finding my general "To Do" list growing and growing. I have a number of personal projects that I'm working on, and more that I would like to do; I have several work projects for clients; I have a growing "Honey Do" list, and there are a number of general "Things that need to be done" that I don't want to neglect. What I wasn't noticing was that all of this was slowing building up as stress in my life. And what's really interesting, is how that stress silently sneaks up on you.
When you have a lot to do in your life, you need to keep things organized if you want to keep your sanity. What you don't realize is that, in your head, you're constantly juggling a huge list of things you need to do. Even while you're not actively thinking about it, there are mental reminders constantly churning in your head, and the more you have to remember, the more churning that takes place. If you can get all of these mental reminders out of your head, you're much more likely going to be able to relax and enjoy life. Not only that, but you can be much more productive.
A few years ago, I came across a book called, "Getting Things Done." It was written by David Allen, who is a management consultant specializing in coaching people to become more productive and stress-free. I didn't know anything about him, but I was certainly interested in becoming more organized. At the time, I was taking more things on, and I wanted to make sure I was organized and not wasting my time. The title of his book was simple, and very clearly stated my goal. As I read his book, I found his methodology to be quite simple and effective, requiring little more than discipline be effective. Now, here I am, just a few years later, and I find myself in the same boat. I have a lot to do; I have more that I want to get done; I don't want things slipping between the cracks; and I don't want to be wasting my time. Having recognized that, I started looking at ways to organize myself. Without going into detail, I started playing with a number of tools to organize things. All of these tools had their strengths, but they weren't effective in allowing me to organize all that I was doing. I was getting a little frustrated, and then all of a sudden it dawned on me. I had a system for doing this. I just wasn't using it.
As I see it, in it's simplest view, the Getting Things Done methodology focuses on taking all of the input coming at you from various sources (email, phone calls, conversations, paper of various kinds, ideas, etc.) and collecting them to be dealt with at the appropriate time. By doing this, you find that tasks don't end up slipping between the cracks, they get done, and you are less stressed and able to focus on actually getting things done. Now there are a lot books and resources online that talk about the Getting Things Done methodology, and I'm not an expert, so I'm not going to launch into a full-blown description or tutorial of how it works. I recommend reading the book, Getting Things Done, and visiting David Allen's website if you really want to start getting organized. In a nutshell, however, there are 5 steps to the process.
First, you start by collecting all of the stuff coming in to you. Get them into places that you can trust will hold them until you're able to process them. This way you can get them out of your short-term memory where they're only going to cause stress and potentially be forgotten. I use my email inbox (which is, granted, a default since I get so much email), a physical "In" box on my desk, and a digital voice recorder. I have to say that I love my voice recorder. I use it for brain-storming while commuting, and I use it as a way to record quick reminders for things like checking out a website that I heard about on the radio. Sometimes I also use my pockets where I might toss a brief note, but that ends up in the in-box on my desk.
Second, you need to process all of the stuff that you've collected. the purpose of this is step is not to actually do things, but to move them on to where they need to be in order to get the proper attention. For example, when I process my email in-box, each message is quickly scanned, then either stored as reference material, turned into a task that needs to be done, or deleted. Of course, if it's something that can be done in just a minute or two, its most effective to just do it right away rather than spending extra time routing it through some process. For example, I had two email messages in my in-box that I left there for over a year each. They were both messages where friends had provided new contact information. All I needed to do was to update a contact record in Outlook and be done with it, but instead I just left it to be done for "later". I definitely spent more time looking at those messages and remembering what needed to be done with them than I would have spent on them if I just dealt with them right away. I also process the memos in my voice recorder. Another thing that I love about my recorder is that I can listen to just a bit of a given recording, and if I want to make a task out of it, I don't have to transcribe the whole recording. I just add a brief description, then copy the actual audio file into the task. That way I can listen to it in detail when I need to, and not take forever when processing.
Third, you need to organize all of this stuff that you've collected and processed. If your repository is disorganized, you're not going to be able to trust in that system. If you can't trust in that system, your stress level will continue to increase as you worry about things slipping through the cracks - which of course, they will. I find that the Outlook plug-in for Getting Things Done really helps in this area. When I file something, there are a number of attributes that get assigned to it. First, it gets assigned to a project. This can be a formal project such as something I've been contracted to do for a client, or it can be less formal, such as "self-improvement" or "household maintenance". You can also assign sub-projects, which simply helps to further organize the projects. Second, it gets assigned an action. An action is very high-level that really defines what type of work it is. Is it a phone call, something to do at home, something to do on the computer, an errand, or what? This categorization is great as you can locate all of your errands, despite the project they're assigned to, and do them all at once. Similarly, if you find yourself waiting somewhere for a short period of time, you might look to see what phone calls you need to make. There are also a few other helpful ways of organizing things. They can be stored as reference material or ticklers for actions that you may or may not want to do way down the road - something of potential interest that you would like to pursue if and when the time is right and you feel like doing it.
Fourth, and this is critical, you need to perform regular reviews of your repository. There are actually three different kinds of reviews. One review is done daily, or close to it. The goal of this review is to spend a little time keeping yourself in touch with what's on your plate. Just by staying on top of this, you find yourself in tune with your projects and more able to quickly prioritize what you need to do at any given moment. The second review is a weekly review. The purpose of this review is to cleanup your repository. Mark things completed, and review your projects to make sure they continue to move forward. The final type of review is done less frequently, and is more of a strategic review. It helps you review your projects in the light of your longer-term goals and visions, to make sure they're moving you in the direction you want to go.
And finally, you need to get things done; you need to do things. At any point in time, based on where you are, how much time you have, how much energy you have, and what your priorities are, you need to make decisions about what to do right now. What's really cool about this system is that you truly do stay on top of things, which keeps you connected to your projects, and ultimately make it almost effortless to decide what to do with your time. It becomes intuitive to choose what to do at a moment it time so that you don't waste time thinking about it.
And that's it. While it takes some discipline and effort to implement and work within this system, it ends up making things easier overall. I spent a few days collecting and organizing probably 80% of what I needed to address, and the rest is coming in regularly as part of the process. As a result, I'm already finding myself to be significantly more productive and relaxed. On a few occasions, I've found myself with limited time that might have otherwise been considered dead-time where there simply wasn't enough time to launch into starting something new. Instead of wasting the time, I was able to quickly identify a task that could be addressed in the time available, and I got it done. It was a great feeling. I find I take great pleasure in being able to mark a task as complete. I'm also finding myself to be less stressed, and as a result, my mind is more clear. With a clearer mind, my thoughts are more creative. I find myself creatively contemplating tasks more, and popping out the voice recorder to capture those thoughts. And finally, I'm finding that I'm putting time into those lower-priority tasks that generally never get any attention. They're fresher in my mind, and I'm able to address them when the time is right and I'm not working on something with a higher priority.
As you might conclude, I'm definitely sold on this system. If you want to reduce stress in your life and you want to get more things done, I highly recommend the Getting Things Done system. It's working great for me.