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Getting Things Done:  The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

I admit it, I'm an organizational and time management junkie.  I don't mean that I am very organized or very proficient at time management, merely that I enjoy reading books and picking up tips  on the subject.  It's very like my interest in housekeeping and cooking manuals.  I really don't enjoy cleaning, but I relish knowing how to do it; I also like filing away decorating and household hints for the time when I'm back in a house of my own.

Getting Things Done is a comprehensive system that I don't quite buy into.  There are many, many good aspects to the system and I picked up a few really great hints.  Still, as a whole this system seems to require more organization than it gives.  And that's fine, if you're already an organized person, but the behavioral changes required seem less likely for those of us whose schedules are free form and whose organization is not good on the "repetitive task" level.  I did, however, get some strong ideas that I'm going to integrate into my own life.

The first is listing all "open loops" as Allen calls them--all promises of action to self or others--in order to clear one's mental space to have new creative ideas.  Allen suggests writing each "open loop" on it's own piece of paper to include in your inbox.  Granted this is a "getting started" suggestion (once you learn how to assess for next actions you can go straight to that point), but it seems a waste of time and paper to me.  I'd just as soon set up lists titled as he suggests with "Next Action" "Someday/Maybe" "Waiting For" "Computer" and "Errands" and spill the ideas out there, or in a Word document to be divided later.  I did learn in this process not to censor myself.  On the "Someday/Maybe" lists I have things that I don't actually know if I ever intend to get 'round to.  That's an important step, because once you have them listed, you can decide whether you want to take action on them or whether you want to let them go.  According to Allen, you can't do that effectively if they are only stored in your mind because they are always creating sort of a background hum.  Being a fan of the written word, I'm all for this strategy.

Another thing I learned to how to break down larger tasks into small and discrete physical actions.  For instance, I might have "get oil change" on my list, but the next action is actually calling the car shop and scheduling the oil change.  Setting up a list as a group of actions does two things:  it forces you to think about what must actually, physically happen next in order to get something done, and it eliminates having to take that mental step every time you look through your list.  Sadly my next action on "finish writing chapter one of the dissertation" is just finish the writing, damnit.  :)

Overall, the book is potentially helpful, but I'd recommend checking it out at the library rather than buying a copy.