David Allen, Getting Things Done

I'm a big fan of David Allen's Getting Things Done system. A number of the principles I read in his book I've incorporated into how I "get things done." What's most helpful about Allen's book/system is the whole notion of getting things out of your head and off your mind so that you can actually quit worrying about stuff, enjoy life, and be more effective at handling your responsibilities.Whatever line of work you're in, this book has some wisdom for you. I especially recommend it to twentysomethings who are right now forming crucial work and life habits. Below is a brief excerpt from Allen's recent interview with Homiletics Online where Allen explains how his system is helpful for pastors. No matter your line of work, this interview gives you a great glimpse of what Getting Things Done (GTD) is all about. 

HOMILETICS: Pastors consider themselves to be very busy people doingministry that has a high level of value for them. They manage a coregroup of volunteers; they visit the sick in the hospital, the troubledin their homes; they attend meetings, and they’re also expected to havetime to prepare for a sermon, plan the worship experience and so on.What advice do you have for them?ALLEN: It’s the advice I have for anyone who has to maintain aninventory of what I call open loops, that is, things that you’recommitted to do but you can’t finish when you think of it, but you haveto keep track of it.You need a whole series of “best practices” and techniques — to beable to manage that, you have to be able to know that you’ve capturedthe inventory of what those are, that you’ve clarified what those are,that you’ve organized the results of those in coherent way, so thatwhen you’re doing whatever you’re doing — whether you’re visiting insomeone’s house or writing a sermon — you don’t have the rest of thatinventory encroaching on your psyche so that you can be fully availableto whatever you’re doing when you’re doing it.But your brain won’t let you loose from that until it trusts thatthere’s a better system than it. You can fool me, but not your brain.And so the problem is that your system isn’t better than your brain,your brain keeps trying to do it but it doesn’t do it very well, itgets it all mixed up, it tries to do everything at once, there’s nosense of past or future in there, so you feel you should be doing that“other thing” even though you can’t be doing it right now, but part ofyou thinks you should be doing it right now.The basic message is that it’s possible to be fully available forwhatever you’re doing with no sense of being overwhelmed, have timedisappear and be totally on with what you’re doing, and still be buriedin your life, but you don’t get that for free! You have to maintainthese best practices that manage this.HOMILETICS: So you have a message of hope! [laughter]ALLEN: It’s not a belief system. You can test it out. It’s pure mechanics: You do this, you produce this result. Your mind is made for having ideas, not for holding ideas.HOMILETICS: An ancient rabbi was once asked to explain or define hisfaith while standing on one foot. So he recited the Shema. Standing onone foot, what is the “Getting Things Done” or GTD system?ALLEN: Keep it all out of your head, determine specifically what theoutcomes and the action steps on actionable items are, parse thatthinking into trusted places, review them and reflect on them asappropriate, and trust your heart in terms of your choices and options.HOMILETICS: I believe you could have said that standing on one foot![laughter] You say that you can’t do projects and pastors are veryproject oriented, they’ve got balls in the air all the time. We’regoing into Lent, the Lenten brochure needs to be printed, the Biblestudy needs to be organized and so on. What do you mean that we can’t“do” projects?ALLEN: You can’t do an outcome. You can’t do taxes. All you can doare physical actions: boot computer, type words, pick up phone, walkbody. You can only do actions. It’s just that a project is actually anoutcome so that if I do enough of the right actions I can say that mytaxes are done, my church is built, my assistant is hired. You don’tactually do a project.People say, “I don’t have time to do a project.” And I say, “Dowhat?” Well, they haven’t figured that out yet. They haven’t figuredwhat the doing looks like. So you don’t know how much time you need.Because you can’t do a project, you can only do an action about it.(read the whole thing here)(HT: bob hyatt)