Improving My Productivity (and lowering my stress)
A few weeks ago, while on tour in New York, I purchased and started reading Getting Things Done (GTD). In this book, David Allen presents a simple and system-oriented approach to reducing stress and improving your personal workflow. Upon my return home, I invested the approximately 20 hours required to reset my office and computer per his suggestions.
While it was torture spending a few days doing nothing but moving, purging, labeling and filing, I am amazed at how it has improved my ability to get my head above water. For example, I can now locate every active project and/or task which might require my attention with minimal effort and without moving my chair. I now have things where they need to be WHEN they need to be!
Once I completed this organizational transition, I bought multiple copies of the book and made them available to every member of our team – offering to purchase the required materials for the transition upon the completion of the book. After a few days, Trey Caliva (our Director of Information Technology) had read the book and reorganized his file system.
Trey immediately brought to my attention a web application called Remember The Milk (RTM) which is a fantastic tool for managing projects and tasks both on your own and as part of a team (suggested to Trey by Jonathan Stark). As I researched RTM, I found that a number of blogs discussed the use of RTM in concert with GTD. After 2 more hours of setup and task shoveling, I now have RTM synched to my Blackberry so all of my tasks are always at my fingertips.
I am currently ten days into this lifestyle change and I must say that I feel like my grip on both my professional life and personal life is better than ever.
- When I go to the store, I know what groceries I need
- Before a meeting, I am able to review all tasks and projects pertinent to attendees
- My inbox (both real and email) is EMPTY!
- I have not once in 10 days sat at my desk wondering what to do next
- I have not missed a deadline (even a self-set deadline) in 10 days
While most of the world may be perfectly organized and able to keep up with their lives without a system such as the one mentioned above, I know that my family, my team, and I will all be better off thanks to this recent organizational paradigm shift.