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Ready for Anything by David Allen

Ready for Anything by David Allen

by Parker · 309 things on Twos

52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life
Introduction: Make it easy to take it easy
Maximum productivity is making something happen with as little effort as possible
When people know they have a process in place to handle anysituation, they are more relaxed. When they're relaxed, everything improves.
One's ability to be productive was directly proportional to one's ability to relax.
Four main areas of productive behavior:
Capturing and corralling all our internal and external "open loops" to regain clarity and energy.
Consciously managing our focus within the multiple levels of outcomes and responsibilities to which we are committed.
Creating trusted structures and consistent usage of them to trigger the appropriate focus and reminders as necessary.
Grounding it all with flexible, forward motion at the physical-action level.
Water doesn't overreact or underreact. It doesn't react at all. It simply interacts with whatever comes to it and then returns to its natural state. Have a mind like water
It's most often the small things, done consistently in strategic places, that make the most difference.
Part 1: Clear your head for creativity
Sometimes the biggest gain in productive energy will come from cleaning the cobwebs, dealing with old business, and clearing the decks cutting loose debris that's impeding forward motion.
Cleaning up creates new directions
Completion of open loops, whether they be major projects or boxes of old stuff we've yet to purge and organize, prepares the ground for cleaner, clearer, and more complete energy for whatever shows up.
"The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war." - Asian proverb
"All intellectual improvement arises from leisure." - Samuel Johnson
Get a ubiquitous idea-capturing tool. Something to write or record things on, whenever they occur to you. You need something that's always with you—on the beach, in the health club, at your desk, out for dinner.
The older, wiser, and more sophisticated you get, personally and professionally, the more your best ideas about something happen somewhere they can't be implemented at that moment.
You might understand intellectually that you should get everything out of your head that has potential future value or represents potential agreements with yourself and others. But you have to put that into practice by writing it down when it pops in
You can only feel good about what you're not doing when you know what you're not doing
Stress comes from unkept agreements with yourself. You can relieve that stress only by canceling the agreement, keeping the agreement, or renegotiating it.
Many people are allergic to "getting organized" because they've experienced a consistent lack of success with using to-do lists.
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein
You need to collect everything that's on yourmind first, little or big. Then you need to assess each individual particle of that inventory and ask, "Is it actionable?" If so, what's the outcome? What's the next action? You then need to organize all the results of that thinking into appropriate categories. At that point, you can clearly review all your options of what to do and make the best choices, given all the criteria for reaching those decisions (time, energy, context, priorities, etc.).
Knowing your commitments create better choices of new ones
When you consciously track all your commitments, that same integrity will force you to discriminate and say no, because you'll be more aware of your capabilities.
If you've put things to read in various locations, you'll have trouble getting through any of them. Put them all in one place, and you'll handle many with a two-minute glance.
It's quite a feat to be able to stay conscious about what you're doing, know where you're going, identify all the things you've committed to, and cooperate with what's not happening—so you can totally concentrate on what is
"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials." - Lin Yutang
What would you really like to be free of? What discipline is needed where, to accomplish that?
Where could you use more looseness?
Where could you use more structure?
Getting to where you're going requires knowing where you are
What are your current tasks? Typically a person on any day will have between a hundred and two hundred of these to do
What are your current project? Most people have between thirty and a hundred of these.
What are your current areas of responsibility? Most people have ten to fifteen, including the main areas of a job (staff development, asset management, planning, customer service, etc.) and the key categories of the business of life (finances, health, family, household, career, recreation, etc.).
How are your job and personal affairs going to be changing in the next year?
How are your organization, your career, and your personal life going to change?
Why are you on the planet?
Infinite opportunity is utilized by finite possibility
"It's possible to own too much. A man with one watch knows what time is it; a man with two watches is never quite sure." - Lee Segall
The five stages of managing workflow: collect, process, organize, review, and do
"When life demands more of people than they demand of life—as is ordinarily the case—what results is a resentment of life almost as deep-seated as the fear of death." - Tom Robbins
Two commitments in your head create stress and failure
You are subliminally aware of all your commitments and they are stored in "psychic RAM" unless consciously and objectively tacked and reviewed
Priorities function only at the conscious level
If something is filed away in your memory (psychic RAM), it will use inappropriate, unproductive thinking space, and will probably be over- or undervalued
Maintaining a complete, current, and reviewable inventory of all the open loops, no matter how big or small they are, is a prerequisite for setting trustworthy priorities
Closing open loops releases energy
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." - Thomas Edison
If it's on your mind, it's probably not getting done
Something will "bug"you until you've clarified your intention about it (outcome), decided how to move on it (next action), and put reminders of the outcome and action in places your mind trusts that you'll see as often as you need to and at the right time.
Behaviors that ensure things get done: defining what "done"means, deciding what "doing" looks like, and installing the results of that thinking into a structure that most easily promotes implementation.
"To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end in life." - Robert Louis Stevenson
Your head is probably not the best place to keep something in a trustworthy fashion, yet we still keep over half our lives in there. A ton of woulds, coulds, shoulds, need-tos, ought-tos, and might-want-tos are jammed in our minds
Left only in the mind, these self-commitments create infinite loops that make no progress and produce inner conflict and stress
The solution is simple. Write it down. Look at it. Do it or say to yourself, "Not now." And trust that you'll see the option again whenever you need to reassess. Give it to a system superior to your mind, so your mental energy can move on to its bigger and better work.
Creativity shows up when there's space
When mental space has too many distractions and unmanaged agreements and loops, flow is limited. Clear the pipes and you attract and foster new, productive thinking that almost happens by itself.
A core principle in our personal-productivity methodology confronts this issue head-on: Write it all down, think about it all, decide what needs to be done about it all, and manage the options of it all in a consistently reviewed external system. The "all" factor can be awesomely revealing.
We have to know that no matter how finished we think we are, God isn't done with us until she is.
The deeper the channel, the greater the flow
Cleaning up and streamlining the systems of life and work increase our ability to handle greater engagement with the world and consequently galvanize unseen forces to fill the channels.
Unresolved issues and vulnerable systems will protect themselves by automatically and unconsciously stifling new input.
"Before everything else, getting ready is the key to success." - Henry Ford
The more time the merrier
Worry is a waste
If you don't do the weekly review, feeling that you should be thinking about something will constantly bother you. It will drain your time and your mind.
You are not your work
Uncaptured, unclarified, and therefore unmanaged things that you have agreed to do own a piece of you and give you no rest
"Be steady and well ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work." - Gustave Flaubert
"To control attention means to control experience, and therefore the quality of life." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
"When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean." - Lin-Chi
Part II: Focus Productively
The greatest power we have to affect our world is our ability to change how we see things.
Getting something to happen quicker, better, and bigger is seldom dependent on greater physical effort-it's likely going to require a shift in vision
For more clarity, look from a higher place
"The business of life is to go forward." - Samuel Johnson
"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another." - William James
In order to achieve clarity and be fully and positively engage in what you're doing, you must (1) know the goal or outcome you're intending and (2) decide and take the next physical move to propel you in that direction
Coasting is the most dangerous behavior of all
You won't see how to do it until you see yourself doing it
Outcome thinking and the willingness to visualize something's being true before it's physically present is a master skill that we all could probably develop to a much greater degree
"Nothing happens unless there is first a dream." - Carl Sandburg
Working hard enough is impossible
You need to simply be doing, in a careful and concerned way, without care or concern
"It is not enough to be busy... The question is: What are we busy about?" - Henry David Thoreau
"If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging." - Will Rogers
Energy follows thought
"Rule your mind or it will rule you." - Horace
"We fought so hard against the small things that we became small ourselves." - Eugene O'Neill
The clearer your purpose, the more ways to fulfill it
The more specific your vision or intention, the more expansive the creativity you will unleash.
The more you know why you are doing what you are doing, the more freedom you have to explore all kinds of ways to get there.
Every meeting in every organization should be canceled, only those that have a specific purpose should be rescheduled, and the intervals of standing meetings should be set based upon the needs of current reality instead of habit
"The average man does not know what to do with his life, yet wants another one which will last forever." - Anatole France
Best is much better than good
From the smallest activity to the loftiest goal, an intentional focus on the maximum fulfillment of its purpose generates information and inspiration unavailable from any other perspective.
There's a simple way to become indestructible: Have the intention to do your best at whatever you're doing, right now.
Attempting to be the best can easily have struggle, ego and recrimination as baggage, with win/lose as a format. But doing your best is a dynamic, ever-changing experience that is possible anytime, by anyone
"When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or the life of another." - Helen Keller
If I'm willing to give up my lust for comfort, my previous independence, and my sense of control to follow the directions of my intuitive guidance, I gain access to a much deeper satisfaction
When I sincerely ask myself, "What is the absolute best thing for me to be doing right now?" and when I'm willing to hear the answer and move on it, I become impervious to the slings and arrows of my own doubt, hesitancy, and self-judgment
Best does not mean perfect—it simply means best
"The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both." - James Michener
A change in focus equals a change in result
If you want different results, a change of focus is required.
Once you shift the image held in your mind, different things will automatically start to happen. Focus on red, red shows up. Focus on a different outcome fora conversation, and different thoughts will come to you
"Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm." - Robert Louis Stevenson
How good are you at creating a centered, balanced, aware, and open state of mind for the next input or impetus that emerges in your world?
When something pushes your button, rings your bell, grabs your attention, bothers, upsets, engrosses, or excites you, what is your lag time to unhook from those feelings, clear the decks internally, and engage again appropriately with a fresh perspective and with the new subject/object that must now be confronted?
What's your biggest problem or issue right now? How are you focusing on it? What image are you holding about it?
How easily can you drop any thoughts you have right now and focus on wild success?
Perspective is the most valuable commodity on the planet
"A change in focus equals a change in results."
An infinite number of things in the universe are held back from you only by your altitude and attitude
When you are inspired, leverage it to the hilt
You have to think about your stuff more than you think
We need to decide what the next action is for each thing we need to do
Write down the outcome and actions
Look at our reminders of what we need to do
"An hour of effective, precise, hard, disciplined, and integrated thinking can be worth a month of hard work. Thinking is the very essence of, and the most difficult thing to do in , business and life. Empire builders spend hour after hour on mental work... while others party. If you're not consciously aware of putting forth the effort to exert self-guided integrated thinking, if you don't act beyond your feelings and you take the path of least resistance, then you're giving in to laziness and no longer control your life." - David Kekich
"The ancestor of every action is a thought." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought." - Henri Bergson
You don't have to think about your stuff as much as you're afraid you might
"Thought is useful when it motivates for action, and a hindrance when it substitutes for action." - Bill Raeder
"The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous." - Margot Fonteyn
If you know what you're doing efficiency is the only improvement
"There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein
"Is is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere that it begins to have meaning." - P. D. Ouspensky
"Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." - Robert Heinlein
Clarify of purpose is necessary in order to know how to evaluate the experiences and possibilities moving my way.
"We have infinite trouble in solving man-made mysteries; it is only when we set out to discover the secret of God that our difficulties disappear." - Mark Twain
Only one thing on your mind is "in the zone"
If you are conscious, you cannot have an empty mind—it will always be focused on something. But if it only has one thing as a focus, with no inner distraction or conflict, you will be "in your zone." There will be no distinction between work and play, intense or relaxed. It's all the same
Giving full attention to one thing at hand is a hallmark of high performance
"The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons in any one of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world." - James Fenimore Cooper
What's keeping you from being totally present today, with whatever you're doing? What could you do to handle that?
Do you ever find yourself doing things to avoid doing something else?
The value of a future goal is the present change it fosters
"You've got to think about big things while you're doing small things so that all the small things go in the right direction." - Alvin Toffler
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably in themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die." - Daniel Hudson Burnham
What type of action is optimal for me right now? Is it best to take time to breathe, refocus in a subtler place, and shift to a higher and healthier perspective? Or do I need to put my physical butt in gear and get moving, to keep my agreements with myself and expand my expression in the world with more gusto and conscious involvement?
Imagine yourself wildly successful, five year from now. How would that feel? How would you relate with the world around you? Try it today
Part III: Create Structures That Work
We don't feel constrained by the limitations that really work for us
At times, tightening up our systems is what's needed to release new levels of output and expression
Stability on one level opens creativity on another
Form and function must match for maximum productivity
When in a creative mode, toss ideas onto a notepad or system
Projects and someday/maybe lists maintain the vision
Next-actions are ready when you're in a doer mode
The weekly review brings the visionary and doer together
Your system has to be better than your mind for your mind to let go
"This constant unproductive preoccupation with all the things we have to do is the single largest consumer of time and energy." - Kerry Gleeson
The weekly review—catching up with all your capturing, processing, and organizing—is the most critical habit to build, to ensure that relaxed control is a way of life instead of an exceptional experience
"The palest ink is clearer than the fondest memory." - Chinese saying
Response ability improves viability
"People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges." - W. E. Channing
"Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape." - Dr. Michael McGriffy
"If our work environment is easily understood, even by strangers, ... it also makes it easier to collect the wisdom of everyone." - Kio Suzaki
"The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it." - Dee Hock
Your system is only as good as its weakest link
A system relieves no pressure unless it truly handles its job 100 percent
The effectiveness of your system is inversely proportional to your awareness of it
Function follows form
"Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men." - Benjamin Disraeli
You can't win a game you haven't defined
"The work will teach you how to do it." - Estonian proverb
"The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret of outward success." - Henry Ward Beecher
Whenever two or more are responsible for something, usually nobody is
A boat has one skipper at a time
"A committee can make a decision that is dumber than any of its members." - David Coblitz
Prime your principles instead of policing your policies
"People should know what you stand for. They should also know what you won't stand for." - Unknown
"Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior." - Dee Hock
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - Albert Einstein
Use your mind to think about your work, instead of thinking of it
Your mind does not remember or remind very well, compared to what a good system can manage
"Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically—to promote a cause you believe in." - Saul Alinksky
You are thinking more valuably thank you may think
Give yourself the free to capture all kinds of thoughts that you can later reassess
"The best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas." - Linus Pauling
"The silly question is the first intimation of some totally new development." - Alfred North Whitehead
The necessity to plan and organize is inversely proportional to your perceived resources
It's only when you have the hard choices about how to allocate limited resources that the real need for clarity of direction and efficiency emerges
The most effective people will be the ones who have the least, relative to what they have committed to
What we truly most need to do is often what we most feel like avoiding
Frequently, the last thing in the world we are inclined to do is exactly what would most improve the situation
"The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or a curse." - Carlos Castaneda
"Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life." - Herbert Otto
Part IV: Relax and Get In Motion
You're the only one playing your game
Maintain relaxed control amid overwhelming amounts of incoming stuff
Define doable projects from ambiguous direction, initiatives, and pressures
Decide actions required when things show up versus when they blow up
Regroup, recalibrate priorities, and regain balance rapidly with new information and changing circumstances
Be alone, in cooperation with everyone else