Introduction
The art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of our great men.- Captain J.A. Hatfield
Teaches us how to be maximally efficient and relaxed, whenever you need or want to be.
What to do, when to do it and how to do it.
Teaches us how to be maximally efficient and relaxed, whenever you need or want to be.
What to do, when to do it and how to do it.
Chapter 1
Anxiety is caused by a lack of control, organization, preparation, and action.- david kekich
1. Capturing all the things that need to get done into a logical and trusted system outside of your head and off your mind.
2. Disciplining yourself to make front- end decisions about all of the inputs you let into your life so that you will always have a plan for next actions that you can implement or renegotiate at any moment.
Many of today's organizational outcomes require cross-divisional communication, cooperation, and engagement.
FOCUSING ON VALUES DOES NOT SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE. IT GIVES MEANING AND DIRECTION- AND A LOT MORE COMPLEXITY.
What our society is missing for a new culture of knowledge work is a system with a coherent set of behaviors and tools that functions effectively at the level at which work really happens. It must incorporate the results of big picture thinking as well as the smallest of open details. It must manage multiple tiers of priorities. It must mantain control over hundreds of new inputs daily. It must save a lot more time and effort than are needed to mantain it. It must make it easier to get things done.
If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. - shunryu suzuki
Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often does.
BASIC REQUIREMENTS FOR MANAGING COMMITMENTS
-Anything you consider unfinished in any way must be captured in a trusted system outside your mind, something like a collection bucket, that you know you'll come back to regularly and sort through.
-Clarify exactly what your commitment is and decide what you have to do, to make progress toward fullfiling it.
-You must keep reminders of them organized in a system you review regularly.
The real issue is how we manage actions.
The real problem is a lack of clarity and definition about what a project really is , and what the associated next-actions steps requiered are.
Intellectualy, the most appropiate way ought to be to work from the tip down, first uncovering personal and corporate missions, then defining critical objectives, and finally focusing on the details of implementation.
Horizontal control mantains coherence across all the activities in which you are involved.
You need a good system that can keep track of as many of them as possible, supply required information about them on demand, and allow you to shift your focus from one thing to the next quickly and easily.
Vertical control, in contrast, manages thinking up and down the track of individual topics and projects.
This is project planning. It's focusing on a single idea, and fleshing out whatever ideas, details, priorities and sequences of events may be required for you to handle it, at least for the moment.
The goal of both is to get things off your mind and get things done.
By worrying you are increasing tension and no progress was made.
1. Capturing all the things that need to get done into a logical and trusted system outside of your head and off your mind.
2. Disciplining yourself to make front- end decisions about all of the inputs you let into your life so that you will always have a plan for next actions that you can implement or renegotiate at any moment.
Many of today's organizational outcomes require cross-divisional communication, cooperation, and engagement.
FOCUSING ON VALUES DOES NOT SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE. IT GIVES MEANING AND DIRECTION- AND A LOT MORE COMPLEXITY.
What our society is missing for a new culture of knowledge work is a system with a coherent set of behaviors and tools that functions effectively at the level at which work really happens. It must incorporate the results of big picture thinking as well as the smallest of open details. It must manage multiple tiers of priorities. It must mantain control over hundreds of new inputs daily. It must save a lot more time and effort than are needed to mantain it. It must make it easier to get things done.
If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. - shunryu suzuki
Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often does.
BASIC REQUIREMENTS FOR MANAGING COMMITMENTS
-Anything you consider unfinished in any way must be captured in a trusted system outside your mind, something like a collection bucket, that you know you'll come back to regularly and sort through.
-Clarify exactly what your commitment is and decide what you have to do, to make progress toward fullfiling it.
-You must keep reminders of them organized in a system you review regularly.
The real issue is how we manage actions.
The real problem is a lack of clarity and definition about what a project really is , and what the associated next-actions steps requiered are.
Intellectualy, the most appropiate way ought to be to work from the tip down, first uncovering personal and corporate missions, then defining critical objectives, and finally focusing on the details of implementation.
Horizontal control mantains coherence across all the activities in which you are involved.
You need a good system that can keep track of as many of them as possible, supply required information about them on demand, and allow you to shift your focus from one thing to the next quickly and easily.
Vertical control, in contrast, manages thinking up and down the track of individual topics and projects.
This is project planning. It's focusing on a single idea, and fleshing out whatever ideas, details, priorities and sequences of events may be required for you to handle it, at least for the moment.
The goal of both is to get things off your mind and get things done.
By worrying you are increasing tension and no progress was made.
Chapter 2
This is the horizontal aspect of our lives- incorporating everything that has our attention at any time
We collect things that command our attention
Process what they mean and what to do about them
Organize the results,
which we Review as options for hat we choose to
DO
Collect:
You have to know that you have truly captured everything that might represent something you have to do, and that at some point in the near future you will process and review all of it.
Collect and gather together representations of all the things you consider incomplete in your world - anythings personal or professional, that you think ought to be different than it currently is and that you have any level of internal commitment to changing.
examples are:
physical in basket
paper based note taking devices
electronic note taking devices
voice recording devices
email
All of them capture potential useful information, commitments, and agreements for action.
1. every open loop must be in your collection system and out of your head
2. you must have as few collection buckets
3. you must empty them regularly.
You can't organize what's incoming- you can only collect it and process it. Instead, you organize the actions you'll need to take based on the decissions you've made about what needs to be done.
Once you've decided to do it, delegate it or defer it.
Do it- if an action will take less than two min. it should be done at the moment it is defined
Delegate it- if the action will take longer than 2 min. ask yourself, Am I the right person to do this? If the answer is no, delegate it to the appropriate entity
Defer it- If the action will take longer than 2 min, and you are the right person to do it, you will have to defer acting on it until later and ttrack it on one or more "Next actions" lists.
Projects need to be on a master list so you can review them regularly enough to ensure that appropriate next actions have been defined for each of them.
What has to be tracked is every action that has to happen at a specific time or an specific day, those that can be done as soon as they can, and all those that you are waiting for others to do
Three things go on your calendar:
Time- specific actions
Day- specific actions
Day-specific information
Someday/Maybe lists and a "tickler file"(email to yourself, future)
Review your lists as often as you need to, to get them off your mind.
Weekly Review, cleaned up, clarified, and renegotiated all their agreements with themselves and others
1. Context
2.Time available
3.Energy available
4.Priority
We collect things that command our attention
Process what they mean and what to do about them
Organize the results,
which we Review as options for hat we choose to
DO
Collect:
You have to know that you have truly captured everything that might represent something you have to do, and that at some point in the near future you will process and review all of it.
Collect and gather together representations of all the things you consider incomplete in your world - anythings personal or professional, that you think ought to be different than it currently is and that you have any level of internal commitment to changing.
examples are:
physical in basket
paper based note taking devices
electronic note taking devices
voice recording devices
All of them capture potential useful information, commitments, and agreements for action.
1. every open loop must be in your collection system and out of your head
2. you must have as few collection buckets
3. you must empty them regularly.
You can't organize what's incoming- you can only collect it and process it. Instead, you organize the actions you'll need to take based on the decissions you've made about what needs to be done.
Once you've decided to do it, delegate it or defer it.
Do it- if an action will take less than two min. it should be done at the moment it is defined
Delegate it- if the action will take longer than 2 min. ask yourself, Am I the right person to do this? If the answer is no, delegate it to the appropriate entity
Defer it- If the action will take longer than 2 min, and you are the right person to do it, you will have to defer acting on it until later and ttrack it on one or more "Next actions" lists.
Projects need to be on a master list so you can review them regularly enough to ensure that appropriate next actions have been defined for each of them.
What has to be tracked is every action that has to happen at a specific time or an specific day, those that can be done as soon as they can, and all those that you are waiting for others to do
Three things go on your calendar:
Time- specific actions
Day- specific actions
Day-specific information
Someday/Maybe lists and a "tickler file"(email to yourself, future)
Review your lists as often as you need to, to get them off your mind.
Weekly Review, cleaned up, clarified, and renegotiated all their agreements with themselves and others
1. Context
2.Time available
3.Energy available
4.Priority