EffTD Interview Part One: David Allen
Written by Mike Vardy
Wednesday, 08 April 2009
David Allen
Right before last month’s GTD Summit, I had the opportunity to chat with the surprisingly reasonable and like-minded David Allen. I say this only because prior to contacting him, I’d been of the mindset that he was a staunch anti-supporter of Eventualism and EffTD. Quite the contrary, as you’ll read here - seems as if he’s given EffTD his own seal of approval!
For those of you unfamiliar with Allen’s work, I have two things to mention:
1. He is the creator of the popular productivity system and accompanying book Getting Things Done (or GTD for short - it’s an acronym). His latest book is entitled Making It All Work and it expands and refines what he’s been preaching for the past several years.
Email is for grownups. There, I said it and now I’ll walk away. Seriously though, for those of us who work with young people, texting is the preferred medium of communication, not email. Facebook postings would be a close second. As for email, many young people think of it as old school, “so 1990’s” they will tell you.
But as an adult, I rely on email to send documents, communicate on a number of levels and in general get things done. There are however some things that you just can’t expect from email users…
That people check email as often as you. It’s frustrating for folks who check email often to communicate with those who don’t. Don’t expect that everyone else has the same availability or even desire to check email as often as you might.
That email will be the norm for business communication within five years. With the power of Facebook posts, texting and Twittering, email just might become a thing of the past within the next few years.
That sending an email ensures that the recipient will read it when you want them to. It’s not enough to send something very early in the morning and then expect that your recipient either got it or had the time to read it an hour later.
That emailing is a habit more than anything else. Most of the people I know have poor email habits. I can fall into this from time to time as well. Joan checks it daily. Bob every other day. Cary lets it pile up and then blitzes her inbox once a month at best. Just accept this and figure out best ways to communicate with people- email might not be their thing.
In a GTD world, email is a must. From a human nature standpoint, the habit of email may need work. Clearing out open loops (i.e. an in box) and negotiating the agreements that email may symbolize is clearly a GTD principle.
Working the dash is not a new concept. Merlin has written about dashes a few times, and our very own James Mallinson wrote about it last week in a roundabout way. But I’ve recently discovered for myself how well it works, especially with stuff I’ve been putting off.
Now, I don’t go so far as to set up an elaborate forumula for it like the [’(10+2)*5′] technique, but the whole concept of working within a small window of time has proved effective for me. I can’t really say much about it that hasn’t been said before, but I can share my own experiences and examples.
The other night, my computer warned me that it’s scheduled shutdown was in ten minutes. So, I went ahead and quickly read some articles and dashed off a couple of e-mails that I had been putting off. I was surprised how much I had gotten done in just a short time. It was pretty exciting.
His name is Bob and he’s a landscaper. A super nice guy who works his tail off and has a beautiful home. He also happens to be my neighbor. What makes Bob more than a blog post is that he’s constantly working on his yard. Cutting down trees, trimming shrubs, planting grass. Makes sense since he’s a professional.
Each year, I watch Bob ramp up in the Spring for what will be another round of yard projects and each year I fantasize about what it would be like to really Get Things Done in my own yard, which isn’t shabby in its own right. As I watched him spread some grass seed yesterday while our family was sitting down for dinner, one thought crossed my mind…
Game on.
This year, I plan to use the GTD methodology to go from project plan to project done. I wrote 9 Ways to Take the Stress Out of House Repair for LifeHack and a quick review of that article is a good primer for anyone who owns a home and is trying to do some repairs.
For me, I’ll use the following (simple) system for this year’s projects:
List projects now and as they come into my head; put them in one place so it will be easy to find them.
Collect photos, ideas, etc. in two places. In my journal, I’ll keep the master project list and insert clippings from the newspaper or magazines. On my MAC, I’ll use Evernote for web clippings. My iPhone version of Evernote will also come in handy.
I’ll then sketch out a tentative time frame for my projects, prioritizing them in a fluid way that allows for flexibility. In other words, in the Spring, I’ll do X and in June, I’ll tackle Y.
I’ll also use some key dates as benchmarks. My daughter’s first Communion party will be in May so that’s a good date to keep in mind. July 4th weekend is also key as we’ll have folks over, etc.
Get it done. By not tackling four projects at one time, I’ll aim for one project from start to finish, then move on to the next one.
I’m thankful for my neighbor. Without him, I might not have the motivation to do some home improvements that will ultimately make our yard more enjoyable. How about you? What’s your system for getting things done around the house?
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April 8th, 2009 by Stephen
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