I’ve talked before about how there are 1000000000 productivity apps, videos and books out there (I’m probably short a few zeros). You could easily spend the rest of your working life trying to learn the way to become as productive as possible. I, for one, have spent an ungodly amount of time reading and learning about personal productivity and then tweaking, refining and overhauling my own system.
And so, I decided to write a series that captures everything I’ve learned about personal productivity over the fifteen years or so, with two goals in mind. The first is to share everything I’ve spent so much time learning with others in a short and easily digestible format in the hopes that it might be helpful. The second goal is selfish. My hope is that by summarizing everything I know about this topic in a neat little package, I can then tell my brain, “There, see, I know this stuff. Now, can we please focus on learning about something else?”
Therefore, what I’m going to share in this series is for two types of people. The first are those who need help with personal productivity, organization, and managing an overloaded task list. The second group is those, like myself, who no longer benefit from personal productivity advice, and instead, use learning about productivity as a way to procrastinate from doing the actual work.
In short, my goal is to make this the last thing you’ll ever need to read about personal productivity.
Principles vs Tactics
You could spend (waste?) your life learning about personal productivity because the majority of what’s written on the subject is about tactics and tools. Tactics can change, evolve and become out of date. Tools come and go so fast you don’t even have a chance to learn how to use one before it’s replaced by another.
But the principles of productivity don’t change. That’s why whenever someone asks me for resources about productivity, I point them to one of four texts. The oldest of which is over a half century old, and the newest just recently celebrated its 20th anniversary last year.
They are:
The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker (1966)
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (1989)
The Pomodoro Technique by Francesco Cirillo (originally published online circa 1990)
Getting Things Done by David Allen (2001)
By reading (and applying) those four texts, you’ll learn everything you need to know about productivity and I believe that you’ll never have to read another book, blog post or watch another video ever again. BUT, to make things even easier for you, I’m going to boil things down to ten principles (plus a bonus), which, if mastered, will multiply your effectiveness, relieve your stress and allow you to accomplish your goals.
For the next few weeks, I’ll be sending out 2-3 emails, each with one principle. The goal is to break up what might otherwise be a length email and to give anyone who wants to try to apply these principles an approachable timeline for doing so.
And, just because I don’t want to make anyone wait, I’ll start right now. I’m hoping you’ll follow along.
Principle #1: Clearing your mind leads to better results and well-being
The objective of getting organized and implementing personal productivity techniques is NOT so that you can be a better employee, increase your output, or become “successful”. Those are side effects. The objective is to achieve mental clarity. David Allen, in Getting Things Done, calls this “mind like water.” The idea is that you can achieve a state where your mind isn’t bouncing from one idea to another, from task to task, from one set of worries to full blown anxiety.
This is done by taking all those ideas, tasks and worries and putting them on paper, or as Allen puts it, “capturing” them. Allen says that our brains are meant for having ideas, not for holding them. It’s when we try to hold things in our head that we get stressed.
Think about the last time you had a big day ahead of you. In your mind, you ran through through all the things that needed to get done, worrying that they wouldn’t. This is a completely normal reaction. However, the problem is we don’t just do this exercise once; we keep playing it on loop in the background of our minds, forever.
So, while you’re trying to fall asleep before your big day, you’re tossing and turning thinking about all the things that need to get done. Or, while you’re at dinner with friends, all you can think about is that big presentation that you have to give tomorrow. Or, while you’re at the park with the kids, all you can think of is where you’re going to be able to fit in doing the laundry, between making dinner and mopping the floors before your mother-in-law comes over.
But, by capturing these thoughts outside of your head, your mind can relax. It knows that the list is stored somewhere, and it doesn’t need to remember it. It’s now free to focus on what you’re doing in the moment (or worrying about the next thing that you haven’t yet added to the list).
How you capture these thoughts isn’t important. You could use a notebook, a pad of paper, sticky notes, your email or one of the zillions of apps that exist. At various times, I’ve tried all of the above, and I can’t recommend one more than any other, because the choice is personal. Just pick one and get started.
Tips
I won’t dictate what you use to capture your thoughts, but I will give you two tips. The first is that you should try to limit the number of places you capture ideas to as few as possible — ideally one, but please, no more than three. If you have your thoughts captured in emails you’ve sent to yourself, sticky notes in your office, your journal, a notebook you use for work, your to-do app, voice memos, and the whiteboard you installed in the shower because that’s where you have all your best thoughts, then you’re only marginally better off than if all those thoughts were still living in your head. Instead, pick as few capture tools as possible and stick to them.
The second tip is to try and pick a capture tool that works for your situation. The first edition of Allen’s book was written at the turn of the century, before technology had fully pervaded our lives, and so his recommended system is pen and paper. The advantage of paper is that it works no matter where you are. At your desk, on the go, on a call, doesn’t matter. You can always keep a notepad with you. But, if you’re someone who spends most of their day sitting at a computer, capturing all your ideas in a text file on your desktop might make more sense. Or, if you spend your day bouncing around, but always have your phone near you, maybe your notes app is better. Whatever you choose, just make sure it’s always accessible. Don’t decide you’re going to capture everything on sticky notes if you spend most of your day out and about (unless you carry sticky notes with you everywhere you go, in which case, you probably have a different problem, and you’re reading the wrong article)
Remember, I’m NOT trying to give you a specific system. I’m trying to give you principles that can work for anyone and that can be adapted to your unique set of circumstances.
Applying the principle
So, as your homework, pick a capture tool (two at most), and for the next two days, capture every single stray task that pops into your head. Whether it’s about tweaking the colour of the pie chart in your QBR presentation, or it’s remembering to pack apple sauce in the kids’ lunch, capture it in a system.
Once you’ve gotten all of your thoughts out of your head, we’ll move to principle #2 in the next email.