In David Allen’s modern classic book on personal productivity, Getting Things Done he describes an ideal state of mind:

Imagine throwing a pebble into a still pond. How does the water respond? The answer is, totally appropriately to the force and mass of the input; then it returns to calm. It doesn’t overreact or underreact.

A mind like water is a disciplined mind, a mind focused on the right things, at the right times. David Allen places this in the context of personal productivity, getting the things you need to get done, done. David Allen’s Getting Things Done system can help you clear the clutter from your daily task list and help you order your life in a way that is consistent with your values.

I think there’s actually a spiritual component to this, if we’re open to it: the very biblical concepts of stewardship and working “as for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23).

It’s so easy in the digital-age of distraction to forget the sacred trust of time that we’ve been given. In midst of “important” emails, social media notifications, and activity-packed schedules, we miss the important because we’re too preoccupied with the urgent. I’ll be the first to admit that I have sometimes gone weeks and then wondered why I haven’t made progress on the stuff that really matters to me. When that happens I know I haven’t been disciplined in my approach to managing the many things that demand and deserve my attention.

It’s possible to be very busy, but still procrastinate and put off the most important things. This naturally leads to anxiety, restlessness, and stress even though it might seem like you’re workin hard on the surface. This is where a disciplined system can be a huge help. It can help remove some of the friction of starting and finishing those tasks and projects that we just don’t want do, by providing clarity on exactly what we need to do next.

How to get things done

In a nutshell, David Allen’s technique revolves around a 5 step process:

• Capturing your ideas into a trusted system
• Clarifying what next action is needed on those ideas,
• Organizing ideas and next actions in a useful way
• Reflecting on and reviewing your lists on a regular basis
• Engaging (actually doing them).

Everyone will have a different way of doing this, of course. Some people keep everything in a three-ring binder notebook, others organize their world in Excel. Some people love high end notebooks, others make do with index cards and legal pads.

Your tools don’t matter that much, as long as they actually get used.

To get started, don’t even worry about the whole system. Just concentrate on developing a habit of writing everything down, glancing over that list every week or so. It will change your life!

And that’s it, the basics of GTD in 3 minutes!

The longer I think on this, the more convinced I am that GTD really doesn’t ask you to do much with your lists. Simply moving things from your inbox and categorizing items by appropriate context (most people only have 5 or 6 at most, in my experience) takes a few minutes, possibly mere seconds with most software based solutions, if you do it once a day or once every two days.

I will grant the weekly review takes some more time, when you are going through your projects and identifying the next action and so on, but this is absolutely essential thinking that must be done anyways if you’re going to make progress on your projects. You’re just doing this “up-front,” batching together your thinking so you’re more agile and less-stressed later.

All of these seems very appropriate to me. I think the real issue is that if you’re spending hours managing lists, you’re either:

1. allowing yourself to be distracted with the tool
2. you have an overly-complex tool
3. (and I think this one is most likely) you’re over-committed.

A principle way GTD reflects back to you that you have too many commitments is when it’s taking a disproportionate amount of time to review and process your inbox and next-actions lists.

You’re overly committed if you can’t find 15-20 min per day to clear your inbox. Similarly, if your weekly review is taking 3+ hours on the regular because you are overwhelmed with projects, it’s also likely you simply have too much on your plate.

I know I’ve over-scheduled my week when I can’t fit in my 1.5 hour weekly review, or when my inbox goes a 3 days or more without being cleared because I’m just too busy.