by David Allen
The ideal time for me to work with a professional is on a weekend or holiday because the chance of outside disturbance is minimal then. If I work with someone on a typical workday, we first make sure that no meetings are scheduled and only emergency interruptions are allowed; phone calls are routed to voice-mail, or logged by secretaries for review and handling during a break. I don’t recommend using “after hours” for this work. It usually means seriously reduced horsepower and a big tendency to get caught up in “rabbit trails.” 4
For many of the executives I work with, holding the world back for two contiguous days is the hardest part of the whole process—the perceived necessity to be constantly available for meetings and communications when they’re “at work” is difficult for them to let go of. That’s why we often resort to weekends. If you work in an open cubicle or office, it will be even more of a challenge to isolate sufficient time blocks on a regular workday during office hours.
It’s not that the procedure itself is so “sacred”; it’s just that it takes a lot of psychic energy to collect and process such a large inventory of open loops, especially when they’ve been “open,” “undecided,” or “stuck” for way too long. Interruptions can double the time it takes to get through everything. If you can get to ground zero in one contained time period, it gives you a huge sense of control and accomplishment and frees up a reservoir of energy and creativity. Later on you can maintain your system in shorter spurts around and “between the lines” of you regular day.
Dedicate two days to this process, and it will be worth many times that in terms of your productivity and mental health.
Setting Up the Space
You’ll need a physical location to serve as a central cockpit of control. If you already have a desk and office space set up where you work, that’s probably the best place to start. If you work from a home office, obviously that will be your prime location. If you already have both, you’ll want to establish identical, even interchangeable systems in both places.
The basics for a work space are just a writing surface and room for an in-basket. Some people, such as a foreman in a machine shop, an intake nurse on a hospital floor, or your children’s nanny, won’t need much more than that. The writing surface will of course expand for most professionals, to include a phone, a computer, stacking trays, working file drawers, reference shelves. Some may feel the need for a fax, a printer, a VCR, and/ or multimedia conferencing equipment. The seriously self-contained will also want gear for exercise, leisure, and hobbies.
A functional work space is critical. If you don’t already have a dedicated work space and in-basket, get them now. That goes for students, homemakers, and retirees, too. Everyone must have a physical locus of control from which to deal with everything else.
If I had to set up an emergency workstation in just a few minutes, I would buy a door, put it on top of two two-drawer filing cabinets (one at each end), place three stack-baskets on it, and add a legal pad and pen. That would be my home base (if I had time to sit down, I’d also buy a stool!). Believe it or not, I’ve been in several executive offices that wouldn’t be as functional.
If You Go to an Office, You’ll Still Need a Space at Home
Don’t skimp on work space at home. As you’ll discover through this process, it’s critical that you have at least a satellite home system identical to the one in your office. Many people I’ve worked with have been somewhat embarrassed by the degree of chaos that reigns in their homes, in contrast to their offices at work; they’ve gotten tremendous value from giving themselves permission to establish the same setup in both places. If you’re like many of them, you’ll find that a weekend spent setting up a home workstation can make a revolutionary change in your ability to organize your life.
You must have a focused work space—at home, at work, and if possible even in transit.
An Office Space in Transit
If you move around much, as a business traveler or just as a person with a mobile life-style, you’ll also want to set up an efficiently organized micro-office-in-transit. More than likely this will consist of a briefcase, pack, or satchel with appropriate folders and portable workstation supplies.
Many people lose opportunities to be productive because they’re not equipped to take advantage of the odd moments and windows of time that open up as they move from one place to another, or when they’re in off-site environments. The combination of a good processing style, the right tools, and good interconnected systems at home and at work can make traveling a highly leveraged way to get certain kinds of work done.
Don’t Share Space!
It is imperative that you have your own work space—or at least your own in-basket and a physical place in which to process paper. Too many married couples I’ve worked with have tried to work out of a single desk at home, and it always makes light-years of difference when they expand to two workstations. Far from being the “separation” they expect, the move in fact relieves them of a subtle stress in their relationship about managing the stuff of their shared lives. One couple even decided to set up an additional mini-workstation in the kitchen for the stay-at-home mom, so she could process work while keeping an eye on their infant in the family room.
Some organizations are interested in the concept of “hoteling”—that is, having people create totally self-contained and mobile workstation capabilities so they can “plug in” anywhere in the company, at any time, and work from there. I have my doubts about how well that concept will work in practice. A friend who was involved in setting up an “office of the future” model in Washington, D.C., for the U.S. government, claimed that hoteling tended to fall apart because of the “Mine!” factor—people wanted their own stuff. I suggest there’s a deeper reason for the failure: there needs to be zero resistance at the less-than-conscious level for us to use the systems we have. Having to continually reinvent our in-basket, our filing system, and how and where we process our stuff can only be a source of incessant distraction.
You can work virtually everywhere if you have a clean, compact system and know how to process your stuff rapidly and portably. But you’ll still need a “home base” with a well-grooved set of tools and sufficient space for all the reference and support material that you’ll want somewhere close at hand when you “land.” Most people I work with need at least four file drawers for their general-reference and project-support types of paper-based materials—and it’s hard to imagine that all of that could ever be totally and easily movable.
It is critical that you have your own work space. You want to use your systems, not just think about them.
Getting the Tools You’ll Need
If you’re committed to a full implementation of this workflow process, there are some basic supplies and equipment that you’ll need to get you started. As you go along, you’re likely to dance between using what you’re used to and evaluating the possibilities for new and different gear to work with.
Note that good tools don’t necessarily have to be expensive. Often, on the low-tech side, the more “executive” something looks, the more dysfunctional it really is.
The Basic Processing Tools
Let’s assume you’re starting from scratch. In addition to a desktop work space, you’ll need:
• Paper-holding trays (at least three)
• A stack of plain letter-size paper
• A pen/pencil
• Post-its (3×3s)
• Paper clips
• Binder clips
• A stapler and staples
• Scotch tape
• Rubber bands
• An automatic labeler
• File folders
• A calendar
• Wastebasket/recycling bins
Paper-Holding Trays
These will serve as your in-basket and out-basket, with one or two others for work-in-progress support papers and/or your “read and review” stack. The most functional trays are the side-facing letter or legal stack
able kinds, which have no “lip” on them to keep you from sliding out a single piece of paper.
Plain Paper
You’ll use plain paper for the initial collection process. Believe it or not, putting one thought on one full-size sheet of paper can have enormous value. Although most people will wind up processing their notes into some sort of list organizer, a few will actually stick with the simple piece-of-paper-per-thought system. In any case, it’s important to have plenty of letter-size writing paper or tablets around to make capturing ad hoc input easy.
Post-its, Clips, Stapler, Etc.
Post-its, clips, stapler, tape, and rubber bands will come in handy for routing and storing paper-based materials. We’re not finished with paper yet (if you haven’t noticed!), and the simple tools for managing it are essential.
Moment-to-moment collecting, thinking, processing, and organizing are challenging enough; always ensure that you have the tools to make them as easy as possible.
The Labeler
The labeler is a surprisingly critical tool in our work. Thousands of executives and professionals and homemakers I have worked with now have their own automatic labelers, and my archives are full of their comments, like, “Incredible—I wouldn’t have believed what a difference it makes!” The labeler will be used to label your file folders, binder spines, and numerous other things.
At this writing, I recommend the Brother labeler—it’s the most user-friendly. Get the least expensive one that sits on a desk and has an AC adapter (so you won’t have to worry about batteries). Also get a large supply of cassettes of label tape—black letters on white tape (instead of clear) are much easier to read and allow you to relabel folders you might want to reuse.
You can get software and printer sheets to make computer-generated labels, but I prefer the stand-alone tool. If you have to wait to do your filing or labeling as a batch job, you’ll most likely resist making files for single pieces of paper, and it’ll add the formality factor, which really puts the brakes on this system.
File Folders
You’ll need plenty of file folders (get letter size if you can, legal size if you must). You may also need an equal number of Pendaflex-style file-folder hangers, if your filing system requires them. Plain manila folders are fine—color-coding is a level of complexity that’s hardly ever worth the effort. Your general-reference filing system should just be a simple library.
Calendar
Although you may not need a calendar just to collect your incomplete items, you’ll certainly come up with actions that need to be put there, too. As I noted earlier, the calendar should be used not to hold action lists but to track the “hard landscape” of things that have to get done on a specific day or at a specific time.
Most professionals these days already have some sort of working calendar system in place, ranging from pocket week-at-a-glance booklets, to loose-leaf organizers with day-, week-, month-, and year-at-a-glance options, to single-user software organizers, to group-ware calendars used companywide, like Outlook or Lotus Notes.
The calendar has often been the central tool that people rely on to “get organized.” It’s certainly a critical component in managing particular kinds of data and reminders of the commitments that relate to specific times and days. There are many reminders and some data that you will want a calendar for, but you won’t be stopping there: your calendar will need to be integrated with a much more comprehensive system that will emerge as you apply this method.
You may wonder what kind of calendar would be best for you to use, and I’ll discuss that in more detail in the next chapter. For now, just keep using the one you’ve got. After you develop a feel for the whole systematic approach, you’ll have a better reference point for deciding about graduating to a different tool.
Wastebasket/Recycling Bins
If you’re like most people, you’re going to toss a lot more stuff than you expect, so get ready to create a good bit of trash. Some executives I have coached have found it extremely useful to arrange for a large Dumpster to be parked immediately outside their offices the day we work together!
Do You Need an Organizer?
Whether or not you’ll need an organizer will depend on a number of factors. Are you already committed to using one? How do you want to see your reminders of actions, agendas, and projects? Where and how often might you need to review them? Because your head is not the place in which to hold things, you’ll obviously need something to manage your triggers externally. You could maintain everything in a purely low-tech fashion, by keeping pieces of paper in folders. Or you could even use a paper-based notebook or planner, or a digital version thereof. Or you could even employ some combination of these.
All of the low-tech gear listed in the previous section is used for various aspects of collecting, processing, and organizing. You’ll use a tray and random paper for collecting. As you process your in-basket, you’ll complete many less-than-two-minute actions that will require Post-its, a stapler, and paper clips. The magazines, articles, and long memos that are your longer-than-two-minute reading will go in another of the trays. And you’ll probably have quite a bit just to file. What’s left—maintaining a project inventory, logging calendar items and action and agenda reminders, and tracking the things you’re waiting for—will require some form of lists, or reviewable groupings of similar items.
Once you know how to process your stuff and what to organize, you really just need to create and manage lists.
Lists can be managed simply in a low-tech way, as pieces of paper kept in a file folder (e.g., separate sheets/notes for each person you need to call in a “Calls” file), or they can be arranged in a more “mid-tech” fashion, in loose-leaf notebooks or planners (a page titled “Calls” with the names listed down the sheet). Or they can be high-tech, digital versions of paper lists (such a “Calls” category in the “To Do” section of a Palm PDA or in Microsoft Outlook “Tasks”).
In addition to holding portable reference material (e.g., telephone/address info), most organizers are designed for managing lists. (Your calendar is actually a form of a list—with time- and day-specific action reminders listed chronologically.) Probably thousands of types of organizers have been on the market since the 1980s, from the early rash of pocket Day-Timers to the current flood of high-tech personal digital assistants (PDAs) and PCBASED software products like Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes.
Should you implement the Getting Things Done process into what you’re currently using, or should you install something new? The answer is, do whichever one will actually help you change your behavior so you’ll use the tools appropriately. There are efficiency factors to consider here, too. Do you get a lot of digital information that would be easier to track with a digital tool? Do you need a paper-based calendar for all the appointments you have to make and change rapidly on the run? Do you need reminders of things like calls you have to make when it’s not easy to carry file folders? And so on. There are also the aesthetic and enjoyment factors. I’ve done some of my best planning and updating for myself when I simply wanted some excuse to use (i.e., play with) my Palm organizer while waiting for dinner in a restaurant!
One of the best tricks for enhancing your personal productivity is having organizing tools that you love to use.
When considering whether to get and use an organizer, and if so, which one, keep in mind that all you really need to do is manage lists. You’ve got to be able to create a list on the run and review it easily and as regularly as you need to. Once you know what to put on the lists, and how to use them, the medium really doesn’t matter. Just go for simplicity, speed, and fun.
The Critical Factor of a Filing System
If your filing system isn’t fast, functional, and fun, you’ll resist the whole process.
A simple and highly functional personal reference system is critical to this process. The filing system at hand is the first thing I assess before beginning the workflow process in anyone’s office. As I noted i
n chapter 2, the lack of a good general-reference system can be one of the greatest obstacles to implementing a personal management system, and for most of the executives I have personally coached, it represents one of the biggest opportunities for improvement. Many times I have driven to the local office-supply store with a client and bought a filing cabinet, a big stock of file folders, and a labeler, just so we could create an appropriate place in which to put two-thirds of the “stuff” lying around his/her desk and credenza and even on the office floors.
We’re concerned here mostly with general-reference filing—as distinct from discrete filing systems devoted to contracts, financial information, or other categories of data that deserve their own place and indexing. General-reference files should hold articles, brochures, pieces of paper, notes, printouts, faxes—basically anything that you want to keep for its interesting or useful data and that doesn’t fit into your specialized filing systems and won’t stand up by itself on a shelf (as will large software manuals and seminar binders).
