Friday, June 08, 2007

Getting Things Done

After Al Martine’s post I’ve decided to finally read Getting Things Done by David Allen. And... thank you, Al, that’s a very useful reading for future MBAs!

What I took from the book:
  • Free you mind for creative thinking by organizing your commitments: write them down and don’t rewind them over in over in your head
  • Create lists of what you should do, whom are you waiting for reply, what you may want to do someday
  • Write actions, e.g. “call to book the table” instead of “birthday dinner”. Always ask “what’s the next action?”
  • Instantly do things that you can accomplish in less than two minutes. If it will take more time, add them to your lists
  • Review the lists regularly
  • And a lot more…
I’ve reorganized my lists in Backpack (see earlier post) and the methodology is now working for me! Two lists are my favorite: what I am waiting from someone and Projects - to get a higher perspective on what’s going on.
If interested then check out this Wikipedia entry for more details and tools to implement this methodology (I’d like to try the Lotus Notes tool next).

UPD: Patxi's impressions of the book.