GettingThings Done. The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

The "fast track" alluded to in the section heading above is a bit of misnomer. For some, slowing down, getting out of the squirrel cage, and taking care of themselves may be the major change precipitated by this methodology. The bottom line is it makes you more conscious, more focused, and more capable of implementing the changes and results you want, whatever they are.

"Create a way to regularly spend more time with my daughter" is as specific a project as any, and equally demanding of a next action to be determined. Having the vague, gnawing sense that you "should" do something about your relationship with your daughter, and not actually doing anything, can be a killer. I often work with clients who are willing to acknowledge the real things of their lives at this level as "incompletes"—to write them down, define real projects about them, and ensure that next actions are decided on—until the finish line is crossed. That is real productivity, perhaps in its most awesome manifestation.

The Significance of Applied Outcome Thinking

What I want to emphasize now is how learning to process the details of our work and lives with this clear and consistent system can affect others and ourselves in significant ways we may not expect.

As I've said, employing next-action decision-making results in clarity, productivity, accountability, and empowerment. Exactly the same results happen when you hold yourself to the discipline of identifying the real results you want and, more specifically, the projects you need to define in order to produce them.

Defining specific projects and next actions that address real quality-of-life issues is productivity at its best.

It's all connected. You can't really define the right action until you know the outcome, and your outcome is disconnected from reality if you're not clear about what you need to do physically to make it happen. You can get at it from either direction, and you must, to get things done.

As an expert in whole-brain learning and good friend of mine, Steven Snyder, put it, "There are only two problems in life: (1) you know what you want, and you don't know how to get it; and/or (2) you don't know what you want." If that's true (and I think it is) then there are only two solutions:

• Make it up.

• Make it happen.

We are constantly creating and fulfilling.

This can be construed from the models of yin/yang, right brain/left brain, creator/destroyer— or whatever equivalent works best for you. The truth is, our energy as human beings seems to have a dualistic and teleological reality—we create and identify with things that aren't real yet on all the levels we experience; and when we do, we recognize how to restructure our current world to morph it into the new one, and experience an impetus to make it so.

Things that have your attention need your intention engaged. "What does this mean to me?" "Why is it here?" "What do I want to have be true about this?" ("What's the successful outcome?") Everything you experience as incomplete must have a reference point for "complete."

Once you've decide that there is something to be changed and a mold to fill, you ask yourself, "How do I now make this happen?" and/or "What resources do I need to allocate to make it happen?" ("What's the next action?").

Your life and work are made up of outcomes and actions. When your operational behavior is grooved to organize everything that comes your way, at all levels, based upon those dynamics, a deep alignment occurs, and wondrous things emerge. You become highly productive. You make things up, and you make them happen.

The Magic of Mastering the Mundane

My clients often wonder how I can sit with them in their offices, often for hours on end, as they empty the drawers of their desks and painstakingly go through the minutiae of stuff that they have let accumulate in their minds and their physical space. Aside from the common embarrassment they feel about the volume of their irresponsibly dealt-with details, they assume I should be bored to tears. Quite the contrary. Much to my own surprise, I find it to be some of the most engaging work I do with -people. I know the release and relief and freedom that sit on the other side of dealing with these things. I know that we all need practice and support and a strong, clear focus to get through them, until we have the built-in standards and behaviors we need to engage with them as they demand. I know how significant a change these people may experience in their relationships with their bosses, their partners, their spouses, their kids, and themselves over the next few hours and (we hope) days and years.

It's not boring. It's some of the best work we do.

I'm in the focus business. As a consultant and coach,

Multilevel Outcome Management