GettingThings Done. The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

I ask simple questions that often elicit very creative and intelligent responses from others (and even myself!), which can in turn add value to the situation and work at hand. People aren't any smarter after they work with me than they were before—they just direct and utilize their intelligence more productively.

The marry high-level idealistic focus to the mundane activity of life. In the end they require the same thinking.

What's unique about the practical focus of Getting Things Done is the combination of effectiveness and efficiency that these methods can bring to every level of your reality. There are lots of inspirational sources for the high-level "purpose, values, vision" kind of thinking, and many more mundane tools for getting hold of smaller details such as phone numbers and appointments and grocery lists. The world has been rather barren, however, of practices that relate equally to both levels, and tie them together.

"What does this mean to me?" "What do I want to have be true about it?" "What's the next step required to make that happen?" These are the comer-stone questions we must answer, at some point, about everything. This thinking, and the tools that support it, will serve you in ways you may not yet imagine.

An idealist believes that the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run.

—Sidney

The Power of Natural Planning

The value of all this natural project planning is that it provides an integrated, flexible, aligned way to think through any situation.

Being comfortable with challenging the purpose of anything you may be doing is healthy and mature. Being able to "make up" visions and images of success, before the methods are clear, is a phenomenal trait to strengthen. Being willing to have ideas, good or bad, and to express and capture all of them without judgments is critical for fully accessing creative intelligence. Honing multiple ideas and types of information into components, sequences, and priorities aimed toward a specific outcome is a necessary mental discipline. And deciding on and taking real next actions—actually moving on something in the physical world—are the essence of productivity.

Being able to bring all these ingredients together, with appropriate timing and balance, is perhaps the major component of professional competence for this new millennium. But it's not yet the norm in professional behavior; far from it. It's still a daunting task to apply this awareness to all the aspects of personal and professional life. But even when only portions of the model are inserted, tremendous benefit ensues.

The feedback I have gotten over the years in my consulting, teaching, and coaching with this model has continued to validate that even the slightest increase in the use of natural planning can bring significant improvement. To see brainstorming about almost every aspect of their lives becoming a standard tool for many people is terrific. To hear from executives who have used the model as a way to frame key meetings and discussions, and have gotten great value from doing that, is gratifying. It all just affirms that the way our minds naturally work is the way that we should focus to make anything happen in the physical world.

The model is simply the basic principle of determining out-comes and actions for everything we consider to be our work. When those two key focus points become the norm in our day-to-day lives, the baseline for productivity moves to another level. The addition of brainstorming—the most creative means of expressing and capturing ideas, perspectives, and details about projects—makes for an elegant set of behaviors for staying relaxed and getting things done.

Shifting to a Positive Organizational Culture

It doesn't take a big change to increase the productivity standards of a group. I continually get feedback indicating that with a little implementation, this method immediately makes things happen more quickly and more easily.

The constructive evaluation of activities, asset allocations, communications, policies, and procedures against purposes and intended outcomes has become increasingly critical for every organization I know of. The challenges to our companies continue to mount, with pressures coming these days from globalization, competition, technology, shifting markets, and raised standards of performance and production.