The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
The ultimate book on personal organization. “GTD” is now shorthand for an entire way of approaching professional and personal tasks. David Allen explains most of his philosophy on productivity and why having a system is so important.
The Art of Stress-Free Productivity Video Summary & TED Talk
Productivity Game & David Allen
Key Takeaways
Crisis evokes serenity. Instantly making intuitive action decisions and taking action, being meaningfully engaged toward that outcome.
Everything else is put on the back burner and you are completely present in the moment. Getting things done is about being appropriately engaged with what’s going on.
Psychic Bandwidth you need space to think. Lack of bandwidth to be able to engage appropriately leads to creativity breakdown. If you’re already in a creative mess, you have no freedom to make one.
The result is losing two critical elements of self and organizational productivity. You’ll lose perspective or the ability to put your focus where you need it or you may be losing control. More under control, more appropriately focused, more productive.
Lesson 1. Flexibility trumps perfection
Lesson 2. Be able to shift focus in, out up or down quickly. You want to be able to put your focus exactly where you need it in the way you need it and not use your mind to accumulate stuff and avoid it.
“If you do not pay attention to what has your attention, you will give it more attention than it deserves.”
3 Core Principals
1: Capture your thinking anything or anything in your psyche, then notice what you’ll notice.
2: Make outcome/Action Decisions what outcome am I committed to finish? Define that target, identify and then ask yourself: what’s the very next action step do I need to take to move forward. What are we trying to accomplish? How do we allocate resources to make it happen?
3: Use the right maps You need the appropriate maps of all the projects, the maps of the actions, and other maps like what’s my job? Key areas of accountability? What are the things in my personal life I need to watch and manage? Build maps of all this so that you can make good decisions about what to do.
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
