Getting Things Done

As a TA for a survey art history class, I was asked to teach a writing workshop when the professor was out of town.  The assignment I was teaching the students was one that I had completed numerous times in various classes – it was a basic writing assignment called a formal analysis.  I was successful every time I did it, but being told I had to teach someone else made me really think about why and how I was successful.  I suddenly found myself in a position of responsibility where others were counting on me to know the answer and to be able to explain it.  Teaching others solidified the how and why in my own mind.

We all want to get things done.  I don’t think there is a person on the planet who literally has nothing that they want to accomplish – these things don’t have to be big.  Most adults have some basics that we all have to get done: feed, shelter and clothe ourselves.  Well, that requires quite a bit of daily action – paying bills, running errands, making money.  As a business owner, as well as a human being, I have lots that I need to get done.  On the recommendation of Dane Sanders, I am reading Getting Things Done by David Allen.  Here is my commitment to you:  As I read this book, I will post each step in Allen’s process as a way of teaching others and helping concrete his ideas in my mind.  If this is way to boring, I’m sorry.  I promise that each post will be short, to the point, and will include one action step that I am taking as a challenge to you.  

Here is post number 1:

Have a “mind like water”.  Imagine a still pond.  When a rock is thrown into the pond, the water responds with ripples that are totally appropriate to the force and mass of the rock.  Once the ripples work there way out, the water returns to total calm.  In order to have a mind that is calm and ready for appropriate action, we need to make it like water.

Action Step: Create a working environment that allows you to react to one rock at a time so you can return to total calm once the task is accomplished.  Are you a mom with a bunch of errands to run?  Clean out your purse whenever you return home.  Are you responsible for paying your bills?  Make a clean space to do bill pay.  Are you a business person?  Clean off your desk.  Create a clean slate that you put the task into and get the task off of right when you finish it.