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Our
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April,
2007 Welcome
to Leadership Hand™, a monthly e-newsletter To ensure receipt, please white-list our address by adding "Info@" plus our domain name to your e-mail address book. 1. Tips From "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" What if your mind was not cluttered with myriad "to do's," "should do's," and random thoughts--would you relish your capacity to think more strategically and creatively? Would you relish the reduction in stress at not having such a "monkey mind"--one that jumps from thought to thought? Or, what if you could diagnose where your processes for managing your time and projects were inefficient and even broken? I got to do exactly that by flying to Chicago to attend a workshop given by David Allen. Allen has been called "the personal productivity guru" by Fast Company magazine and is the author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. He advocates that our productivity is directly proportional to our ability to relax. Several key tips?
Externalizing: Free what Allen calls "psychic RAM" by externalizing all those "to do's" or "should do's" floating around in your head--i.e., capture them in your organizing system. You will experience an immediate sense of relief. The stress-free promise comes with using his workflow management process that involves collecting, processing, organizing, and reviewing everything you are not doing but could be doing. When you do so regularly, your mind starts to relax. It will not have to take back responsibility for remembering everything that is not yet finished and faithfully--sometimes compulsively--trying to remind you of it all. Weekly Reviews: The weekly review is "whatever you need to do to get your head empty again." The great benefits here are the relief of actually knowing where everything stands, and the cueing up of your conscious and unconscious mind for the next week. Manage Next Actions: Allen says that we make a critical error when we attempt to manage a project-what he defines as any desired result with more than one action step-versus managing the next specific action for that project or multiple projects. Based on this insight, I reconfigured Microsoft Outlook's Tasks features, according to guidelines described in a white paper available on his website. Daily I'm appreciative of the results. Even though I have used productivity tools since I was 12 years old, when I began training a horse--it's charming to look at old calendars, and see the activities and priorities on them!--incorporating Allen's methods has made an impressive impact on my productivity. Major projects that were important but not urgent are now taking shape faster and almost effortlessly! You don't have
to be that committed or that organized to benefit from his materials.
There are a few books and workshops I wholeheartedly endorse and
Allen's is one of them. Enjoy! Beth Hand © Copyright 2007, Beth Hand. Beth Hand, MBA helps leaders increase their effectiveness and satisfaction, now and for the future. She can be reached at (+1) 703.820.8074 or via her website www.leadershiphand.com. 2. Reprint Permission This is a copyrighted publication. You are welcome to reprint an issue on a non-exclusive basis provided you:
3. Subscribe • Privacy Click here to subscribe. To unsubscribe click on the link below. We value your privacy. We never redistribute, rent or sell your information to anyone or any entity. We
invite you to forward this issue to your colleagues!
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