David Allen's Keys to Completion by Jack Coats “Because the sage always confronts difficulties, he never experiences them.” — Lao-Tsu Wow!! That’s what seemed to express the thoughts and feelings of Movement staffers and others who recently participated in a one-day seminar on “Getting Things Done – Controlling Work Flow.” This workshop was facilitated by David Allen, MSIA minister and expert on helping management and employees on all levels to handle their work and personal lives in a super-efficient manner. Working in this way leaves people with more energy than they when they started. “The MAP (Managing Actions and Projects) gave me a new lease on life. I kept getting more and more energy…During the weeks since then, I stopped grinding my teeth in my sleep. I’m waking up so relaxed I’m ‘slack-jawed’ in the morning…In general. I’m not feeling so pushed around by the stacks of work in my office,” said Barbara Weiland, chief honcho of the John-Roger Library.
The intensive training, which normally takes longer than one day, teaches those in the work place how to handle increasingly more difficult skills, minimize stress, and bring order and effectiveness to the work place. He does this by teaching people how to pour enormous quantities of facts, figures, projects and tasks into a system of lists, thus freeing the conscious mind to think of creative approaches, and to plan ahead. He teaches people how to systematically work the lists and to do a weekly review, which gets the work done and keeps the in-basket virtually empty. By the end of the day, a relaxed person, knowing they have given their best, can go home and enjoy time with their family and personal life using some of the same methods learned at work to create a relaxed atmosphere at home. David has used his methods to train thousands of people throughout the U.S. and around the world. Talking and moving about the room in a fast-paced, energetic fashion, David kept everyone’s attention and kept them laughing. They were absorbing vast amounts of information at the same time.
“…Then list your action steps and execute those actions…maintain an inventory of victories and failures, analyze those failures and re-execute,” David continued. Creating a list of wins, completions and experiences also helps, he explained. “The ability to generate power is directly proportional to your ability to relax,” he said. “Determine a successful outcome, decide on an action and put the answer in a system you can trust.” He also described levels of work activity, comparing these levels to flying an aircraft at various altitudes. Beginning with a runway, he equated ground level as current actions, 10,000 feet as current projects, 20,000 feet as the current job, 30,000 feet as your job direction, 40,000 feet as your organization’s direction, and 50,000-feet-plus as your entire life and career. David also listed three ways to relieve internal conflicts or broken agreements. “Either you don’t make the agreement, you keep your agreement, or you re-negotiate your agreement,” he said. “You can only feel good about what you are not doing when you know what you are not doing…Until your head is completely empty, you don’t know how much you have left,” David continued. He defined “projects” as combined actions that produce a definite result, and “action” as a visible, physical activity. “The critical success factor is the weekly review. Here you gather and process all your ‘stuff,’ review your system, update your lists, and get clean, clear, current and complete,” he said. He said procrastination is caused by apathy and anxiety. “Objectively, do it or feel OK for not doing it. “…Then, decide on the next action, and focus on a successful outcome…and, always trust your intuition on your next action choices,” David said. Following conclusion of the training, Paul Kaye, MSIA president, announced that the workshop would be conducted quarterly during the next year. “Many folks at MSIA are really buzzing about the workshop,” Alf Marrin said. “One of the highlights for me was the Nature of Work description…that you are doing pre-defined work, working as it appears or defining work…David also pointed out something I’d heard before: that it’s difficult to really plan for the future when you’re overwhelmed with immediate chores to do. Some references to swamps and alligators come to mind.”
“One key for me is that, when I write something on a list, it is not necessarily because I will do it. It is so I can decide if I will do it when I am deciding what to do. Now it makes sense to write ‘everything’ down in order to empty my mind. Very valuable.” Mark Lurie, a member of the MSIA Presidency, said, “I have been using the Managing Actions and Projects workflow techniques for years to varying degrees of success (Mostly due to how much I have applied them). “Last year I got a copy of David Allen’s audio tapes of the MAP seminar. It was fantastic. It really helped me get my workflow back on track, and in addition, I could listen to one of the tapes every other week or so to help maintain the attitude I wanted for keeping my life/work in order. “When David gave the seminar for the MSIA staff, I was in the front row, ready to soak up further guidance and inspiration. What I love about David’s approach is that it is all designed to be lazy i.e. how to do things once, and to track tasks, dreams and projects in an efficient way that frees up my mind from thinking about what hasn’t yet been completed. There is a lot of freedom in David’s approach if you can work it. “I appreciated that it is also about building trust with myself and my tracking systems. “As for results, my E-mail in-tray hovers around zero these days (as opposed to around 200-plus). My desk is clean. When a task or item pops into my head, I get it down so that it doesn’t bother me again before I do it. I find that I am less overwhelmed and my work path is pretty clear on what to do next. Of course, the prize to all of this is continuing to build good habits and eternal vigilance. “Members of the MSIA staff are looking forward to working more with David this year and poking into some other areas of how we can get more of what we want and serve MSIA better in all ways.” As for me, I’m still riding on the energy and getting things done. As David pointed out, it’s becoming more important to utilize these techniques in view of the increasing, incoming energy affecting us all. You can visit David Allen's web site at www.davidco.com |
|
Traveler
Q&A |
On
the Road |
|
More
Current Features:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
