There’s nothing more stressful and anxiety-inducing than an overflowing “in” basket, an over-full calendar, and a bunch of co-workers, clients, bosses, and other folks breathing down your neck asking when that action you promised them will be completed.
From Benjamin Franklin’s “Faithful Plan” to Steven Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” we have tried to organize and manage our daily affairs efficiently and in accord with our deepest values.
I am taking today off from my massage practice (and everything else) to get started with David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” system. It deserves much more coverage than this Tip-of-the-Day Format permits, but here’s why I like GTD approach:
- It’s practical to implement. It meshes well with the way I already do things.
- It’s well thought out. Allen has years of hands-on experience helping busy people process their stuff and get things done.
- It’s used by a bunch of really smart people, most notably a huge percentage of engineers and managers at Google and other successful companies.
- It’s agnostic as to its implementation. You can use any number of existing tools to implement the system, or make up your own.
I’ll write more about my (anticipated) success with GTD, and about other productivity systems in the future.
About the Author
Larry Swanson is a massage therapist in downtown Seattle, WA. His practices focuses on the unique needs of office workers and also includes injury treatment for sports and car-accident injuries as well as massage for wellness and athletic performance.