Getting Things Done

Synopsis:
For many, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity is the handbook on being organized and accomplishing tasks and projects.  For others, it is a life philosophy.  I am probably somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.  David Allen (@gtdguy) has spent his life focusing on the belief that your brain is a powerful tool that should be used for complex and creative purposes.  Too often, people track mundane details like grocery lists in their head.  Piling big ideas like your life's purpose on top of trivial items like, "do not forget to pick up milk" works fine until one day it all becomes too much.

Getting Things Done or GTD for short is about getting the minutia out of your head and into a "trusted system" thus freeing up your brain for worthy activities like being creative.  It is also about reducing the unconscious worry that is inevitable when you have more work than you can accomplish in an eight hour day.  In the book, David walks you through the steps to devise a trusted system, load it up, and start getting things done.

This is my personal copy of the audiobook that I ripped from CD back in the day.

Who will like this book:
A common misconception is that stress comes from having too much work to do and not enough time.  A real source of stress is that you are overwhelmed with work and fear important things are slipping through the cracks.  This is a compounding problem that gets worse each and every day.  If this sounds at all familiar then you may want to check out this book.

My take:
In 2003, I found myself in a Tampa Bay hotel room.  I could not sleep because I was stressed, overwhelmed, and stuck.  It felt like there was so much work to do yet I could not figure out where to start.  I came across an audio interview online (I do not think podcasts were invented yet) with David where he gave the broad strokes of GTD.  He also went into why many feel so stressed out and stuck in the face of a lot of work.  This was a major lightbulb moment for me.  At the time, I was juggling around twenty projects.  All involving travel to a different city, hence Tampa Bay, and I was basically tracking everything in my head.

It sounds obvious now but you really need a trusted system to track twenty projects.  The audio interview turned into listening to the whole audiobook (3 CDs) which turned into a simple Word document per project that tracked the actions and status of the project.  Getting all of this stuff out of my head was a huge relief and to my surprise, I was making great progress on the projects.

The idea of a trusted system being anything that works for the individual fascinated me.  Mr. Allen had clearly spent a lot of time thinking about productivity and teaching techniques to executives.  Hell, he had turned the whole thing into a consulting business--his primary job.  With all that time and effort, why not put the best notebook, binder, piece of software into the book and solve it for everyone?  The keyword is trusted and since trust is a very individual feeling, it makes sense the individual would have to choose the solution.

What do I use?  That could and should be another post for another day although I will point out that I wrote about tools back in 2014 with an aptly named title, "Getting Things Done".

While there are times I really slip on GTD habits, I keep coming back.  It is hard to say if GTD has made me more productive but I am confident that it has reduced the stress in my life and allowed me to focus on more creative aspects of both my professional and personal life.   And for that, I'm grateful.


Score:
4.5 out of 5

Available:
Amazon Kindle and Audible (reviewed) and others

Bonus:
Still not convinced?  Hear a much better description of Getting Things Done right from David.

Remote Office Not Required

Synopsis:

Written by founders of 37signals, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, this book explores the rise of "work from home" employment.  37signals are the makers of the wildly popular project management and collaboration tool Basecamp and for years have worked at a remote-first company with employees spanning the globe.  In their opinion, having an office is a privilege and not a right.

Who will like this book:

Remote will appeal to anyone who has the desire to work remotely.  The intro chapters dig into the positive benefits and how to pitch remote work to your boss.  It is not all roses and they do a fair job laying out what you need to be effective outside of the office.


My take:

I was attracted to Remote because from 2002 to 2009 I worked 100% remote.  I was part of a team responsible for new client integration for a financial services company.  This meant that I typically traveled two to three weeks a month and spent the rest of the time working from home.

"While nobody on their deathbed wishes they spent more time at the office..." 

I would like to tell you that I asked my boss to work remote to support my move from Wisconsin to Colorado and that was that but it actually happened in a more unexpected way.  It had occurred to me that my role was ideal for remote work considering we rarely had new clients in town, but only causally mentioned it to my boss as I gave my two weeks notice.  With three days left, my boss pulled me aside and told me management was concerned about replacing me and wanted me to try it out for two weeks once I arrived in Colorado.  Obviously, it worked in the long run but there were many challenges along the way.  Challenges I could have been much better prepared for if I had read this book (ignoring the fact it was written eleven years too late).  There is an anecdote in the book about dealing with a crappy conference room phone which reminded me of the time I, the sole remote employee, halted a large meeting to explain to the room that the extensions coming off the main conference phone were not speakers but instead microphones and that the person tapping one with a pen really needed to stop.  This still makes me uncomfortable recalling the incident but I figured next time it would be a client on the other end of the phone.  Remote goes on to explain how hard it is to only have part of the staff have the option to work remote.  A better strategy is to make sure that a large percentage of the team or group including management experience working remote.  This will ensure that remote employees are not treated as second class citizens.

There appears to be a natural cycle of emotions about the opportunity to work remotely.  For me, it started as an exhilarating sense of freedom and relief to work with "no one watching" but ebbed into a disconnected and lonely existence.  As time passed, it just became normal and part of my routine and I found ways to counter the loneliness.  The most common comment I got at the time was amazement that I could be productive because they were sure they would not be able to.  The comment always struck me as odd at the time and even more so now.  There is always only one person responsible for you being productive whether you are in an office or not--and that person is you.

Even if you work in a traditional office there are some very interesting ideas to be taken away from this book.  37signals was forced to learn how to collaborate and communicate with their 100% distributed workforce.  Some of the tools and ideas they developed are likely a more effective way to get work done even if you are only down the hall from a coworker.  For example, they are big fans of screen sharing tools like GoToMeeting and WebEx and almost never have a meeting without them running.


Score: 

3.5 out of 5 stars


Available:
Amazon Kindle and Audible (reviewed) and others