Getting It Done

This is the name of a life coping methodology that I feel duty bound to share with the readers of this blog.

Invented by David Allen and his company in San Francisco, “Getting It Done” is a series of steps designed to make it easier for human beings to live their day to day lives in a relatively stress free condition allowing them to thrive.

The basis behind the methodology is the notion that day to day life leaves us feeling frustrated and worried about what we are not getting to. These worries clog our mental “RAM” causing numerous distractions as we go about our lives contaminating everything we do.

The key to “Getting It Done” is simplifying life so that our mind resembles a clear blue lake on a cold crisp cloudless winter’s morning.

The first challenge is to capture all of the tasks, projects, e-mails, voicemails, worries, post – it notes, pieces of paper and aspirations that inhabit our lives.

The next stage is to place all of these elements into their appropriate slots. This could be a specific time slot, a to-do on a particular day, a task delegated to a third party or just parking the element into the “someday” bucket.

Each day has a review slot designed to monitor progress made and to ensure that all new elements entering one’s life are processed and allocated a slot.

Once a week, time is set aside to review the previous week’s projects, preview the following week and capture loose ends.

Once a month, an evening is set aside to review the previous month’s projects, assess where outstanding projects are going and take a more detached view.

Once every six months, a day is set aside to consider the shape of one’s life, to look at the “someday” box and to decide whether one is doing what one wants to do.

Does this work?

My own experience is a resounding yes. Using this methodology, I am well into a successful project designed to re-engineer a mature training business, embarking on the next stage of the development of Risk Audit’s recruitment business, lost 25 kg in weight, learnt how to swim and managing to control my two lively teenagers.

If you want to know more please e-mail me at [email protected]