By Craig Silverman

David Allen picked up a black zippered pouch from the table and began stroking it. “I love these,” he said, cracking a smile. He put it down and reached for another item from the table, a plastic red file folder. “This is one of my favourite tools in the world,” he said. There were approving nods from the roughly 30 people seated inside the conference room in a downtown Montreal hotel. They loved the folder, and the pouch.

Next door, in a larger room, a bank was holding a rollicking meeting. People clapped, cheered and stomped to the music. By contrast, our room was quiet and focused on Allen, our leader for the day – and possibly a time period long beyond that.

Allen is the man behind the Getting Things Done productivity system and bestselling book. His system for managing tasks, commitments and the “stuff” that fills up minds and inboxes has helped many a knowledge worker get a handle on work and life. The man is a rock star to hyper-achievers because he helps them go farther, faster. Lifehacking aficionados love him, and some of the biggest companies in the world such as BMW America and Microsoft pay him and his company big bucks to help senior executives, dare I say it, get things done. I leapt at the chance to take part in his one-day GTD Making It All Work session in Montreal. This was an opportunity to learn the finer points of his system, and see Allen in action.

ALLENISMS

At the beginning of the day, he covered some of the topics that we spoke about when I interviewed him for the Globe and Mail a couple of weeks earlier. Like any top speaker and session leader, Allen had his shtick down. Some of my favourite Allenisms from the session give you an idea of what he’s trying to communicate:

“It’s about the strategic value of laziness… People who work in technology stay up all night to make things so that they’ll never have to work again.”
“If you aren’t trying to get anywhere, getting rid of drag is a drag.”
“I can resist anything but temptation. You know those horse blinders they use? That’s what I need.”
“When I get jumped by four people in a dark alley, I don’t want 200 unanswered emails weighing on my mind.”
“Having the freedom to make a creative mess is our most productive state.”
“Our mind’s system is not wired to remember and remind us of things. It focuses on the latest and loudest.”
“Too in control is out of control.”
“It’s the dumb people that think they’re smart all the time.”
“GTD is the most radical group of non-joiners you’ll ever meet.”

Got that?

This Should Come Naturally

Allen’s system isn’t like learning a new technology or language – it’s based on natural human behaviours. “How many of you ever felt better simply after making a list?” he asked the class. We all raised our hands. By keeping things in your head, his theory goes, you’ll forget important tasks and commitments, and increase stress.

Allen also talks a lot about the “strategic value of clear space,” or the physical space in offices, and what he called “psychic RAM.” You can only process so many things at once. Clear away all of the stuff that weighs on your mind, and suddenly you can focus on the task at hand.

Kids as young as two or three years old easily latch on to the basic concepts and processes of GTD. (“We’ve got to reach the kids very soon, and early on,” he said.)

Allen had already done a good job of reaching the folks in the room that day. Several people in the session were already committed GTDers. Two men sitting in front of me had driven up from Vermont. Others came from Toronto. At the end of the day, one man went up and had his picture taken with Allen. Lots of folks got him to sign books.

The big question is where to start. With that in mind, here are three easy to implement tips I gleaned from the session.

The Two-Minute Rule

If an action requires less that two minutes of your time, do it right away. Need to confirm that appointment via email? Do it now. Imagine how much you could finish in just 15 minutes if you stack up your quickie tasks and push through them. This single piece of advice, if followed regularly, can clear away the items that weigh on your mind and distract you.

Perform a Mind Sweep

This is a simple process to extract the things you’re storing in your heads. During the session, Allen asked us to take a few minutes and write down everything that was on our minds. Everything. One person was thinking about winter tires. Somebody else needed to clean his garage. I came up with a list of about 15 items, and decided to keep adding anything that popped into my head during the day.
Allen challenged us to never have the same thought twice. If you thought about it, you wrote it down. I ended up with around 60 items on my list. Some of them had been rattling around in my head for days. Once written down, I knew I’d captured the thought. Then I could use the list to create tasks or reminders that would help me take action. Do this right now to get everything out of your head. Then, as an ongoing technique, you need to…

Create an Inbox/Capture System

We all have an email inbox. You also need one for all of the other, physical stuff that comes your way. Grab a file folder or similar organizational item and keep it on your desk. (That red folder Allen said was his favourite item? It was his inbox.) Keep a pad of paper or a small voice recorder nearby. Anytime something pops into your head, write it down or record it, and pop it into your inbox. (Unless it’s an item that you can take care of in less than two minutes.)

Now you’re capturing things that need to be dealt with, and keeping them in a central location. (You can also use something such as Evernote or Remember the Milk to capture items electronically.) You need to process your inbox regularly, and either take action on an item, or file it away so you can address it at the appropriate time. U

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