#ATD2018: Getting Things Done: How You and Your Team Can Become More Productive and Valuable at Work

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#ATD2018: Getting Things Done: How You and Your Team Can Become More Productive and Valuable at Work
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This presentation focused on productivity. David Maxfield from VitalSmarts presented research which demonstrated that highly productive workers are less stressed and have less burnout. This is because they are better organized, have better time management skills, and understand their priorities better. This presentation leverages David Allen’s Getting Things Done philosophy and provided tips on how to become more productive and less stressed.

Maxfield asked a question, “What does it mean to be a 10?” According to managers, somebody who is rated a 10 compared to somebody who is average (rated a 5) is two to three times more valuable. They complete more than half the work in comparison. They suffer from less stress and burnout. As I noted earlier, key skills that a 10 performer brings to the table are establishing priorities, better organization, better time management, and calendar control.

“The mind is for having ideas, not holding them” ~ David Allen

Another important thing that top 10 performers do is offload information they carry in their heads. Maxfield recommended a strategy called CORE to help do this.

CORE

Capture

One of the first things that you want to do is capture everything that owns a piece of you. Maxfield recommended only having a few capture tools such as an inbox on your desk and an email inbox. If it’s on your mind, figure out a way to capture it; write it down, send yourself an email, make a note to yourself, etc. It doesn’t matter, just get it out of your head. Many, many, many great ideas are lost because we thought we could remember them.

Clarify

Maxfield recommended getting your inboxes to zero every 24 hours. Your email inbox should not be used as a storage device.

In the clarify mode of the CORE process, you should be figuring out what your next action is on a piece of content. When you are making decisions about an action, you should use action words. Be very specific when you’re writing things down on your to-do list.

Here is the process that he describes.

New stuff comes in. You must decide if you are going to file it as a reference, delete it, or take another action. If you take another action, you have to ask yourself a question, “Is it an action that you must take or can you delegate it?” If you can delegate it, do it. If you must take the action, can you take that action in 2 minutes? If not, you add it to a list or a calendar but if you can then you just do it.

Organize

In this phase of the process, you organize your inputs so you can complete the tasks. You group like tasks together and block out time to handle those tasks. For example, if you need to send a number of emails, you block out time to process your email. If you have to make a number of phone calls, you block out time to make those phone calls. Keep the activities separate.

Maxfield used three tools to maintain his organization: email, a calendar, and pencil and paper. Pencil and paper are used to manage his list.

Reflecting and Engage

Once a week, you need to review your systems. Begin with your calendar to see what is going to be coming up on your schedule. Next review your lists to ensure that you have everything offloaded your from your mind and you’re ready to tackle the week. Maxfield offered a strategy for weekly reviews:

  • Get clear – Collect your documents get them organized and filed. Check your email make sure that you empty your email. Do a mind sweep to clear your mind from distractions that you may have.
  • Get current review – Review your next action list, review your calendar, and review your waitlist for things that you’ve delegated and may be waiting for information to come back. With your waitlist, you should ensure that you use dates so that you’re not checking it unnecessarily.
  • Get creative – In alignment with the Getting Things Done strategy, there are also future and someday lists. This would be a great time to review those lists to see if anything can be moved into current operations. This allows you to work on things that you’ve set on the backburner due to lack of time.

Productivity comes from doing the small things on a consistent basis.

This was a great presentation in that it reminded me of the habits that I still need to build for productivity. I need to keep on working on them. I know these things work because we managed to transform our office by offloading a lot of that mental activity into processes and written documentation. This has allowed the whole team to work under less stress and reduced burnout that was occurring.

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