Getting things done

Since I've started working I've managed my tasks either by ordering them in A-B-C priorities or under the S.Covey's 4 quadrants (Urgent-Important / Urgent-Not Important / Not Urgent-Important / Not Urgent-Not Important) and to be honest it has worked just fine.

Now, since I've moved jobs and am managing a team of 5 junior people and am finding myself needing to give them advice and direction on all of their projects as well as my own workload, I've found myself getting more anxious and stressed, as I can't ever seem to be on top of my actions.

Every morning I'm doing my to-do list, that I never manage to complete...

A week or so ago, browsing over the internet, I came across a couple of articles on David Allen's system 'Getting Things Done'... It got me interested and I have now been reading the book for the last few days.
And I must say I'm having a few of those wow moments, almost life changing...!!

It's early as I am still reading and only taking the 1st steps in implementation. But already a few eye openers:
- we keep our minds busy with the tasks that need to be done... building stress and anxiety as we are not doing them. And there's only so much we can keep on our minds. and, as the book says: 'This constant, unproductive preocupation with all the things we have to do is the single largest consumer of time and energy.'
- so it's key to get everything out, on to an organization system that you can trust and rely on and that you'll visit frequently.
- other key learning is that it is key to define clear next action steps for all the projects/commitments we have. Lots of times we don't progress projects and just worry about them because... we don't know what the next action step is. Adn if only think about the projects as they come up and define the next physical action we can take, then we get it going. And as we do this action, the next one should become clear. And it will quickly progress towards completion.

I'm still reading... I'll share more findings in the next posts, as I progress through the book! But I'm really really impressed!