Getting Things Done (6 page)

In order for you to get “in” to empty, your total action-management system must be in place. Too much “stuff” is left piled in in-baskets because of a lack of effective systems “downstream” from there. It often seems easier to leave things in “in” when you know you have to do something about them but can’t do it right then. The in-basket, especially for paper and e-mail, is the best that many people can do in terms of organization—at least they know that
somewhere
in there is a reminder of something they still have to do. Unfortunately, that safety net is lost when the piles get out of control or the inventory of e-mails gets too extensive to be viewed on one screen.

When you master the next phase and know how to process your incompletes easily and rapidly, “in” can return to its original function. Let’s move on to how to get those in-baskets and e-mail systems
empty
without necessarily having to
do
the work now.

Teaching them the item-by-item thinking required to get their collection buckets empty is perhaps the most critical improvement I have made for virtually all the people I’ve worked with. When the head of a major department in a global corporation had finished processing all her open items with me, she sat back in awe and told me that though she had been able to relax about what meetings to go to thanks to her trust in her calendar, she had never felt that same relief about all the many other aspects of her job, which we had just clarified together. The actions and information she needed to be reminded of were now identified and entrusted to a concrete system.

What do you need to ask yourself (and answer) about each e-mail, voice-mail, memo, or self-generated idea that comes your way? This is the component of action management that forms the basis for your personal organization. Many people try to “get organized” but make the mistake of doing it with incomplete batches of “stuff.” You can’t organize what’s incoming—you can only collect it and process it. Instead, you organize the actions you’ll need to take based on the decisions you’ve made about what needs to be done. The whole deal—both the
processing
and
organizing
phases—is captured in the center “trunk” of the decision-tree model shown here.

In later chapters, I’ll coach you in significant detail through each element of the process. For now, though, I suggest you select a to-do list or a pile of papers from your in-basket and assess a few items as we take an overview.

This is not a dumb question. We’ve talked about “stuff.” And we’ve talked about collection buckets. But we haven’t discussed what stuff
is
and what to do about it. For example, many of the items that tend to leak out of our personal organizing systems are amorphous forms that we receive from the government or from our company—do we actually need to
do
something about them? And what about that e-mail from human resources, letting us know that blah-blah about the blah-blah is now the policy of blah-blah? I’ve unearthed piles of messages in stacks and desk drawers that were tossed there because the client didn’t take just a few seconds to figure out what in fact the communication or document was really about. Which is why the next decision is critical.

There are two possible answers for this: YES and NO.

 

No Action Required
If the answer is NO, there are three possibilities:

These three categories can themselves be managed; we’ll get into that in a later chapter. For now, suffice it to say that you need a trash basket and key for trash, a “tickler” file or calendar for material that’s incubating, and a good filing system for reference information.

 

Actionable
This is the YES group of items, stuff about which something needs to be done. Typical examples range from an e-mail requesting your participation in a corporate service project on such-and-such a date to the notes in your in-basket from your face-to-face meeting with the group vice president about a significant new project that involves hiring an outside consultant.

Two things need to be determined about each actionable item:

If It’s About a Project . . .
You need to capture that outcome on a “Projects” list. That will be the stake in the ground that reminds you that you have an open loop. A Weekly Review of the list (see page 46) will bring this item back to you as something that’s still outstanding. It will stay fresh and alive in your management system until it is completed or eliminated.

What’s the Next Action?
This is the critical question for anything you’ve collected; if you answer it appropriately, you’ll have the key substantive thing to organize. The “next action” is the next physical, visible activity that needs to be engaged in, in order to move the current reality toward completion.

Some examples of next actions might be:

These are all real physical activities that need to happen. Reminders of these will become the primary grist for the mill of your personal productivity-management system.

 

Do It, Delegate It, or Defer It
Once you’ve decided on the next action, you have three options:

The outer ring of the workflow diagram shows the eight discrete categories of reminders and materials that will result from your processing all your “stuff.” Together they make up a total system for organizing just about everything that’s on your plate, or could be added to it, on a daily and weekly basis.

For nonactionable items, the possible categories are
trash, incubation tools,
and
reference storage
. If no action is needed on something, you toss it, “tickle” it for later reassessment, or file it so you can find the material if you need to refer to it at another time. To manage actionable things, you will need a
list of projects, storage or files for project plans and materials,
a
calendar,
a
list of reminders of next actions,
and a
list of reminders of things you’re waiting for
.

All of the organizational categories need to be physically contained in some form. When I refer to “lists,” I just mean some sort of reviewable set of reminders, which could be lists on notebook paper or in some computer program or even file folders holding separate pieces of paper for each item. For instance, the list of current projects could be kept on a page in a Day Runner; it could be a “To Do” category on a PDA; or it could be in a file labeled “Projects List.” Incubating reminders (such as “after March 1 contact my accountant to set up a meeting”) may be stored in a paper-based “tickler” file or in a paper- or computer-based calendar program.

I define a
project
as any desired result that requires more than one action step. This means that some rather small things that you might not normally call projects are going to be on your “Projects” list. The reasoning behind my definition is that if one step won’t complete something, some kind of stake needs to be placed in the ground to remind you that there’s something still left to do. If you don’t have a placeholder to remind you about it, it will slip back into RAM. Another way to think of this is as a list of open loops.

Get new staff person on board

August vacation

Staff off-site retreat

Publish book

Finalize computer upgrades

Update will

Finalize budgets

Finalize new product line

Get comfortable with new contact-management software

Get reprints of
Fortune
article

Get a publicist

Finish new orchard planting

R&D joint-venture video project

Produce new training compact disk

Establish next year’s seminar schedule

Orchestrate a one-hour keynote presentation

Get proficient with videoconferencing access

Finalize employment agreements

Install new backyard lights

Establish formal relationships with South American rep

Finalize staff policies and procedures

Get a new living-room chair

Projects do not need to be listed in any particular order, whether by size or by priority. They just need to be on a master list so you can review them regularly enough to ensure that appropriate next actions have been defined for each of them.

You don’t actually
do
a project; you can only do action steps
related
to it. When enough of the right action steps have been taken, some situation will have been created that matches your initial picture of the outcome closely enough that you can call it “done.” The list of projects is the compilation of finish lines we put before us, to keep our next actions moving on all tracks appropriately.

For many of your projects, you will accumulate relevant information that you will want to organize by theme or topic or project name. Your “Projects” list will be merely an index. All of the details, plans, and supporting information that you may need as you work on your various projects should be contained in separate file folders, computer files, notebooks, or binders.

 

Support Materials and Reference Files
Once you have organized your project support material by theme or topic, you will probably find that it is almost identical to your reference material and could be kept in the same reference file system (a “Wedding” file could be kept in the general-reference files, for instance). The only difference is that in the case of active projects, support material may need to be reviewed on a more consistent basis to ensure that all the necessary action steps are identified.

I usually recommend that people store their support materials out of sight. If you have a good working reference file system close enough at hand, you may find that that’s the simplest way to organize them. There will be times, though, when it’ll be more convenient to have the materials out and instantly in view and available, especially if you’re working on a hot project that you need to check references for several times during the day. File folders in wire standing holders or in stackable trays within easy reach can be practical for this kind of “pending” paperwork.

As the Workflow Diagram makes clear, the next-action decision is central. That action needs to be the next physical, visible behavior, without exception, on every open loop.