David Allen: How to Get Your Life in Order

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

David talks about the information flow around us and how to deal with information overloads, if they really exist.

I bet, David, most people reading this article now feel bogged down in business - mail, text, phone calls - 24 hours a day. Has stress taken other forms today?

People now feel overwhelmed because they do not experience the real stress that our ancestors experienced over a fairly long period of history. The main goal was to survive. And what is interesting, it was precisely such a crisis situation that made a person behave more calmly: quickly collect and process information, quickly make decisions and listen to their intuition. They focused on only one thing - to survive at any cost!

But when you are deprived of this crisis, the world around you begins to overwhelm you with trifles, you are in the center of a flood: taxes have increased, the cold has tortured, the printer chews on paper … And all this rubbish from our electronic devices 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

To cope with this flow, we need to regain our ability to make quick decisions and allocate limited resources. In general, nothing has changed since ancient times. The only difference is how many more decisions people have to make now.

If you cannot focus on something, you need to learn to discern what is important to you now in your world. How do we prioritize all the trash that surrounds us? You need mind maps to guide you. There should be a map that tells you what you should be doing in the next three years and what in the next three minutes. And these are different cards. Basically, your calendar can do a great job too. The main thing is that he answers the question: what should I pay attention to now?

What tools do you personally use to be more productive?

I am using Lotus Notes because we are using it as an enterprise application. My friend Eric Mack has developed an extension that allows me to conveniently use my calendar, mail and to-do list here. All this is synchronized with my BlackBerry, because we have not yet configured this feature for the iPhone, but we are trying to correct this misunderstanding as soon as possible.

I am using TheBrain and MindManager. They differ in functionality and serve to solve essentially different issues.

What else? I also have a little notebook. Ideas sometimes come up in the most unexpected places, and you need to write them down urgently. Therefore, paper remains in my life as the easiest way to quickly fix something.

But I keep looking for new tools to help me manage my time and brain resources. For example, my iPad began to gradually transform from a toy into a rather functional gadget. But it is still very clumsy, I only like one application from Adobe in which you can draw the simplest shapes. You can play with it, but it can't replace a regular whiteboard yet. So I am far from high technology in this regard. I also use Microsoft Office. I work on a Mac, but I have Parallels.

And what about real, non-electronic instruments?

Oh, I have a real basket where I put all my notes. This is my savior, this is a basket called "I don't want to think about all this now." The main thing is not to forget to return to this basket, until everything is moldy there. And although I just throw out 80% of my entries, it frees my head very well: I threw it in the basket and forgot, then I came back and decided whether it was necessary or not.

It would certainly be nice to do all this electronically. But there is a problem that can be characterized as follows: out of sight - out of mind! The physical real basket constantly looms before your eyes, and it is easy to forget about electronic junk. I know a lot of people who are familiar with high technology, and yet they go back to paper, because it is much more obvious. You need to have strong willpower and self-discipline to return to what is lying around somewhere in the computer.

Much is now being said about the fact that we are subject to information overload. What can you say about this?

What is information overload? If it really was, you could walk into the library and fall dead. Or go to the Internet and explode, scattering to small pieces.

In fact, the place that is most saturated with information is at the same time the most relaxing - it is nature. So many different pictures, sounds and smells surround us. By the way, have you heard of sensory deprivation? You can just go crazy if you don't feel all this for a long time.

Here the point is different. There are many things in nature that carry information, but only a few of them are truly meaningful to us, for example: animals, berries or nettles. The problem with e-mail is not that it contains a lot of information, but that based on this information we must take some action or make some decision. And when you receive a letter, no matter from whom: from a cousin or from a boss, you, before opening it, are preparing for the fact that actions will be required of you. You are already scrolling through the options of what this letter may contain: “this can be important, very important, it will make me change my plans …” Now multiply these thoughts by the number of letters you receive per day.

In addition, scattered thoughts and inability to concentrate are a stress factor and a strong brake on performance. At work, you think about household chores, and at home you think about work. You are everywhere and you are nowhere. And throughout the day, a boring feeling of anxiety accompanies you.

Again, nothing has changed much, except for the frequency with which it happens. In 72 hours, you and I can receive so much information that will change our focus and priorities, which our parents did not receive in a month. In 1912, someone talked about the telephone the same way they say about e-mail: “oh, it will ruin the quality of life”, “conversations will become superficial and insignificant”, “everyone will only be distracted by it”! Sound familiar, huh?

And in 1983, a man with a small diary in his pocket was considered a productivity geek.

Our magazine has published many articles on the possible impact of technology on human knowledge and the ability to think. For example: "Does Google make us stupid?" Do you think human wisdom and thinking ability is changing for the better or for the worse?

Well, you probably had encyclopedias in childhood. And you even read them hoping to learn more about the world. What has changed, except that access to knowledge has become a huge number of times easier? We live in a great time, I think it's fabulous that we can easily communicate like this, while being in different parts of the globe.

Just think of the success a person could achieve with a processor in their head! Provided that he will be the only one, of course. But if you remain the last person on Earth, you will no longer need planners or GTD at all.

Please answer the main question, what is the most important thing a person needs to remember so that he can feel complete control over his life?

Everything should be uploaded from your brain to external media. I don’t know what could be easier! Record what's important (even potentially), clarify what those things mean to you, and save the results so you can always go back a step and look at things more broadly.

Basically, it all comes down to one thing: stop using your brain as a place to collect and organize all the information you care about. If you try to keep all this in your head, you will soon find there quicksand, in which everything will instantly sink. I dream of a glorious future, when we can completely free our heads from trash and devote our consciousness exclusively to wise thoughts.