David Allen - Getting Things Done | Page 7

cal-
endars became a key work tool. (Even as late as the 1980s many
professionals considered having a pocket Day-Timer the essence
of being organized, and many people today think of their calendar
as the central tool for being in control.) Along with discretionary
time also came the need to make good choices about what to do.
"ABC" priority codes and daily "to-do" lists were key techniques
7
The burner I go,
the behinder I get.
—Anonymous
The winds and
waves are always
on the side of the
ablest navigators.
—Edward Gibbon

8
THE ART OF GETTING THINGS DONE | PART ONE
that people developed to help them sort through the ir choices in
some meaningful way. If you had the freedom to deci de what to
do, you also had the responsibility to make good choices, given
your "priorities."
What you've probably discovered, at least at some l evel, is
that a calendar, though important, can really effectively manage
only a small portion of what you need to organize. And daily
to-do lists and simplified priority coding have proven inadequate
to deal with the volume and variable nature of the average profes-
sional's workload. More and more people's jobs are made up of
dozens or even hundreds of e-mails a day, with no latitude left to
ignore a single request, complaint, or order. There are few people
who can (or even should) expect to code everything an "A," a "B,"
or a "C" priority, or who can maintain some predete rmined list of
to-dos that the first telephone call or interruption from their boss
won't totally undo.
The "Big Picture" vs. the Nitty-Gritty
At the other end of the spectrum, a huge number of business
books, models, seminars, and gurus have championed the "bigger
view" as the solution to dealing with our complex world. Clarify-
ing major goals and values, so the thinking goes, g ives order,
meaning, and direction to our work. In practice, ho wever, the
well-intentioned exercise of values thinking too often does not
achieve its desired results. I have seen too many of these efforts
fail, for one or more of the following three reasons:
1 | There is too much distraction at the day-to-da y, hour-to-
hour level of commitments to allow for appropriate focus on
the higher levels.
2 | Ineffective personal organizational systems create huge sub-
conscious resistance to undertaking even bigger pro jects and
goals that will likely not be managed well, and tha t will in
turn cause even more distraction and stress.
3 | When loftier levels and values actually are clarified, it raises

CHAPTER 1 | A NEW PRACTICE FOR A NEW REALITY
the bar of our standards, making us notice that
much more that needs changing. We are already
having a serious negative reaction to the over-
whelming number of things we have to do. And
what created much of the work that's on those
lists in the first place? Our values!
Focusing on values
does not simplify
your life. It gives
meaning and
direction—and a
lot
more complexity.
Focusing on primary outcomes and values is a critical exer-
cise, certainly. But it does not mean there is less to do, or fewer
challenges in getting the work done. Quite the cont rary: it just
ups the ante in the game, which still must be played day to day.
For a human-resources executive, for example, decid ing to deal
with quality-of-work-life issues in order to attract and keep key
talent does not make things simpler.
There has been a missing piece in our new culture o f knowl-
edge work: a system with a coherent set of behavior s and tools
that functions effectively at the level at which work really hap-
pens. It must incorporate the results of big-pictur e thinking
as well as the smallest of open details. It must manage multi-
ple tiers of priorities. It