David Allen

Celebrate any progress. Don’t wait to get perfect.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Don’t judge, challenge, evaluate, or criticize.

• Go for quantity, not quality.

• Put analysis and organiz

The key steps here are:

• Identify the significant pieces.

• Sort by (one or more):

• components

• sequences

• priorities

• Detail to the required degree.

The key steps here are:

• Identify the significant pieces.

• Sort by (one or more):

• components

• sequences

• priorities

• Detail to the required degree.

| Ineffective personal organizational systems create huge subconscious resistance to undertaking even bigger projects and goals that will likely not be managed well, and that will in turn cause even more distraction and stress.

The way I look at it, the calendar should be sacred territory. If you write something there, it must get done that day or not at all. The only rewriting should be for changed appointments.

And if it’s just you, attempting to come up with a “good idea” before defining your purpose, creating a vision, and collecting lots of initial bad ideas is likely to give you a case of creative constipation.

Many techniques can be used to facilitate brainstorming and out-of-the-box thinking. The basics principles, however, can be summed up as follows:
• Don’t judge, challenge, evaluate, or criticize.
• Go for quantity, not quality.
• Put analysis and organization in the background

I’ve noticed that people are actually more comfortable dealing with surprises and crises than they are taking control of processing, organizing, reviewing, and assessing that part of their work that is not as self-evident. It’s easy to get sucked into “busy” and “urgent” mode, especially when you have a lot of unprocessed and relatively out-of-control work on your desk, in your e-mail, and on your mind.