I took what I wanted from the book and left what I didn’t. The book delves into painstaking detail at times and probably could have been shorter, but with thirty-five years of experience as a management consultant and executive coach, Allen knows his stuff. Getting Things Done is an organization and productivity system. That’s where David Allen’s book, and Microsoft’s OneNote, came in and saved me. Unfortunately, my external mind was a disorganized shit show of handwritten notes, lists - so many lists - references, and sticky notes.

Thanks to my habit of writing everything down, I had already built a sort of external mind. But go with an external list and your mind has the freedom to wander. Need to go to the grocery store? Try memorizing the five things you need and most likely there won’t be room for the thought that you’re also low on eggs. You repeat it in your head over and over, solely focused on this one thing.

Store thoughts in your mind and you’re likely to forget them or limit the flow of other ideas, ultimately limiting your productivity and creativity.įor example, you’ve surely needed to memorize a long number for a few moments. This process of getting things out of your head and into objective, reviewable formats is referred to as “distributed cognition.” By capturing thoughts externally, you free up space in your mind for other ideas. Because of this, I’ve been building an external mind to capture and store information. I know better than to rely on my memory for ideas, reminders, and action items.

My life raft came in the form of David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity, and Microsoft OneNote. Burned out and overwhelmed, I desperately needed a system to help me organize my work. I knew I was working harder than I should to achieve less than my workload demanded. Stressed and anxious, I was afraid I would drop one of the dozens of balls I struggled to keep in the air. I had lost the ability to be proactive or think past the most urgent task in front of me. The added volume of email, meetings and chat messages weighed me down even more. But with a cluttered desk comes a cluttered mind. Handwritten notes, lists - so many lists - references, and sticky notes accumulated around me faster than time and mental capacity could process. After nine months working remotely full time, I found myself drowning in paper.

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