Feel overwhelmed? Like you’re losing control? Nevermind, not that you’re losing control, but that you’re completely out of control? Maybe you’re not completely out of control, but do things slip through the cracks? Do you find yourself forgetting to do an important task for a week that should have been done the day after you realized it needed to be done? Are you stressed about everything you need to do? Do you feel like you’re letting people down? Do you wonder if you’re incompetent? Do you just feel like you need to get organized? At some point during the past 14 years I’ve spent as an entrepreneur I’ve felt all these feelings, sometimes all at once.
I’ve tried different organization systems, from the FranklinCovey ABC/123 day planner stuff to tasks on my Palm Pilot to Google Tasks and even just writing things on paper. The system is important, but it’s more than just the system you choose. And what I’ve discovered is that a big part of it is knowing that you’re doing things the right way. Even if you are doing things the right way, not knowing it can make you lose your resolve, let things slide, and then you feel like it’s not working, when in fact you’re the one not working. Such was my experience reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. I don’t feel like I learned much that was new, but a lot of what I already thought was right was confirmed as such, giving me increased resolve to follow through.
I happened to read this book at the same time I was reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Even if you’ve already read both of these books, try reading them together and you’ll get an entirely different experience. They go hand in hand like…well, analogies escape me, but they complement each other quite well because to get organized, you need the right system, but you also need to make use of that system a habit. Even if you list out all your action items on the wall right in front of you, you can still ignore it. But if you get in the habit of looking at your action items in Wunderlist, or whatever system you use, first thing in the morning, then it becomes the norm, and becomes easy.
Have any books you would add to the list when it comes to personal productivity and organization?
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