Tag: “Perspective”

When it comes to focus on doing what’s really important, it has always been completely logical to me to do it from top to bottom. That is, first I reflect on what I want to achieve and why; then I create in my mind some kind of objective or goal; next I define one or more projects that I ought to do in order to achieve that goal; and finally I decompose those projects in concrete tasks upon which I can act (at least the initial tasks which will help me get started.)

GTD is not more than the combined use of three work models that David Allen defined as a result of years and years of coaching others to become more efficient in their jobs and in their lives.

The term “lean” first appeared in the 1990 book The Machine That Changed the World, by James Womack and Daniel Jones, from a thorough study by MIT on the automobile industry. That term was coined to define the manufacturing process in Toyota, which tried to create the largest possible value with minimal resources, as opposed to the management behavior of other major producers such as General Motors, in which wasting resources was pretty common.

One of the main bad habits in the field of personal productivity is the assignation of subjective priorities to our daily tasks and projects; a problem that stretches back to the traditional management systems.

Perfection can kill your intention to implement changes and make things that lead you to a better situation. Many of my blog readers tell me how hard it is to apply GTD for them. They become desperate for not reaching the levels David Allen describe in his book. My answer is always the same: just start to implement it, then refine the details slowly but steadily. Find something you can improve in each stage of the process, small changes that do not involve too much difficulty. If you are able to chain these little improvements, the return obtained will be spectacular. Here are some suggestions to get you started: