Q&A With David Allen: How Growing Businesses Can Get Things Done

bMighty: What are the tech tools you recommend to help growing businesses get things done?

Allen: People just need good list managers. Whatever tools you use to, for example, keep track of calls, is good. It can be Lotus Notes, Outlook, or a Gmail folder, but it's not rocket science. Most environments have project management templates and every project planner is different in terms of how many details you need. I use Mind Manager, it's a great mind mapping system.

My lists are kept in Lotus Notes and they are synced to my Treo. The question is, how current and complete are your lists? The idea is to keep projects out of your head and on your lists. If it's just in your psyche and not in a system, it's in the wrong place. Everybody on this planet gets overwhelmed and feels better when they sit down and make a list. You'll feel so much better when you get it out of your head. Most stress is coming from implicit agreements you have with yourself that you're not keeping. People have these commitments they're not dealing with and that's where the stress comes from.

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You need to reorganize yourself and you can't do that if stuff is in your psyche. The one thing that is not distracting is where you have to be a week from Thursday. Everyone trusts their calendar, so your mind gets to let that go. I figured out that your mind could let go of everything.

bMighty: Where do you struggle with your own productivity?

Allen: Total over-commitment -- because the better you get, the more you create. I constantly have to re-decide what I'm not doing. I know how to get it off my mind, but I have to decide where to focus. At least I can move fast even if the focus I choose is not right.

You don't want to be doing the wrong thing efficiently. Are you focused on the right things? You don't need training on what to focus on, but you do need training on how to focus. It takes a couple of years to install these new habits.

bMighty: Are there any basic business processes that can be improved to speed up the work flow?

Allen: Read chapter two of my first book! Capture everything that has your attention outside of your psyche, clarify what these things mean to you, organize the results of this thinking, and then review and reflect to keep the system alive and current. This happens hundreds of times a day and that's why it takes 3- to 90 minutes a day to stay current, and that doesn't include cleaning up the backlog.

bMighty: Is social media a productivity enhancer -- or a waste of time?

Allen: It's just a Rolodex. It's fancy way to have a Rolodex that's alive and well. It's just like the Web is like the Yellow Pages. But don't shoot the medium, it depends upon the purpose. If you're trying to network, it can be effective. It's a big global party out there these days.

bMighty: In light of current economic conditions, is there any advice you can give to growing businesses to help them get things done while keeping an eye on the bottom line?

Allen: It's basically good ol' business stuff: Maximize your output with as little effort as possible and be ready to recalibrate with as little effort as possible. The whole point is how flexible and lean a business can be. If you get new input, you need to recalibrate your resources as rapidly as possible. It's a lot easier to focus then and take on new responsibilities and it's a lot easier to handle.

bMighty: Some who have used the GTD system say that over times they lose control again OR find it difficult to maintain the system. What are the best practices for maintaining organization and efficiency over time?

Allen: You need to raise the bar internally with how uncomfortable you are with all the extra e-mail volume. It's not about the volume, it's about how much you can tolerate. Until you change that, you'll let yourself keep all that in your head. It won't creep up on you if you don't change your internal standards. I won't tolerate the volume. Checking e-mails for me is like taking a shower. Otherwise, I'm living in emergency scan mode. It takes more effort for me to not keep it at zero. If you won't deal with that e-mail, dump it. You need to triage. There's a certain point where you have to come in and clean house and that's all about internal standards.

bMighty: Are there any downsides to working in the way you proscribe?

Allen: No. There are a million copies of my book in print and nobody has said it doesn't work. That's because it's not a system but a systematic approach.

Naomi Grossman is assistant editor of bMighty.com.