Productivity

One of the questions I hear most often is about when to do the weekly review. A regular review of all your outstanding agreements is one of the most powerful activities you can do to maintain perspective and increase relaxation. When you should do it is a case-by-case answer, thus most productivity experts hesitate to dictate a rule about it. So let's talk about the different options you might consider, based on your specific job considerations. Then I leave it to you to use your natural knowing to decide.

I. What time of day should I do my review?

People have different preferences for various times of day. Many people have the most energy available first thing in the morning, in the evening, or late at night. I have never encountered anyone who has a peak in energy in the mid-afternoon (without the use of caffeine). I suspect this is because most people have just eaten lunch, have been working for a significant amount of time, and the warmth of the day invites sleep. Whatever the reason, my main suggestion here is to avoid the afternoon (despite how easy it can be to put the review off until later, later, later.)

Choose a time to do your strategic planning and reviewing that fits your energy level. Find out if you are a morning person or a night person, and do the review accordingly. If you are low on energy or feeling bored, do not do the review. Go for a walk, take a break, or water a plant. You will thank yourself for the gift of a focused review, which frees up new ideas and creative energy.

II. What day of the week should I do my review?

Friday - The most popular day of the week to do the review. Pros: you are relaxed and clear going in to your weekend, you get an opportunity to review nearly everything you completed during the previous work week, and it prepares you to start again on Monday with a clean working system. Cons: little opportunity to follow up on Waiting For items since the work week is almost over, and you may uncover items which would have been more strategically handled earlier in the week.

Thursday - Thursday has gained a loyal following amongst some GTD users because it answers the problem of the Friday review, giving you plenty of time to follow up with colleagues, Waiting For items, and to complete any essential projects you made need to do before the end of the work week. In addition, some people have discovered that by doing their review the day before their colleagues do theirs, they feel "ahead of the game." Be careful not to get too immersed in that game! The disadvantage of a Thursday would simply be not being as close to the weekend when you get that breath of fresh air.

Monday - I only recommend a Monday review in two cases: 1) you didn't get to the review on Friday or 2) The week ahead looks challenging and some brilliant stroke of prioritizing could be your life raft. If you see a week coming up that contains particularly critical work, you might use the weekly review to clear the decks, and your mind. The basic part of human consciousness likes seeing all of our agreements objectified, and once it has that it can then support and cooperate with your priorities.

Sunday - Many executives and CEOs prefer a Sunday review because it adds a quality of leisure to the process. There's nothing wrong with using little tricks to get yourself into the discipline of the review, or any habit for that matter. Some tricks I have seen work well for people: wear a special outfit, reward yourself with your favorite drink, play your favorite piece of music, plan a just-for-fun activity directly after the review, or incorporate self-appreciation and nurturing activities into the review itself. You can do a "Sunday Review" anytime during the week. But the culturally-approved structure of weekdays and weekends seems to make it easier to access relaxed focus after normal business hours.

In summary:

Know that you are uniquely capable of managing your energy level based on the time of day, the day of the week, and your "hard landscape" (commitments on the calendar). Choose times that work for you to do strategic review and planning. Be willing to adjust according to the feedback your body gives you. Make it enjoyable. The review is your opportunity to close the loop on all of your agreements, and acknowledge yourself as you acknowledge your current reality.

How to get back to black-belt productivity in less than one hour

The best way to defeat overwhelm is to do a Weekly Review. But what happens when you are over committed and don't have time for a review? What do you do then? Here is a process for getting back into relaxed control in less than one hour.

Step 1: Dump

Take a deep breath. If you don't have very much time to gather information and you feel overwhelmed, chances are you have been keeping vital information in your head (not your system.) That's okay, we all fall off the wagon from time to time. The key now is to get all those reminders out of your head. Do a mindsweep into a text document on your computer. A mindsweep means list every idea on a separate line without editing, processing, or organizing. There doesn't need to be a hierarchy, that step comes later. Spend about 10-15 minutes on this step, or do it until you feel a sense of relief.

Step 2: Discern

Take another deep breath. Using the GTD model, you would process these items into a trusted system that includes a calendar, tasks and project lists, and various reference systems. For now you are going to create a temporary system to ensure that all of your agreements are visible to you when you need them: right now. Take the list you just made and divide it into two sections:

Actionable

Anything you need to take action on in the next 24 hours goes on your "today" list, or your calendar as a day-specific action. These are the things that truly have your attention and are pulling on your psychic ram. Organize them on a single list, and do not worry about prioritizing. The absolute key you must use to make this work: be realistic with yourself. There are only 24 hours in a day. If you over commit once more, then you have defeated the purpose of this exercise. This is about being kind to yourself. Schedule in the most important items, and let anything else fall by the wayside for now.

Non-Actionable

These things are on your mind, but you don't need to handle them urgently. Some of them are "Someday / Maybe" items, such as creative projects or adventures you would like to have when you get more time, money or resources. To get instant relief, look at all of these items and consciously tell yourself, "I am choosing not to do this right now." Be realistic with yourself so you can keep your word. Now take this non-actionable list and print it out. Toss it into your inbox and schedule a time within the next 48 hours that you will be able to process that list into your trusted GTD system. It is important that you pay attention to these items, but it is also important that you get them out of the way for now. This is called deferring the action until a more appropriate time.

Step 3: Do

Take another deep breath. Now review your daily to-do list and/or calendar. Choose to start an action that will have the biggest payoff for you in this moment. Which item on your list will leave you feeling more energized? Which item on your list creates the biggest relief? Which item are you avoiding or resisting? Only you can know where the greatest value is for you. Trust your instincts.

Step 4: Acknowledge

Appreciate yourself for taking this time to gain perspective. You are doing the best you can with what you've got. Being willing to acknowledge when you are out of control is the key to being able to get back in control more quickly and gracefully each time it happens.

Getting edges around all your stuff is the critical factor for getting into control, and the Weekly Review, done consistently, provides that kind of needed fence. We have to be able to let things get out of control, in the short term. But that’s only possible with a broader parameter that we can trust. - David Allen

According to some very bright people out there, naming your "stuff" is a powerful exercise, with benefits to your productivity and psychologically. In this article, I'll introduce you to the benefits of naming your reference files, both digital or paper, more effectively.

The Backstory

I'm constantly working to refine my working process because deep down I believe work and play should be fun and low-stress. Or perhaps that statement is a bit out of chronological order. I originally got hooked on refining my working process through David Allen's GTD methodology. As soon as I experienced the immediate rewards of having a trusted system outside of my head, I slowly opened to and adopted the idea that work can be a relaxed process. Now I'll be the first to declare: no matter how overwhelmed, over-committed, or busy you think you are in this moment, you have the option to relax and enjoy your work. It requires getting real about all your agreements, organizing them into a trusted system, and putting in the time and energy to maintain a system that works naturally for you.

The Anecdote

Several months ago during my routine weekly review, I decided to spend some maintenance time with my email. A colleague gasped and brought to my attention that I had over 120 email folders in Lotus Notes, my software of choice at that time. That number did not include actionable folders or "Waiting For" items, only the simple A-Z list of emails I like to keep around as reference. I spent about 20 minutes cleaning up stale items on that list. Some I could consolidate, others I deleted altogether, and I created new folders I had no idea I needed. The big epiphany came when I gave myself the freedom to create a new folder, simply named after a key individual at work. That one folder became an essential reference area for emails I would not otherwise have been able to find. It was outside the norm for me to name a folder after a person because usually there are more logical ways of sorting (for me). But stretching beyond the usual made a big difference and opened my eyes. Flexibility is magic. If you want to be productive, be flexible.

Your Next Action: What small adjustment to your reference system would make a radical difference for you?

Two Secrets:

1. I'm a keeper. My natural impulse is to "keep" rather than delete information. I'd say David taught me well to discern the difference between keeping for no reason, and keeping key info in a systematic way. The system is so simple that many will mock it: a single list of folders organized from A-Z, ranging from client names to projects, to personal interests.

2. I'm not shy about creating new folders. It may sound unwieldy, but for me it's not. I've become very efficient at filing. I picked up a Lotus Notes trick, which can easily be translated into Outlook or Entourage. When I click "Send and File" I type the first few letters of the folder to automatically highlight and select the folder I want. In addition to having filing skills, you may also feel resistance to creating or deleting many folders. This is because you don't yet trust yourself to maintain the system over time. How many times have you set up a new methodology or committed to a plan and then abandoned it? The cure to this is slowly and steadily building trust in a single simple system.

Further reading from David Allen:
General Reference Filing - free article
The Freedom In Naming Your Stuff - article for members only

More information on productivity coaching with Lisa Peake

I enjoyed these brief and meaningful reflections on the concept of starting small from Kelly Forrister at The David Allen Company.

Start small. Undercommit and overdeliver...Then expand out from there.

David has said it can take 2 years to become "Black Belt" with GTD [Getting Things Done]. Might as well enjoy the road along the way!

How many times in our lives do we avoid projects because they "feel" big, and "seem" overwhelming?

What is overwhelm anyway? The most common definition of the word, originating from 1300's Middle English - to overcome completely in mind or feeling - tells me that we sense there is something bigger than us "out there".

We're right. But is that really something to be afraid of? I am reminded from my experiences in Insight, that taking risks and stepping into a bigger more authentic reality is a key to success.

In the next few days I'll be ramping up to a 28-day professional seminar, which I intend to use to transform myself and the way I facilitate learning for others. It's a major project and I can certainly appreciate overwhelm when I look at the number of time-sensitive projects and actions to complete before and around that. Thankfully I also have the reference point of having just completed perhaps an even more significant project, the final examination for a two years Master's in Psychology.

The completion of this culminating project, which took me over 30 hours, has automatically bumped me up to a higher perspective about my work/play/life. Life is a process; no matter how hard we struggle towards an ultimate goal, there is always more to do and more to learn (until of course there isn't).

Maybe there is no way to "overcome" overwhelm. If there is something bigger than us out/up/in there (at least several billion people on the planet believe so), then it's high time we stop trying to overpower life and instead strive to become bigger to match that which was inside of us all along.

Sometimes it's not easy to call ourselves out, to expect more from ourselves today than we did yesterday. That's why we need leaders to tell us things like, "Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail." - Emerson

We need inspiration, connection, and motivation to move beyond resistance and into expansion. Sometimes it's a politician on TV, and other times it's your mother. I sit here tonight in total gratitude for the many individuals who have stepped forward to support me through all of my life's adventures. (This is for you.)

Next Action:

Take two minutes to write a note of appreciation to someone who has supported you. You won't regret it.

More to come on:

• Why completion gives you altitude
  
• Natural Review Times vs. The Weekly Review
  
• Gratitude and attitude