READY FOR

ANYTHING
52 Productivity Principles
For Work & Life
DAVID ALLEN

DAVID ALLEN is a management consultant, executive coach and educator. He is the founder and president
of his own consulting firm which over the last twenty years has worked with many Fortune 500 corporations
and government agencies. Mr. Allen is the author of a newsletter (sent to more than 30,000 subscribers),
Principles of Productivity, and a book, Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress-Free Productivity (2001).
Mr. Allen’s Web site is at www.davidco.com.

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MAIN IDEA
Maximum productivity means making something good happen with the minimum effort possible. Since things don’t always go to plan,
however, improving productivity often means being more flexible and able to deal effectively with any barriers which eventuate. In
other words, to be more effective, be prepared to deal with anything that gets thrown at you. That way you can stay in stride and
working towards your goals irrespective of any and all distractions, hindrances or roadblocks.
To get more done consistently, focus on four major areas of productivity:

The Four 1 Completion Before attempting something new, clear your mind first by completing your current tasks
Major Areas
of 2 Focus To achieve more, forget all the side issues and focus on what really counts in your projects
Productive 3 Structure Put effective systems in place which are capable of handling the growth you’re going after
Behavior
4 Action Instead of waiting until conditions are perfect, get into action – the polish can come later

Completion Structure
1 Clean up current projects before starting new ones 27 Stability in one area opens creative thinking in another
2 Get into the habit of writing everything down 28 Match form and function for productivity
3 Make better choices by tracking your commitments 29 Develop a reminder system your mind will trust
4 To achieve your goals, know your current realities 30 The more responsive your system is, the better
5 Visualize positive results and act constructively 31 Realize a system is only as good as its weakest link
6 Avoid conflicting commitments 32 Create a smooth running, silent system
7 Inventory all your open projects on paper 33 Always run a weekly review session
8 Generate more energy by closing open loops 34 Define what it means to win the game of business
9 If it’s on your mind, it won’t be getting done 35 Make one person responsible for each outcome
10 For creative thinking, you have to make space 36 Set principles, not policies
11 Set up your life for expansion, not contraction 37 Think about your work, not of your work
12 Periodically review where you’re heading 38 Your thoughts are more valuable than you realize
13 Be the master of your work, not its slave 39 The bigger the gap, the more you have to plan

Focus Action
14 For greater clarity, shift your focus to a higher plane 40 Strive to be ready for anything
15 To start seeing patterns, visualize the outcome first 41 Too much control is just as bad as too little
16 Do what’s most important, not what’s easiest 42 Trust your hunches on how you use your time
17 Your energy will always follow your thoughts 43 Practice multilevel self-management
18 The clearer your thinking, the better you will perform 44 To be most effective, eliminate stress and relax
19 Aim to be the best at whatever you do 45 Integrate surprises as part of your plan
20 To get different results in life, change your focus 46 Have a very long time horizon
21 Learn how to bootstrap your thinking 47 Speed up by slowing down
22 Think clearly about where you need to be 48 You can’t do a project – you do action steps
23 Trust your system 49 Small things, done repeatedly, have a major impact
24 Efficiency requires certainty of direction 50 The best way to really know something is to do it
25 To get “in the zone”, focus on one thing at a time 51 If you feel overwhelmed, take the helm
26 The real value of a goal is the change it fosters 52 Big successes will come from the most failures
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Four Major Areas of Productive Behavior 1 Completion Four Major Areas of Productive Behavior 1 Completion

1 Clean up your current projects before starting new ones 5 Visualize positive results and act constructively
To create energy and clarity for a new project, go through and To achieve more with your life:
mentally clear the decks first by: n Get things on paper – because if you try and remember
• Completing all the projects you’re half-way through. everything, you’ll get muddled and confused.
• Processing everything in your in-basket.
n Make decisions when things show up – not when you’ve
• Answering or purging all your mail and e-mail.
delayed deciding so long they become problems.
• Clearing your desk and workspace.
• Working through your stack of material you must read. n Organize reminders – so you follow through and complete the
projects you start rather than abandoning them.
The more things you can get completed, the clearer you’ll be able
to think about your new project. Clearing the decks also n Keep your system current – so you can trust it completely
energizes you, and creates a feeling of accomplishment. That’s rather than being out of date. That frees your intuition to help
important to have at the start of a new project. prompt you in what you should be doing.
You should also arm yourself with a tool for capturing new ideas.
6 Avoid conflicting commitments
This needs to be something you’ll always have with you to
capture new ideas the moment they occur to you. Configure it to
Your mind is constantly tracking and reviewing all your
suit your needs – a pocket notebook, three-by-five cards,
commitments – big and small, professional and personal. Having
miniature recorder – whatever works in with your preferences.
too many open projects at any one time creates frustration and
anxiety, impeding constructive actions. Therefore, to avoid this,
2 Get into the habit of writing everything down spend time and energy clearing up all the “loose ends” before
embarking on a major project. You’ll be able to focus on what’s
Too many people have jumbled thinking. To avoid this, do a
needed to succeed far more effectively if you don’t have open
“mind dump” – that is, write down everything that pops into your
loops nagging at the back of your mind.
head, regardless of how important or how irrelevant that thought
is. You can then take the material from your mind dump and
7 Inventory all your open projects on paper
evaluate it logically, deciding on some priorities. If you try and do
this mentally, all you’ll end up creating is confusion. Instead,
Never try and track all your open loops mentally. That will only
capture ideas by writing them down and then work through them,
cause confusion and stress. Instead:
deciding what’s actionable and what’s not.
• Make a list of all your open projects (probably 30 - 100).
3 • Write down the next step for each project.
Make better choices by tracking your commitments
• Update your list regularly so it is current and applicable.
Until you know what you’ve already committed to doing, it will be Don’t worry if you don’t actually do anything on a project – that’s
impossible to agree to take on any new projects. By deliberately fine because it’s your conscious choice rather than the result of
and consciously tracking your present commitments, you’ll also circumstance. Once you’ve specified what actions are required
become more selective about any undertakings you give to other to move forward with each project, then you can start on the
people. efficiency game of finding ways to get them all done.
What you want to do is hit the right balance between controls and
constraints. That is, you want to be able to concentrate on what’s 8 Generate more energy by closing open loops
important without having so many systems in place that your
The more of your current projects you can complete, the more
thinking becomes stifled. One way to achieve this is to create
energized you’ll feel. Therefore, don’t worry about setting
some simple daily processes for taking care of the important
priorities. Get some projects finished each and every day. Clear
details of your life and career. With a thorough process in place,
out the mental clutter of unfulfilled commitments and you’ll be
you deal with the important elements with a high level of
amazed at how great you feel.
awareness and attention.
9 If it’s on your mind, it won’t be getting done
4 To achieve your goals, know your current realities
Whenever something “bugs” you, take that as an indicator that
Before you can set meaningful priorities for the future, you have
you need to;
to take inventory of where you are at present. Find the answers to
• Do something that will progress the project; or
six key questions to do that:
• Decide what your next action should be; or
1. What are your current daily tasks?
• Put in place a reminder you’ll notice to act in the future.
2. What are the projects you are now working on?
3. What specifically are your current areas of responsibility? Don’t even attempt to keep all your self-commitments in your
4. What changes do you anticipate happening in the next year? head. All that will produce is jumbled thinking or stress, neither of
5. What’s the big picture of changes over the next few years? which are helpful. Instead, get into the habit of writing things
6. What do you see as your purpose for living? down. Save your mental energy for bigger and better things. If
you get into the habit of doing all your planning on paper rather
Once you make a thorough inventory of all your present
than in your mind, you’ll be using your energy where it can
commitments, you then have a more accurate perspective on
produce the greatest benefits. Be smart about what you choose
how much time and energy can be committed to new projects
to think about, because that will have a large number of flow-on
that will move you towards your goals.
benefits and advantages.

Four Major Areas of Productive Behavior 1 Completion
10 For creative thinking, you have to make space
Instead of saying to other people or yourself: “You know, if I didn’t
have so many responsibilities, I could be very creative”, you
need to take more control. The key is:
• Write everything down.
• Think about it all, not just what you get to.
• Decide what needs to be done about all your projects.
• Manage all your options in a consistent external system.
As you do this, you’ll find the experience highly liberating. The
release of the pressure of trying to remember everything will
create a surge of self-esteem that will cut through the fog and
allow you to achieve much more. Once you get started, it then
becomes a matter of being consistent as you work the system.
11 Set up your life for expansion, not contraction
Do whatever it takes to make it worth your while, personally and
professionally, to generate new business. That may mean
raising your prices so you’re genuinely enthused when a new
customer comes along. If you don’t do this, you will
subconsciously resent new business, which is not helpful.
Simplify your business systems, create the capacity for
expansion, clear your mind and then go to work developing new
ideas that will allow you to serve more people better than before.
That way, you’ll welcome new opportunities, not shun them.
12 Periodically review where you’re heading
To think less about what you should be doing and thereby create
more time for actually achieving, run regular reviews of the key
elements of your life:
n Every week, review all your open projects and write down a
suitable next step for each.
n Every month or two, go over your life and career and check the
right projects are getting the right amount of attention.
n Every year, formulate a plan for where you want to be by the
end of the next year.
n Every few years, sit down with other key people and think
about your life’s direction and your lifestyle needs.
n Every so often, stop and reconnect with what your personal
grand purpose of life is.
13 Be the master of your work, not its slave
By accurately categorizing and tracking everything you need to
get done, you’ll have the confidence to think more about what
really should be done. In other words, writing lists of actions to
take is exceptionally useful because it helps you be more
efficient, but effectiveness requires that you do the right things.
Sometimes the right thing to do will not be something that’s on
your lists, but because you’ve taken the time and thought to
develop lists, you can feel confident that nothing important is
being overlooked.
In essence, the system works but not always in ways that you
have planned. When you reach the stage where you process
100-percent of your requirements into a good system, you can
then pay attention to what really counts without distraction. The
true payoff will be that you’ll get the right things done, not
necessarily that you’ll do everything on your lists.
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Four Major Areas of Productive Behavior 2 Focus
14 For greater clarity, shift your focus to a higher plane
When things get tight or unexpected problems arise, that’s
actually a great opportunity to reassess what you should be
doing. To do this in practice, you have to remove yourself from
your present stresses by:
• Accepting your present realities.
• Refocusing on what your goals are.
• Decide and take the next physical move forward.
The sooner you get moving again, the better. There’s nothing to
be gained by commiserating over bad breaks, so get back into
action. Remind yourself the old battles count for nothing.
15 To start seeing patterns, visualize the outcome first
The human brain is actually very good at recognizing patterns.
To harness this ability, visualize the outcome you desire first, in
as much detail as possible. This will trigger your mind to start
recognizing and noting the habits, competencies and methods
which will be required to achieve that goal in reality.
Mentally draw the blueprint by visualizing your outcome and then
let your mind fill in the blanks on how to go about realizing that
objective. Things might not happen exactly as planned, but you’ll
be amazed at what you do ultimately end up accomplishing.
16 Do what’s most important, not what’s easiest
Always prioritize your tasks in a good system which makes sense
to you. Your time should be allocated to doing what’s most
important for the achievement of your goals – rather than what’s
most recent, loudest or in-your-face.
To do this in practice, you’ll need to develop your own task
reminder and rating system. This will probably need to be more
sophisticated than Post-it notes on your computer screen or
phone slips left on your desk. The steps are simple:
• Centralize all your tasks in one consistent location.
• Set priorities in the context of what’s most and least important.
• Make deliberate choices good about what to do next.
17 Your energy will always follow your thoughts
As a reminder system, many people leave items they have to
take with them by the front door. That way, they are reminded of
those items when they go to leave. The same principle applies to
what you think about. To work towards your goals, leave
reminders in places where you’ll take notice of them frequently.
To achieve this, find something that suits your work style. For
example, you might write down your long-term goals and
affirmations on 3x5 index cards you carry with you or have
displayed in prominent positions around your house.
Consistently channel your thoughts and your actions will follow in
the same direction.
When you first start thinking about a long-term goal, it will be
difficult because you won’t be able to visualize all the details. As
you continue to think about the same goal again and again, it will
become easier and easier until your mind delivers a plan to
achieve what you’re thinking about. Consciously and
deliberately focus your thinking in this way, and you’ll be pointing
your mental energy towards your goals. That will activate your
thinking even more, enhancing your opportunities to find ways to
deliver what’s required.

Four Major Areas of Productive Behavior 2 Focus
18 The clearer your thinking, the better you will perform
To enhance your creative instincts, clarify the purpose of why
you are doing whatever you’re doing. Take an inventory of all
your major assets and procedures. You’ll probably find many of
them relate to historical needs rather than present requirements.
Clear them out. Write down a purpose for each, and dispose of
any that have outlived their usefulness. The more specific and
unambiguous you are about your long-term goals, the easier it
becomes to unleash your creativity. Clear away the clutter and
move forward.
19 Aim to be the best at whatever you do
If you’re absolutely committed to doing your very best at
whatever you do rather than attempting to just be good enough to
get by, you’ll find previously untapped reservoirs of creativity and
intelligence will open up to you. This will be refreshing but a little
scary because you’ll have to leave behind your self-doubts and
commit to excellence. Those who are attempting to excel in
everything they attempt, however, experience incredible
exhilaration and energy. This, in turn, will be highly motivational
and satisfying. It all starts with a commitment to excellence.
20 To get different results in life, change your focus
How fast can you get back to a “ready” state of mind when
unexpected events have occurred? Professionals get into the
habit of refocusing in this way all the time, so they can be
centered and balanced moving forward rather than mulling over
past misfortunes. To achieve more with your life, you need to
develop the ability to get back to “ready” quickly and frequently.
21 Learn how to bootstrap your thinking
Always carry something with you to capture the positive thoughts
that will come to you from time to time. As you mentally try and
put your challenges into perspective, quite often solutions to
problems with come to you out of the blue. Capture those ideas
before they are replaced by different thoughts. Stimulate your
thinking by carrying with you some personal affirmations and
goals. You’ll be amazed at how many great ideas will come to
you over the course of an average day if you only take the time
and effort to encourage and then capture them.
22
Think clearly about where you need to be
To increase your personal productivity, you need to get into the
habit of doing three things consistently well:
1. Make decisions about what the next step is for all of the
projects you’re working on.
2. Write down these actions and keep a centralized list for all
the projects you currently have active. (By writing everything
down, you can then concentrate with a clear mind on the task
at hand rather than worrying about neglecting something).
3. Put reminders in places where you’ll see them at an
appropriate time to encourage you to actually get into action
on each project.
These are the three master skills of productivity, and yet almost
everyone will admit they can and should improve significantly in
these skills.
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Four Major Areas of Productive Behavior 2 Focus
23 Trust your system
Once you’ve captured, organized, tracked and planned all your
commitments, you’re then able to attack the present moment
with all your energy rather than having something nagging at the
back of your mind. In other words, once you have your system in
place, trust it implicitly to remind you of everything you have to
do. Focus on the task at hand with all your mental energy and
then go on to the next task with equal fervor. This is far better
than jumbled and disjointed thinking about all the elements of
your life.
24 Efficiency requires certainty of direction
If you inject clarity of purpose into your life, you’ll find that you’ll
have a much better perspective on the big picture issues as well.
By focusing more on the reason for doing things and less on the
mechanics of the tasks themselves, you also become more open
to inspiration. You get a clearer sense on where everything fits in
the grand scheme, rather than having your vision blurred by the
actual mechanics of anything.
In essence, efficiency (which everyone strives for) only becomes
possible when you have first determined how to be most
effective in doing the right things.
25 To get “in the zone”, focus on one thing at a time
The hallmark of high performance is an ability to give full
attention to the task at hand. This is easy when something
obviously has top priority, but most situations in life are far more
ambiguous than that. The real key is to have everything else in
order as part of a workable system. When that occurs, your
conscious mind can focus on the moment rather than dedicating
part of your mental capacity to trying to remember what else you
have on.
The key to getting more done can be summed up as: Achieving
the appropriate amount of attention focused on the most
appropriate task for the appropriate length of time and with the
appropriate perspective applied. Do that consistently well and
you’ll be “in the zone” for the bulk of your working career. You’ll
also achieve more than you ever thought possible.
26 The real value of a goal is the change it fosters
The value of a future goal is not limited to what you will receive
when you achieve it in the future. Rather, a goal changes what
you perceive and how you act in the present. A good goal
changes the quality and substance of the decisions you make
today. It affects what you choose to feel, do and experience at
this moment in time.
This is why goals have a dual nature. In one sense, a goal
specifies a destination, but in another sense it also defines the
quality of the journey. Set exciting goals for your own personal
future and you’ll find your present activities become equally
invigorating because you know where they lead. This balance
between outer circumstances and inner self-dialogue is dynamic
and healthy. You can take great satisfaction from your outer
activities, secure in the knowledge that your inner thinking is also
changing to align itself with the direction you want to head.
Achieve this day-in and day-out and your life will become a
succession of smaller victories leading to a great goal.

“Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem, in my
opinion, to characterize our age.”
– Albert Einstein
“It might sound easy, yet it’s quite a feat to be able to stay
conscious about what you’re doing, know where you’re going,
identify all the things you’ve committed to, and cooperate with
what’s not happening – so you can totally concentrate on what
is.”
– David Allen
“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble
art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the
elimination of nonessentials.”
– Lin Yutang
“You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small
things so that all the small things go in the right direction.”
– Alvin Toofler
“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and
probably in themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim
high in hope and work remembering that a noble, logical diagram
once recorded will never die.”
– Daniel Hudson Burnham
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though
nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a
miracle.”
– Albert Einstein
“Thought is useful when it motivates for action, and a hindrance
when it substitutes for action.”
– Bill Raeder
“The ancestor of every action is a thought.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“An hour of effective, precise, hard, disciplined, and integrated
thinking can be worth a month of hard work. Thinking is the very
essence of, and the most difficult thing to do in, business and life.
Empire builders spend hour after hour on mental work while
others party. If you’re not consciously aware of putting forth the
effort to exert self-guided integrated thinking, if you don’t act
beyond your feelings and you take the path of least resistance,
then you’re giving in to laziness and no longer control your life.”
– David Kekich
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in
overalls and looks like work.”
– Thomas Edison
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.”
– Plutarch
“It’s possible to own too much. A man with one watch knows what
time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure.”
– Lee Segall
“Lots of folk confuse bad management with destiny.”
– Kin Hubbard
“Before everything else, getting ready is the key to success.”
– Henry Ford
“There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real
labor of thinking.”
– Thomas Edison
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Four Major Areas of Productive Behavior 3 Structure
27 Stability in one area opens creative thinking in another
Many people assume organization and creativity are mutually
exclusive – you can’t have one without the other. This is
incorrect. If your affairs are totally disorganized and chaotic, it will
be impossible for you to think creatively because something in
the back of your mind will keep reminding you about the problem.
Therefore, to enhance your creative output, get everything
organized and in balance. Only then will you find that a natural
and sustainable flow of creative energy will become available to
you.
28 Match form and function for productivity
Master craftsmen know which tool is right for what job. In a
similar vein, there are times when you need to be wearing your
“Visionary” hat and times when you need to be wearing your
“Action Man” hat. Wisdom comes in balancing these two internal
roles adroitly so you have sufficient time to come up with good
ideas yet enough discipline to follow through.
To keep a good balance here:
• Let your visionary side fill your in-basket with new ideas.
• Let your action man side ask what’s the next action for each.
• Keep projects and someday/maybe lists for your visionary.
• Maintain good next-action lists for your action man personality.
• Have a weekly review – where things are worked out.
29 Develop a reminder system your mind will trust
If you attempt to get everything out of your mind and into a
reminder system so you can think more clearly, this will only work
if your mind has confidence the system will actually work in
practice. If there is any sort of doubt, your mind will keep on trying
to remind you of tasks that have to be completed in the future.
In practice, the best way to build this kind of confidence is
through a weekly review. This will be where you capture, process
and organize everything you need to do in the future. If you do
this consistently and in a disciplined way, your mind will start to
acknowledge that everything is under control and will be acted
upon. Therefore, your mind will stop trying to nag you about tasks
and get busy focusing on the job at hand. Then you can do some
real creative thinking instead of fuzzy thinking.
30 The more responsive your system is, the better
True competitive advantage comes when you put in place and
maintain systems which can adapt to changes in your
environment. Specifically, if you organize yourself in such a way
that internal dilemmas are worked out and balanced, your
response times will improve and perceived problems will go
away.
Do this by:
n Becoming more adaptable – so that when the inevitable
changes arise, you’re confident about your ability to respond
accordingly.
n Balancing all your internal systems – so you avoid
overreacting or underreacting to the demands of a situation.
n Becoming more aware of your environment – so you can
anticipate the changes which will be required in the future
rather than being blind-sided.

Four Major Areas of Productive Behavior 3 Structure
31 Realize a system is only as good as its weakest link
The whole idea behind any personal-management system is to
free up resources for higher and better work. Therefore, look for
bottlenecks in your system. That is precisely the point where
problems will strike at the most inconvenient time imaginable.
Address and strengthen that weakest link first because the
system as a whole will never be able to rise above the
performance in that critical area.
32 Create a smooth running, silent system
The whole objective of your system is to free up more time for
creative thinking. When you have to stop and focus on fixing your
system, mental energy is being diverted away from the
added-value creative thinking you could be doing. To avoid this,
take the time to develop a robust system in the first place, and get
it running smoothly before attempting anything else. That way,
your system will become unobtrusive as it works in the
background where it should be.
33 Always run a weekly review session
The key to making a personal management system work is to
actually hold a weekly review meeting with yourself. Use that to
clear your head of all your important tasks, clarify your goals and
organize and update your lists. Make the weekly review the
center-piece of your management system so it stays fresh and
up-to-date.
34 Define what it means to win the game of business
Success in business is a matter of personal preference. What
might be a huge win for one person or company may be nothing
out of the ordinary for someone else. Create a projects list, and
for each project specify an outcome. Then organize yourself to
achieve as many of these outcomes as possible. This is the
essence of success.
35 Make one person responsible for each outcome
Whenever two or more people are responsible for something,
that usually means nobody really gets the job done. This is also
true for your own “internal committee” – the various facets of your
own personality. Organize yourself from the inside out, so that for
every project you undertake, you decide in advance which part of
your personality will be responsible – your active part or your
visionary part, or so on.
36 Set principles, not policies
If you have clear and unambiguous principles in place, then there
is no need for you to rigorously police your policies. Instead, you
can give people the freedom to make their own decisions and
regulate their own behaviors. This will only work, however, if
those people have brought into the standards you have put
forward. To take this from the theoretical into the real-world, you
might try sitting down with everyone and drafting up a document
along the lines of the answer to one question: “We are at our best
as an organization when....” The answer to that question will
specify your collective values, and how they are actually
expressed in the real world of what you do. Make these clear and
there will be no need to micromanage people.
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Four Major Areas of Productive Behavior 3 Structure
37 Think about your work, not of your work
The human mind is very good at collecting information and
organizing it in better ways. Yet, most people try and use their
minds instead to remember and remind them of the things they
need to do in the future. This is a waste of mental bandwidth and
capacity to achieve.
To offset this, put in place an airtight reminder system –
something that will capture, retain and produce the correct
reminders at the appropriate time. Once you do that, your mind
will then turn to its higher value tasks. Otherwise, it will keep on
functioning as an internal alarm system only.
38 Your thoughts are more valuable than you realize
Get into the habit of writing down your thoughts as they occur to
you so in freeform without internal censorship. Encourage
spontaneity. Give your mind permission to come up with new and
novel ideas, and jot down (on paper or on computer) the ideas
that come to you. It will then be possible to come back at a later
stage and evaluate those creative flashes of inspiration. Very
often, the germ of something useful will be found in your rough
sketch of a new idea. It may not be immediately obvious, and it
certainly will need refining, but capturing ideas is very
worthwhile.
39 The bigger the gap, the more you have to plan
Many times, what you need to do most is whatever you most feel
like avoiding. When you don’t feel like you have the time to plan,
that’s usually when you most need to do some planning. Or when
you most feel the need to pause and get better organized, there
are usually crushing time demands that makes that impossible.
In similar fashion, organizations generally only get creative when
there is a huge gap between their objectives and their resources.
If they have enough money to do everything they can think of,
there is little incentive to think creatively. It’s only when the hard
decisions are made about how to allocate scarce resources that
the desire for efficiency will arise.
Therefore, to enhance your own personal efficiency level, place
yourself in situations where the gap between what you have and
what you want is large. Then go to work trying to develop a
creative way to bridge that gap. And repeat the cycle again and
again. The results just may impress you.
“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is
that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary
man takes everything as either a blessing or a curse.”
– Carlos Castaneda
“Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are
the creatures of men.”
– Benjamin Disraeli
“The primary tools that one needs in modern day culture are to
know how to make things up, and how to figure things out. This is
creativity in two of its forms. These are called imagination and
problem-solving.”
– Steven Snyder
“The best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas.”
– Linus Pauling

Four Major Areas of Productive Behavior 4 Action
40 Strive to be ready for anything
If you can deal competently with surprise developments on an
organizational and personal level, you’ll do much better than
those who stick rigidly to the guidelines which worked in the past.
It’s when unexpected change challenges your own systems for
productivity that you genuinely find out whether or not they are
sufficiently robust. This is also where excellence can be
achieved.
In other words, manage your own game no matter what the
external conditions are. Stay focused on being productive no
matter what and you’ll always be notable because you’re moving
forwards, not backwards.
41
Too much control is just as bad as too little
In just the same way as micromanagement stifles productivity, if
you try and microorganize everything, you’ll get nowhere. You
still need to allow some time and energy for thinking and making
good, intuitive decisions if you are to achieve anything
worthwhile. With this in mind, hit a good balance between
organizing and doing. Once a week, review all your projects
thoroughly and decide on the next action step for each. Then
spend the bulk of your time working on those projects, rather
than revisiting your planning meeting. Never let the form of your
organizational system detract from its function, to deliver results.
42
Trust your hunches on how you use your time
Some people set A,B,C priorities in an attempt to answer the
question: “What’s the best thing for me to do right now?” The
problem with that is this approach oversimplifies what is a
complex and evolving question. A better idea, therefore, is to
trust your judgement and intuition.
Instead of working your way through a daily to-do list:
n Prepare for the worst – by tying up the loose ends involved in
honoring all your commitments and obligations.
n Imagine the best – that is, focus on your ideal outcomes.
n Shoot down the middle – meaning you favor action over
analysis every day of the week
43 Practice multilevel self-management
Making good decisions about how to use your time is complex
because you have to balance three different frameworks
simultaneously:
1. The context – what you can actually do at this moment.
2. Your possibilities – whether you start a new project, take a
next step on a current project or spend time processing your
stuff.
3. Your commitments – the undertakings you have given to
others and the deadlines you’ve agreed upon.
Everyone has a life that exists on a number of levels. Simply
being well organized won’t guarantee you are truly productive
with every available minute. Instead, you need to hit a good
balance. Making a decision about how to spend a spare half hour
that may crop up requires that you take into account all these
frameworks simultaneously, otherwise your decision will most
likely be flawed.
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Four Major Areas of Productive Behavior 4 Action
44 To be most effective, eliminate stress and relax
Professional sports people perform best when they have the
basics mastered and can relax rather than stressing over the
basics. It’s the same in your own professional and personal life.
You’ll operate with the greatest speed and precision if you
remove anything that stresses you so you can relax a little more.
To really focus on the task at hand, eliminate anything that may
be bubbling away in the back of your mind first. Invest the time to
handle these distractions and you will reap the benefits of greater
focus and productivity.
45 Integrate surprises as part of your plan
A good planner will always ask: “What could possibly go wrong
with this plan, and how will we handle it if that contingency
eventuates?” You need to do the same. In every project you work
on (personal or business), anticipate that some or many
surprises will arise. That way when things go wrong, you’ll accept
these developments for what they are and keep moving forward
towards your objectives. Doing this beforehand defuses the
ability of constant changes in circumstances to derail your plans.
46 Have a very long time horizon
The further down the road you’re looking with your plans, the
more options you’ll see and the easier it will to make course
changes as circumstances change. There’s also the added
advantage that with a long time horizon, you can make elegant
moves rather than being forced to make reactive stabs at
whatever should be done.
With this in mind, look as far ahead as feasible. Make your
short-term decisions on the basis of your long-term objectives
and you’ll get there faster than you ever thought possible.
Conversely, keep chopping and changing as your environment
evolves, and you’ll dissipate all your energy fighting the
short-term battles but losing the long-term war.
47 Speed up by slowing down
Relax. There is never enough time and energy to do everything
you can imagine. Sometimes, the most productive thing you can
do is nothing at all. Then, when you get back into action, you can
use strategies that are better, or you can reengage in a more
intelligent way.
If you’re too caught up in the practicalities of the day-to-day
operation of anything you can lose the plot of the bigger picture.
When that happens, you can become more productive by
slowing down and relaxing rather than attempting to increase
your misdirected physical activities. People in a hurry sometimes
become so myopic that they expend all their energy on activities
of only marginal value rather than getting to the heart of the
matter.
Therefore, relax. Go to dinner with your spouse or someone
important in your life. Get your team off site and let them hang out
together. Put in the clutch (figuratively), so you can shift to a
higher gear. You’ll find that after a quick break, your mental
capacities and physical energy levels will return, and you’ll be
able to make some genuine headway on your projects. By
relaxing a little, you’ll be better positioned to play your best game
rather than being forced to play your quick game.

Four Major Areas of Productive Behavior 4 Action
48 You can’t do a project – you do action steps
You can’t actually do a project. Instead, you do action steps.
When enough action steps have been completed, your project
will then reach its objective. Therefore, there really is no such
thing as a “long-term project” that you’re waiting to get started on.
Either you have specified the next action step for a genuine
project which can be completed as soon as possible, or your
project really should be on a “Someday/Maybe” list of projects
that might one day either get started or dropped.
Never fool yourself into thinking a project should not have a
short-term deliverable specified for it because of its long-term
nature. Be more honest with yourself than that. A real project will
have a next action specified, otherwise it doesn’t belong on your
open projects list.
49 Small things, done repeatedly, can have a major impact
If you automatically invest a small percentage of your weekly
income in an investment, compound interest can generate a very
significant return after a number of years. In similar fashion, if you
regularly invest a small amount of your time in achieving your
professional and personal projects, you can achieve a lot over an
extended period of time. It isn’t the actual amount of time and
effort invested that counts, but the consistency.
For example, if you can manage your time so as to get
10-percent ahead of your demands rather than constantly being
10-percent behind on every project, you’ll find there is a quantum
leap in your productivity and self-esteem levels. The small
actions which are engaged in regularly day-in and day-out are
the real key to experiencing positive experiences.
50 The best way to really know something is to do it
Real knowledge comes from intentional activity. It’s always
easier to change direction when you’re in motion than it is to get
started from a standing start. The people who actually implement
something are better positioned to appreciate its value than
someone who looks at it theoretically.
In the workplace, this often means the people who most need to
manage their time are the least likely to do so, while those who
are already attempting to use their time productively are the most
receptive to new ideas. Similarly, those who don’t currently
experience a level of dissatisfaction with their productivity are
less likely to invest time and effort in learning how to improve.
High performers are always willing to research and sharpen up
their processes, while average performers are happy with their
current levels of performance.
With this in mind, don’t get discouraged if your co-workers, your
spouse, your boss, your children or your assistant don’t get all
that fired up about enhancing their own productivity as you
attempt to do so. Some people will take the ball and run with it,
others will not. Take personal satisfaction from making your own
way forward rather than depending on the judgements of others
who have different priorities and objectives.
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Four Major Areas of Productive Behavior 4 Action
51 If you feel overwhelmed, take the helm
People who are driving a car seldom get carsick. Similarly,
people who have the helm of a boat rarely feel queasy or seasick.
The same principle applies to your life’s work. If you feel like your
work is out of control, get into action collecting, processing,
organizing and managing your projects. Become the cause of
great accomplishment, rather than the unwilling victim of events
beyond your control.
If you try and avoid things that demand your attention, this will be
like attempting to stop a boat in the ocean from rocking. Instead,
focus. For everything that comes to your attention, ask yourself
two key questions and write down the answers:
• What’s my desired outcome here?
• What’s my next action to move in that direction?
52 Big successes will come from the most failures
You should never attempt to measure your own personal
progress by any specific success or failure. Everyone has loads
of small failures on the way to bigger success. In many ways,
these small failures are the inputs required to correct your course
so you can reach your intended destination. Mistakes at least
show you’re in the game rather than watching from the sidelines.
With this in mind, don’t beat yourself up if you swing and miss.
Feeling guilty won’t help. Instead, focus on doing your best with
your next swing, and the one after that. Don’t worry – you’ll get
loads of turn at bat. Play the game to win and be prepared to lose
as often as you need to get to where you want to be.
“Thousands of people have talent. I might as well congratulate
you for having eyes in your head. The one and only thing that
counts is: Do you have staying power?”
– Noel Coward
“Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be
wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things
and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always
lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing
yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far
happier and productive person.”
– Dr. David Burns
“Human behavior and awareness can be at the same time really
simple, really complex and infinitely explorable. As you digest
and put these principles into action, there is a good chance you
will contribute more to your job and your life as a whole. Reading
them will likely reinforce subtle changes in your perceptions,
which lead to changes in behavior. A change in behavior leads to
a change in action and in results. Things spiral outward in larger
and larger ways. Change occurs, and a positive shift happens.
It’s most often the small things, done consistently in strategic
places, that make the most difference. May these principles
serve as road signs and guideposts along your way.”
– David Allen