Transcripts

David Allen :
The psychologists actually call it something now. They call it "distributed cognition," a fancy word for writing it down.

Time management expert, David Allen, author of the book, Getting Things Done…

They're discovering how absolutely critical it is that you get stuff out of your head. Because your head doesn't remember and remind very well. It's trying to because if that's the only system that's doing it, your head is trying to keep track of all this stuff. But unfortunately it doesn't do that nearly as well as a system does. Your head is designed to have ideas not hold them.

We generate so much of our own stress, says David, when we break agreements we make with ourselves.

They tell themselves to do something, and then they don't do that. It creates this sort of undermining of their own self-trust. All these commitments that we have are actually agreements with ourselves. But, that's why you need to keep track of them, have them all out in front of you and constantly keep looking at them and renegotiating. But that's almost impossible to do when it's all in your head.

That's why, in part, we over commit ourselves to too many things. Because we don't have a clear picture of what all we're committed to. So, a pen, some paper, and a system are critical.

…And an "In" basket, so you can throw the stuff in there that you write down. And then come back around and get that "In" basket empty, regularly. So, that you've got a collection booklet that you can toss these ideas. You want the freedom to have as many ideas as you can. As Linus Pauling said, "The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas."

You can link to David's website from ours: somethingyoushouldknow.net. I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.