Dan G. Druen, Jr.

The only problems you have left are the perfect ones. The imperfect ones, the ones with a clearly evident solution, well, if they were important, you've solved them already.

It's the perfect problems that keep us stuck.

Perfect because they have constraints, unbendable constraints, constraints that keep us trapped. I hate my job, I need this job, there's no way to quit, to get a promotion or to get a new boss, no way to move, my family is in town, etc.

We're human, that's what we do--we erect boundaries, constraints we can't ease, and we get trapped.

Or perhaps it's your product or service or brand. Our factory is only organized to make X, but the market doesn't want X as much, or there is regulation, or a new competitor is now offering X at half the price and the board won't do anything, etc.

There's no way to solve the perfect problem because every solution involves breaking an unbreakable constraint.

And there's your solution.

The way to solve the perfect problem is to make it imperfect. Don't just bend one of the constraints, eliminate it. Shut down the factory. Walk away from the job. Change your product completely. Ignore the board.

If the only alternative is slow and painful failure, the way to get unstuck is to blow up a constraint, deal with the pain and then run forward. Fast.

This is a guest post by Barrie Davenport of Live Bold and Bloom.

For anyone under 50 reading this, I have some good news for you.  50 is pretty darned good!

I even surprise myself by writing this, because believe me, I never thought the day would come when I would embrace being half a century.  But it has arrived, and it doesn’t stink.

Yes, yes — there are the inevitable physical changes that are quite unsettling.  Things do start to droop, wrinkle and expand.  Sometimes you will catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and wonder who that middle-aged person is.  On the outside, you may look like a grown-up, but on the inside it’s crazy how you still feel like you are 30.  Or younger.  (Ask my teenagers.  They hate that about me.)

When I was in my 30’s and 40’s, I took life much more seriously.

In fact, I think I was mysteriously older then than I am now.  Is that possible?  When you are busy building a career, raising children, accumulating stuff, and creating a lifestyle, you are defined by that busyness.  It’s serious work.  You have to make money to pay for the lifestyle.  Your kids need to be raised right lest they become a scourge on society and embarrass you by living in a trailer and eating bugs.

Those years are fulfilling and wonderful, but they also are fraught with upheaval and angst.  Things that once didn’t matter when you were younger, like having the right cocktail napkins or winning yard of the month, somehow matter so very much.  We struggle toward some kind of perfection and achievement that is ‘out there’ somewhere.

I don’t know about you, but I have spent a lot of time trying to create the self I thought I should be.  I cobbled together the perfect me made from pieces of this and that.  The clothes I wear, the neighborhood we live in, the car I drive, the friends I have.  It looks pretty nice from the outside.  And much of it is nice on the inside too.

But I spent way, way too much time in the work of crafting myself, and far too little time just being myself.

When you are spinning your wheels to maintain this beautifully crafted life, you miss out on a whole lot of real living.

If I were able to time travel and visit my twenty or thirty-year-old self, there are some things I would really like to teach me.  Since I can’t do that, hopefully you will benefit from some of the lessons I’ve learned over the last 50 years.

1. 50 doesn’t feel like 50.  It doesn’t feel like the age you imagined when you are in your 20’s or 30’s.  For the most part, it feels the way you feel right now.  But smarter and more confident.  You also have more time and resources to enjoy life.  So don’t fear it.  Look forward to it.
2. Experience life before you settle down.  Whatever it is you want to do or experience, do as much of it as you can before you have children.  Especially travel.  Live in a hovel and drive a beat-up Dodge Dart if you have to.  But go have some really great, amazing, mind-blowing experiences.
3. Money and stuff are not all that important.  Yes, you want enough to be comfortable and do the things you want to do.  But accumulating for the sake of accumulating is so boring and empty.  Feed the soul, not the ego.
4. Don’t try to impress people.  That’s an act that brings nothing but a momentary ego boost.  Be real with people instead.  Connect with fewer people on a level that is deeper and more profound.
5. Let your kids fail.  Your kids will be okay, even if you think they are headed for the juvie right now.  Don’t come to their rescue all the time.  Don’t manage every detail of their lives or over-schedule them with tao quan dao or viola lessons.  Give them some boundaries, and then relax about them.
6. Bad things will happen.  Part of living and getting older is experiencing upheavals in life.  People lose jobs, get divorced, die.  When you are younger, and things have gone pretty well, this can be shocking.  The bad things won’t kill you.  You will learn from them if you allow it.
7. Not much is worth fighting about.  If you can avoid it, don’t fight.  Step back from arguments with your spouse or family member or neighbor.  When you feel anger surging up and you want to say that snarky thing on the tip of your tongue, just close your mouth and walk away.  Let yourself calm down.  You don’t have to be right or win the argument.  It just doesn’t matter that much.
8. Little things stick with you.  So pay attention to them.  Like watching your child sleep.  Preparing a meal with your family.  Sharing a great laugh with an old friend.  That is the real stuff life is made of.
9. Keep having fun.  Fun is way underrated.  With all of our responsibilities, fun seems like an indulgence.  It shouldn’t be.  It should be a requirement.  Remember what you did to have fun when you were younger, and go do it again.  Leave the house messy and the yard un-mowed for the weekend.  You will remember the fun, not the clean house or yard.  Make time for fun.
10. Make things simpler.  Pick the five most important things in your life now, and focus on those things.  Let the other stuff go.  Let go of the activities, the events, the commitments, the shopping, the to-do lists.  Stop the busyness and really enjoy the important things you have right now.
11. Keep your brain active.  Don’t get into a mental rut.  Do new things, learn new things, explore new ideas in all areas of your life.  Keep challenging yourself and your mind.  Be curious and interested in the world around you.
12. Hang out with younger people.  Stay connected with what the generation behind you is doing and thinking.  Establish friendships with them.  You will benefit and learn from each other.  Don’t act superior, because younger people may know a whole lot more than you do!
13. Keep exercising and eating healthy.  You know this, but I’ll remind you anyway.  The older you get, the more important a healthy lifestyle is.  In my 20’s, I could shovel down a Wendy’s hamburger and fries every day and never see the difference.  Now I just look at a hamburger and my butt gets bigger.
14. Manage aging, but why fight it?  You can spend a fortune on face creams, plastic surgery, hair growth formulas, and botox, but eventually you realize you are fighting an uphill battle.  Groom yourself nicely.  Stay fit.  Have unsightly things removed.  But accept the beauty of aging.  A striking mature man or woman is much more attractive than someone who looks overly taunt, tanned or top-heavy.
15. Everyone doesn’t have to like you and vice versa.  One of my friends likes to say, “She’s not in my cluster.”  Sometimes there are people in your life who are just not the right fit or who drain you dry.  It is fine to back off from them or even let them go.
16. Marriages evolve and change.  The feelings you had for the man or woman you married will mutate and evolve several times over the life of a marriage.  Hopefully you will evolve in the same direction or at least embrace and accept the changes in the other person.  It takes work, and sometimes it takes counseling.  Don’t gloss over those changes or you may wake up next to a stranger one day.
17. Yes, you can still have great sex.  When I was in my 20’s, I thought you stopped doing it when you were in your early 40’s.  I assumed middle aged people would no longer want to disrobe in front of each other.  I’m happy to inform you that this is not the case.
18. Tend to your friendships.  Especially your oldest friendships.  These are the people who know and love you best, in spite of your flaws.  Treat them like the precious gems they are.
19. Stop worrying.  Worry does absolutely nothing productive.  In fact, it is counterproductive.  The more you worry, the more you reinforce the problem or concern in your brain.
20. Everything is not always black or white.  Life is often very ambiguous.  Sometimes there isn’t a right or wrong decision or choice.  Things are not always completely clear.  You may not get THE answer, so you just have to wing it.
21. Take action on your dreams.  If you’ve been putting things off — a new career, more education, the big trip — start taking action right now to make it happen.  Don’t dream about it anymore.  Start doing it.
22. Don’t dwell on your wounds.  Everyone has something that has caused pain and has been limiting them in some way.  If you need help to deal with it, then get it right away.  Don’t let the past limit your future.
23. Embrace change.  As uncomfortable as it is sometimes, change allows us to stretch and grow.  New things feel awkward and scary at first, but those feelings go away, and you are left with something bigger and bolder in your life.
24. Be vulnerable.  Allow yourself to feel, to be open and authentic.  Tear down any emotional brick walls you have built around yourself and feel every exquisite emotion, both good and bad.  This is real life.  This is how you welcome new opportunities.
25. Count your blessings every day.  I know, this is a refrigerator magnet line, but practice it daily anyway.  There is so much good, so much beauty, so much love in your life.  What more do you really need?  You have so much right now, you just need to pause long enough to appreciate it.

Barrie Davenport is a personal and career coach and the founder of Live Bold and Bloom, a blog about bold and fearless living.  Download her free ebook, How to Live a Meaningful Life.

Photo by: Pierre Pouliquin

Dear David Allen: You mention you only “think once a week”.  Does that mean you have a script rule about planning out your weeks as opposed to day-to-day? Could you explain that a little more?

David: When I say I only think once a week, I’m making an exaggerated point that doing a thorough GTD Weekly Review sufficiently sets up my sense of priorities so that I don’t have to do a lot of re-thinking or over-structuring, as I go day to day.  Usually we don’t have the time in the busy pace we work to stop and do “forest management instead of tree-hugging”.  Because most people don’t build in that reflection time–regarding actions, projects, and commitments–they’re constantly thinking that they should be thinking about their priorities, but they never really do.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mary Jaksch of Goodlife ZEN.

Do you want to be more productive? Maybe you do, but I’m sure you don’t want to feel stressed, overwhelmed, or unhappy – which happens to many super-productive people. But there is good news:

You can be insanely productive – and still smell the freesias, savor a Pinot Noir, or enjoy a languid hug.

A few weeks ago Leo Babauta said to me, “Mary – you’re one of the most productive people I know. And you still keep smiling and seem so relaxed. How do you do it?”

Most stuff I’ve read about productivity is about doing things differently. Like getting up at 4 a.m. each morning, or drinking eight liters of water a day, or keeping a notebook under the pillow. Sorry, folks – I don’t do any of those things.

High productivity isn’t about doing, it’s about being.

If you want to be highly productive – and still enjoy life – you need to look at how you live, and how you use your mind. Check out the following five suggestions:

1. Make peace within.
   Most people live in a constant state of inner conflict and suffer from a barrage of negative thoughts that sabotage productivity.

   Here’s a scenario: Imagine that your car has landed in a ditch. A group of helpers gather, attach ropes and start to pull the car out. Unfortunately, they’re not all pulling in the same direction. Some try to pull the car toward the road, whereas others try to pull it deeper into the ditch. It’s absurd.

   That’s exactly what happens when we’re divided within: everything is a struggle, nothing much happens, and it’s frustrating. But what if your mind, body, and soul are all aligned?

   When our energy is aligned, we are in a state of flow.

   When we’re at peace within, and immersed in the task at hand – without negative thoughts sabotaging our productivity – action becomes effortless. We’re able to achieve much more in less time. And with more enjoyment.

   Tip: Wear an elastic wristband. Whenever you notice negative thoughts, change your wristband to the other arm. This will help you to create and maintain peace within.

2. Go to your edge. Regularly.
   Most people use only a fraction of their capacity and try to save personal energy. For example, we’re tempted to rest when we feel tired in order to recover our zest for life. Wrong move! The more energy you spend, the more you have.

   Tiredness can signal many things. If you’re healthy, it may mean that you are bored, frustrated, lack movement, or need more oxygen. Or maybe conflict within has sapped your energy. It’s important to go to your limits regularly. Take up running, martial arts, swimming, or other activities – there are many way to exercise vigorously.

   Tip: If you feel exhausted or lethargic, go for a brisk walk in order to rev up your energy and restore your spirit.

3. Take action.
   Most people aren’t productive because they don’t take action. They have dreams and even plans – but they don’t follow through. Negative thoughts can derail action. It may be that you have doubts about your ability, or that you listen to others who doubt you.

   Tip: Look at what you would like to achieve and ask yourself, “What is the smallest step in the direction of my dreams that I can take right now?” Then take that baby step. Now.

4. Do what you love.
   Think about how you spend your time. Do you enjoy your work, or is it a grind? I’ve changed my life, and what I’m passionate about has now become my work: I teach my Zen students, and also work together with Leo to mentor bloggers in the A-list Blogger Club .

   A few days ago my partner David knocked at the door of the little cabin in the garden where I work:

   “Mary,” he said, “ do you realize it’s 10 o’clock at night – and you’re still working?”
   “I’m not working!” I shot back. “I’m enjoying myself!”

   Yes, when the boundary between work and play gets blurred, you may actually work more – but it feels like you’re just having fun.

   Tip: Follow your dreams – even if it’s only for ten minutes a day.

5. Love what you do.
   We can’t always do what we love. But we are free to love what we do. From a Zen perspective, there is a way to turn even the dullest chore into pleasurable activity through mindfulness.When we pay tender regard to our present experience – letting go of all thoughts and judgments – even the most mundane action can become pleasurable. Mindfulness doesn’t mean watching yourself, it means being fully present, moment by moment.

   Tip: In order to become mindful, notice sensations of the moment. What sounds can you hear? How are your feet connected with the ground? What does your skin feel like?

Finally, a key question you need to ask …

If you want to be productive and still enjoy life, there is a key question you need to answer: why be productive?

I mean, why not just chill out on the couch, eat potato crisps, and watch TV reruns? That might be fine. But what about the oblong box we’re all going to end up in?

I remind myself every morning that life is short and mine may be over by nightfall. That gives me the the desire to taste and enjoy each moment. It also adds a measure of calm urgency because I want to leave a mark upon the world. Do you?

If so, mindful productivity will help you create a life that offers both pleasure and productivity. You’ll achieve more, and you’ll still keep smiling. That smile will light up not only your own life, but also the lives of those around you.

You don’t have to be a super-hero. Simply make peace within and live each moment fully. That’s all.

Mary Jaksch is a Zen Master and blogger. Head over to Goodlife Zen for more of her articles. And visit the A-List Blogger Club.

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“We don’t have an eternity to realize our dreams, only the time we are here.”
– Susan Taylor

What’s holding you back from accomplishing your dreams?  I’ve worked with many people over the years and have heard a number of different reasons.  One common reason I hear over and over is:

Time. Or rather, a lack of time.

We all need more time, and it’s true – if you don’t dedicate sufficient time to your dreams, they’ll fade away.  I’ve discussed time management before, and today I want to talk about bullet-proof, dead simple ways to make time for your dreams.  The powerful strategies I lay out below are time tested:  not only are these strategies I recommend – they are all strategies I personally use in my life as well.

Quick Announcement: The inspiration for this article is a free teleclass Jonathan Meade is hosting on How to Find the Courage to Follow Your Dreams. Click here to sign up for free, and to also get a free copy of the recording once it’s complete.   Hurry and sign up in case there are still seats left – Jonathan’s time goes for $150 an hour, and this is the first time I’ve seen him offer a class like this for free.

Five Dead Simple Ways To Instantly Make Time For Your Dreams

1.  Just Do it – First Thing In The Morning

Sometimes the simplest advice really is the best advice. I call it paying yourself first with your time. If you’re constantly finding yourself stretched in the evening, and unable to work on your dreams during that time – then why not spend some time in the morning working on yourself and your dreams instead?

Get up half an hour early, an hour early – whatever you need to do to make yourself a priority in your own life.

If you have trouble getting up in the morning, you can check out Dave Navarro’s guide Becoming An Early Riser.

2.  Outsource

When you hear the word “outsource” you might think of virtual assistants in a foreign country handling business while you sleep.  While I do have experience with that, you can also outsource everyday tasks fairly cheaply to people in your own area – and my favorite example is household chores.

One of the most popular articles on this site is my story of how I stopped my cooking (and even most of my shopping) by outsourcing my meals on Craig’s list.  I’ll give you the punchline – it turns out that you can put a price on your dreams, and the price of my dreams is only $60 a week.  $60 a week bought me enough time to work on some things I was simply stretched too thin to work on before.

Outsourcing my cooking immediately freed up the time I needed. What’s more, once I had a value for those spare hours, they meant so much more to me, because I had paid money to get them – and I spent those hours working out, working on my personal goals, and there’s no value you can place on the satisfaction I got knowing I had actively taken control of my own life.

If you do want to outsource business or personal tasks that can be done remotely, you may be interested in reading about my experience using virtual assistants.

3.  Stop Wasting Time Online

There are a number of ways people waste time online, from games to social networking to reading news articles.  One of my personal vices (and one that I still have to be conscious of to keep in check) is wasting too much time reading news and articles online.  If you’re reading articles just for entertainment value, then maybe it’s time to take a step back and put that time aside instead for your dreams.

If you absolutely must keep up with a large amount of information (for example, perhaps as part of your job) I recommend streamlining your online reading – here’s how I keep up with over 10,000 articles, blog posts and forum discussions a week.  You may not be able to cut down the amount of information you need to absorb – but why not try to make the process itself more efficient?

Side note:  Spending too much time dealing with email? Check out my article on strategies for dealing with email overload.

4.  Drop Some Commitments

There’s nothing complicated about this advice, but very often it is difficult to implement – and many people I’ve worked with believe their situation is an exception.  In my experience, very seldom is a commitment or obligation a true exception that you absolutely must keep. Instead, typically what’s really going on is we try to put off dropping commitments because we feel a moral obligation, and a sense of integrity.

Most people we’re keeping commitments to however don’t necessarily view our involvement as strictly necessary, and the world will go on even if you drop a commitment.  Trust me, I know – check out my article about canceling commitments.

5.  Ditch The Urgent, Unimportant Tasks

You may have read this bullet and immediately identified with it.  Think back to yesterday or perhaps earlier in the week, and you may remember a time where you spent hours on something that in the long run just didn’t matter.  It wasn’t important to you or your life – but it was urgent.  It had to be dealt with right away.

One example from my own life that I’ve stopped doing is clipping coupons.  I realized one day that I was sometimes spending an hour on the weekend looking at sales and cutting out coupons that I never used.  The task itself wasn’t important – I already had everything I needed to live.   It was urgent though because if I didn’t do it right away, I was afraid I’d miss out on a deal.

For a more in depth discussion on Urgent versus Important, I invite you to review my article on Covey’s Time Management Matrix – illustrated with comics!

3 Powerful Resources To Help You Work Towards Your Dreams

• How to Find the Courage to Follow Your Dreams – A free teleclass With Jonathan Meade where he discusses how to stop letting fear keep you from following your dreams
• How To Live Your Best Life – A guide designed to show you how to use your life list to create a blueprint of your ideal life, then take the necessary action steps to build that life.
• Personal Development 101 – My free personal development course.  Effective, simple exercises that I personally use in my life, and that you can do in about 15 minutes a day.  By the end of the course you’ll have noticeable improvements in yourself and your life, with many people noticing results in the first week.

Further Reading

• Nerdy Productivity: Covey’s Time Management Matrix Illustrated with XKCD Comics
• More Important than Money – Paying Myself First With My Time
• Stop Wasting Time Online! Tips and Start Pages To Improve Concentration Online
• How To Actively Take Control of Your Time and Your Life
• A Powerful Time Management Strategy – The Time Budget
• How to Create Your Personal Development Plan

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Did you know ... this list of articles is custom generated for you? If you enjoyed this article, you may enjoy these similar articles:

1. Your Hunger Will Fade – Five Ways To Keep Your Dreams Alive
2. 13 Ways To Improve Your Concentration With a Distraction Free Work Environment
3. The Price of my Dreams – $60 a Week

© Sid for SidSavara.com, 2010. | 5 Dead Simple Ways To Make Time For Your Dreams

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I was going to title this post, “Are Facebook Friends really Friends?”, but I think the social media that is eating up our time, and overwhelming us with too much information includes more than just Facebook. You participate in social media for two reasons, business or pleasure. If you aren’t careful about how you manage these venues, you won’t be doing any business or enjoying any pleasure. Instead, you will be juggling distractions and struggling to keep up with all of your “friends”.

I remember in the early days of the Internet, when chat rooms were scary, instant messaging was hip and if you were on match.com, you were really daring. Today, all of those things seem mainstream, instead of cutting edge. With Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn and others, we are encouraged to literally live a portion of our lives through social media. I think we thought that these sites would makes us more effective in business and keep us connected on a greater level, but like the effects of most high speed technology, our business efforts have become diluted and and our social connections, less genuine.

I think it is great that we can connect with friends and family through Facebook and follow interesting people on twitter, but it is important to remember to do it on purpose. We have to seriously consider how social networking websites affect our lives and act accordingly.

Choose Wisely - Before you “friend” or “follow”, ask yourself if you could call that friend if you needed help with something, or if you would have invited the “friend” into your life otherwise. Before you follow a tweep, decide if what they post will be of value to your life or your business. There is something to be said for a genuine connection and it is unlikely that you will achieve that, following thousands.

Communication – There used to be a time where no one knew what we were doing, every second of the day. There used to be a time where no one cared about that information. No one cares about it today. Share something of value or don’t share at all. You can only absorb and process so much information. Make sure you pay attention to the stuff that matters to you and delete the rest.

Connections - Today, people often assess their value by their number of “friends” or “followers”. Instead, place value on your actions and character. Go through your list of connections and decide which ones aren’t useful to you. Un-friending and Un-following is not personal. Ask yourself if you are connecting with someone via social media for business or pleasure, and make sure your list is in-line with your goals and values.

Time Management – You cannot be everywhere all the time, yet some of these sites leave you feeling like you are missing something, or can’t keep up if you aren’t there 24/7. Instead of doing a little here and there, choose the venue that works best for you. For instance, I check in with my Facebook account once a week or so and canceled my Linkedin account. That gives me more time to thoughtfully engage with twitter.

Reality - Are your connections online interfering with your connections at home, work, or in your neighborhood. The www is an amazing place to meet great people, and to learn and grow, but don’t forget to go for a walk with your family, call an old friend or make a new one. Make sure to incorporate technology vacations into your life. Break away for one day a week if you can. (Plan on an upcoming mini-mission for this!)

Distraction – You knew this was coming. Web surfing has always been a distraction to work, but today, when you can engage in a conversation with a “friend” at any time, instead of staying focused and doing meaningful work, you have to be vigilant about doing one thing at a time. If you are writing a proposal, shut down your other websites. If you are catching up on reading, don’t have TweetDeck chirping at you every .2 seconds with an update. Imagine trying to work, if an alarm went off every time anyone wanted your attention. When you are doing meaningful work, or having a phone or in person conversations, kill your email, alarms, text alerts, and any other distractions. You will be amazed at what you can give and take, when you do it on purpose.

I am reconsidering the time and energy I devote to social media sites. After careful consideration, I canceled my linkedin account, reduced (and continue to reduce) my facebook friends to people that I know, and would like to stay in touch with, and will redirect most of my social networking efforts to twitter, but in moderation.  I don’t think there is a special number of friends or followers you should stick with. It all depends on what works best for you. For me, following less than 100 people on twitter, allows me to have quality interactions and not feel overwhelmed with information.

We cannot be available all the time, we cannot be consuming information all the time. We need time to be more and do less and only you can make that time for yourself.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to Be More with Less & share on twitter.

Josh Kaufman wrote a succinct review of Getting Things Done on his blog, The Personal MBA.  David saw it and commented to Josh, “I’ve run across few people who have “grokked” GTD conceptually as well as you have.”  With Josh’s permission, we’re sharing his complete review here.

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If you’re ready to stop stressing and start accomplishing your goals, David Allen’s Getting Things Done can help you create a simple, effective personal productivity system.

About David Allen

David Allen is the author of the Personal MBA-recommended book Getting Things Done, as well as Ready For Anything, and Making It All Work. For more information about his work, check out David Allen’s website.

Here are 10 big ideas from David Allen’s Getting Things Done…

1. If your day-to-day life is out of control, it’s almost impossible to think strategically or plan effectively.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed about how much you have to do (and who isn’t, really?), it’s difficult to focus on ensuring your life and work is moving in the direction you want to go. That’s why it’s important to get control of your daily tasks before working on your big-picture life planning.

GTD is a “bottom-up” approach to productivity. The goal is to establish a sense of comfort and control over the work that’s on your plate right now, so you can free up some mental energy and space to think about the big stuff.

2. Define what being “done” looks like.

Most of the tasks people keep on their to-do lists are “amorphous blobs of undoability” – commitments without any clear vision of what being “done” looks like. That’s a huge problem – your brain is naturally designed to help you figure out how to do things, but only if you know what the end point looks like.

Everything you’re working on should have a very clear stopping point – a point where you know you’re done. If you don’t know what that point looks like, you’ll find it very difficult to make any progress at all. When you’re having trouble making progress, first clarify what being done looks like.

3. Mental work has five distinct phases: Collect, Process, Organize, Do, and Review

Not all work is the same. There are five separate phases of effective work:

• Collecting is the act of gathering inputs: resources, knowledge, and tasks. You’ll have a much easier time making use of your available inputs if they’re all in one place before you begin.
• Processing is the act of examining your inputs: what you can do with the resources at your disposal. This is where you start separating things according to what you’re planning to do next: tasks, projects, future plans, and reference information.
• Organizing means taking the results of your processing and putting it in a system you trust, so you don’t have to remember it all. Tasks go on your to-do list, projects go on a projects list, future plans go into a tracking system, and reference information goes into a file or database you can access easily.
• Doing means working through the tasks you can accomplish right now.
• Reviewing means examining the results of your work, revising your strategy, and improving your systems for better results.

Keep the phases deliberately separate, and you’ll get a lot more done.

4. Get everything out of your head.

Many people try to keep track of everything they need to do in their mind, which is a big mistake. Our brains are optimized for fast decision-making, not storage. Trying to juggle too many things in your head at the same time is a major reason we get stressed out when there’s a lot going on: we’re using the wrong tool for the job.

The best way to stop mentally thrashing and start being productive is to spend a few minutes putting everything on your mind onto paper. You can write or draw – whatever works for you, as long as you can see it when you’re done. Once the information is out of your head, it’s far easier to figure out what to do with it. Even 10 minutes of Externalization can help you feel less freaked out about your workload.

Of course, it’s better not to be freaked out in the first place, so make it easy to capture what you’re thinking on paper. I carry a wallet that has a space for 3×5 index cards and a pen – whenever I have an idea, it’s easy to capture it, even if I don’t have my notebook or computer with me at the time. If you reduce the Friction you experience when capturing ideas, you’ll naturally capture more of them.

5. Projects and tasks are two different things: track them separately.

A major mistake that most people make when keeping track of things to do is conflating tasks and projects. That’s a good way to feel overwhelmed fast – many things can’t be accomplished in one sitting.

For example, I just finished the book I’ve been writing for a little over a year. If I had “write the book” on my to-do list, I’d quickly be overwhelmed – the project was just too big. Instead of “failing” to accomplish that to-do for a year, it’s far better to treat it as a project – something that takes more than one task to accomplish. I can’t “write the book,” but I can complete a small section of the book in one sitting.

Since projects and tasks are two different things, it’s best to keep track of them separately. Personally, I carry a small notebook with me to record active tasks with 3×5 index card inside that lists my active projects. The index card is just the right size to list 4-8 active projects – if I have more than that, I know I’m spreading myself too thin.

6. Focus on the Next Action required to move forward.

Big projects have many steps, and can be overwhelming in their complexity. The key to handling these projects is not to focus on everything that has to be done – that’s a great way to freak yourself out.

Instead, just focus on the very next physical action you need to do to move the project forward. It may be looking up a piece of information, making a phone call, or accomplishing a small task. Whatever it is, it’ll move you closer to completing the project, so don’t worry about everything else – focus only on what you can do right now.

7. Use the “2 Minute Rule” for small tasks.

Don’t worry about tracking small tasks – if you can accomplish the task in less than two minutes, just do it! Writing down every little thing you have to do takes more time than it’s worth – if you need to send a 30-second reminder e-mail to someone, there’s no sense in taking 20 seconds to write it down when you could just get er done.

Personally, I expand this to 5 minutes – the principle is the same. Your goal is to get things done, not to flawlessly capture each and every little thing in your perfectly designed system.

8. Use Reference and Someday/Maybe files for things that have no immediate next actions.

There’s no sense in keeping FYI or long-term dreams in your active daily task tracking system. Reference files are great for storing information you don’t have to act on right now. These files can either be physical or electronic – for example, I keep important paperwork and legal documents in a fire-proof safe, and electronic files and websites in a file on my computer or in Evernote.

Someday/Maybe lists are great for deferring ideas that you’d like to work on someday, but you’re not committing to right now. I have ideas about fun new things do to every day – way more than I have time or energy for. Instead of losing these ideas, it’s far better to capture them in a reference file you can look through later, when you have more capacity. When you’re ready to commit to a new project, the someday/maybe gets promoted to an active project.

9. Build a trusted system that helps you keep track of your commitments.

Your mind keeps things in working memory if it thinks you’ll lose them if it doesn’t. That’s why building a productivity system is important – it helps your mind let go of tracking unnecessary details so you can focus on the task at hand. That’s why Externalization works – when you put something on paper in a place you know you’ll be able to find later, you’re freeing mental resources that can be put to better use elsewhere.

An effective productivity system consists of the following:

• A list of active tasks – next actions you’ve committed to accomplishing in the next few days.
• A list of active projects – 4-20 project you’ve committed to accomplishing in the next few weeks.
• A calendar – commitments to meet with other people in the near future.
• A someday/maybe list – ideas you’d like to explore, but not right now.
• Reference files – information or documents you’ll need to refer to in the future.
• A capture device – some way of capturing ideas or next actions as you think of them.

That’s it, really – you can use any number of tools for the above, as long as they cover those basic needs. Personally, I use a notebook for active tasks, a 3×5 index card in that notebook for projects, the calendar on my computer, someday/maybe and reference files in Backpack and Evernote or physical files, and my 3×5-sized wallet for my capture device.

10. Schedule non-negotiable time for a Weekly Review.

Life moves fast – we often have so much to do that’s it’s difficult to take a step back and examine whether or not we’re getting the results we want. That’s why it’s extremely important to schedule some time each week to do a “Weekly Review.”

Here are a few things you should include in your weekly review:

• Process and organize – anything you’ve collected but haven’t handled yet.
• Review your active tasks – are there any to add, delegate, defer, or delete?
• Review your active projects – are there any to add, delegate, defer, or delete?
• Review your calendar – are there any meetings to add, delegate, defer, or delete?
• Someday/Maybe – anything to add or promote to an active project?
• Reference Files – anything you need soon? Anything to add or update?
• Goals – are you moving in the right direction? Are you making progress? Are any changes necessary?

Don’t skip this review – it’s extremely important if you want to decrease your stress levels. Personally, I find it best to schedule my review for the end of the week: Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. It’s a great way to wrap up the week, feel good about what you’ve accomplished, plan for the next week, and set yourself up for a relaxing weekend.

BONUS TIP: developing an effective personal productivity system takes time and experimentation.

Many people get frustrated when adopting GTD because it takes so long to get everything under control. Cut yourself some slack: GTD is a collection of habits, and habits take time to develop. Instead of trying to install everything at once, work on improving in one of these areas until it’s effortless, then focus on installing the next habit. In time, you’ll master them all.

Also remember that the goal of GTD is to make it easier to do work that matters – not procrastinating by endlessly improving your system instead of doing productive work. Try to avoid succumbing to “productivity porn” – experiment constantly, but remember that the most effective systems have the same thing in common: they’re usually the simplest thing that could possibly work. When in doubt, err on the side of doing less.

Josh Kaufman is an independent business teacher, education activist, and author of the Personal MBA: A World-Class Business Education in a Single Volume, which will be published by Portfolio on December 30, 2010.

The following is an excerpt from the upcoming e-book, Inside-Out Simplicity.

This spring, I ran my first marathon. Going in, the endeavor was about realizing a dream and proving to myself that I could do it. However, along the way, I experienced countless other benefits. I got into shape (just in time for summer), I made new friends, I enjoyed hours of quiet reflection on my life, and I learned some valuable lessons about life. In short, it became a true life-changing experience.

Of all the life-changing lessons I learned, perhaps the most significant was the importance of competing less and encouraging more. Marathon runners are notorious for offering encouragement to one another. They understand an important race principle: there is room at the finish line for all of us. It isn’t all about winning or losing, it’s about the experience and being in it together. As a result, the entire 26.2 mile race was filled with encouragement from bystanders and competitors completely committed to helping the other racers finish strong.

Those of us seeking simplicity can learn a lot from marathon runners. Admittedly, I have spent most of my years on earth competing against others rather than encouraging them in the journey. It was so important for me to succeed that I often tore others down rather than building them up. Looking back, I owe them all an apology. I wish I had competed less and encouraged more.

I have come to realize that the mindset of competition is based on a faulty premise. It assumes there is a finite sized pie – that one more success in another’s life equals one less success in mine. But quite frankly, this thinking is incorrect. The size of the pie is not finite.

In reality, the pie keeps growing. Another’s success does not mean I have less shot at it. In fact, another’s success can actually be my success if I had an opportunity to encourage and promote them along the way!

This is a life-changing revelation and important key to experiencing simplicity in life.

To put this into practice, try some of these practical, mind-set changing ideas to encourage others:

• Refuse to speak negatively of other people (publically or privately).
• Send consumers to other competing businesses if they can better meet their individual needs.
• Use cards, telephone calls, and emails to offer encouragement to those around you.
• Publicly promote other people’s success stories.
• Ask how you can come alongside to help.
• Share your ideas with others. The free-flow of information will always come back around to you.
• Attend local, community events and promote a “teammate mentality.”

This world has always been big enough for all of us. I just wish it hadn’t taken a 4½ hour run for me to figure that out.