The Art of Stress-Free Productivity: David Allen at TEDxClaremontColleges

Transcriber: Martin Laclaustra Reviewer: Denise RQ The art of

stress

-

free

productivity

is a martial art. I'll start with a quick little story. 1990. I took an overnight boat trip with my then-girlfriend to Santa Cruz Island, part of the Channel Islands, 26 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara. It is a rugged and beautiful island, but the coast is very steep, with steep cliffs and many rock outcrops. We anchored in a small cove, there aren't many, we anchored in one when it was already dark. We went down to prepare dinner and suddenly the wind started howling as it usually does in this area, quite easily by the way.

While I was preparing dinner, I had the feeling that our boat was moving and sure enough, our anchors were losing their grip. That's very unpleasant. In a small cove, where the wind howls, and about 50 meters away, at the end of the cove, a very unpleasant sea is brewing; So we ran up, started the engine so we could have some control of the boat, and sure enough, I went over the rear anchor line, which chokes the propeller. Now we no longer have control of the ship. Now we're at the mercy of the wind that's actually whistling down that canyon and pushing us out of the cove and into the open ocean, but then along that coast, right near those cliffs, I radioed the Coast Guard.

We were informed that it would be three hours before their rescue boat arrived there in case of bad weather. So we are practically at the mercy of all this. We have our stuff ready to throw overboard in case we hit the rocks. The ship and even our lives were in danger. And almost simultaneously, we both looked up at one point and noticed the most incredible, dramatic, beautiful full moon. And in the midst of all that chaos, we had the experience of this wonderful Zen peace. I tell you that story because you all have something similar, I'm sure, in your history, where you were in something that, in retrospect, you might call a crisis and at some point you found yourself "in your zone." Time disappeared.

You were completely present. You were totally engaged with what was happening. You were in a productive flow. And if you had the luxury of stopping for a minute, you may have experienced a wonderful feeling of being present, like my girlfriend and I did that night. Interestingly, crises can produce a kind of calm that is sometimes rare to find. Because? Requires it. Because it's the calm that comes from those behaviors that creates the kind of positive, productive, engaged experience that gets us into "our zone." Very clear about the outcome for us that it was "live", instantly making intuitive action decisions and taking actions, being meaningfully committed to that outcome.

And everything else in our lives took a backseat, so that we were fully present in what was happening. And you've probably experienced that too. And maybe you had this feeling of that peace. By the way, wouldn't it be nice if you could experience that kind of peace, that kind of productive engagement, without the danger or

stress

of a crisis forcing you to do so? It is actually possible. Let me give you a little secret. “Getting things done” is not about getting things done. It's really about properly engaging with what's happening. "A proper compromise" is the real key here.

Many times, not doing something is how to properly engage with it. Hopefully each of you are not properly engaged in anything else other than listening to me right now. So there is a key, something unique about being involved properly. Why does a crisis take us there? Because it forces us to perform those behaviors that take us there. Now, there is a lot to unpack about this idea of ​​appropriate commitment. I'll talk about the highlights, but some indicators of this would be... think: are you adequately engaged right now with the project you're on? With the paper you need to write?

With your cat? The holidays approach? Are you adequately committed to your health? By the way, are you adequately committed to everything you've heard so far about how I could/could/should/would do that? Do you have a proper commitment to that? One indicator, by the way, that you don't have to look far to find opportunities to engage more appropriately is simply to notice what's on your mind. Do any of you have anything on your mind besides listening to me? Do any of you have any important strategic issues in mind? Interestingly, the more you keep it in mind, the less it happens and the more inappropriately you engage with it.

Why isn't it on cruise control? It's only in your mind because you know that there are still some thoughts or some decisions about it that you haven't made or you haven't parked the results of that in some reliable systemic process that you trust will activate at the right time, in the right way. You don't actually have to finish those things, folks, to properly engage and get them out of your mind, but there are very specific things you do need to do about them. By the way, there are a number of paradoxes that occur with all this material;

There are some counterintuitive things about what I'm going to share with you in the next few minutes. You'll need to get comfortable with that if you want to get to this place of productive engagement without a crisis forcing you to do so. The great paradox is that in order to manage all the complexities of all the things in your life you only need three basic principles that you understand and apply. It's not about the new smartphone. This is not some fancy new agenda. This is not a new piece of software. Those are interesting tools, but only to the extent that you use them to apply those key principles.

Once you get those principles, you will create your own system. A second paradox here is that the initial moves, behaviors and best practices of this may very likely, for many of you, initially feel very uncomfortable, very unnatural and even unnecessary. It's exactly like learning martial art moves, which I did years ago. If you want to learn how to produce maximum power with the karate chop, you will have to spend hundreds of hours doing something that feels very uncomfortable and unnatural as a movement. Hundreds of hours doing that! Once you do that, by the way, you will never go back to less, in terms of energy production.

Some of the things I will recommend will be like this. For example, don't keep anything in your head for the rest of your life. That will seem unnatural, uncomfortable and unnecessary. For anything you've committed to finishing that requires more than one step to complete, you need to clarify exactly what that outcome and project is and put it on a list of projects that you review, at least once a week. Every next action you need to take regarding any of the commitments you are involved in, you should clarify and park them in appropriate places where you will see those actions on a regular basis.

That will feel uncomfortable, unnatural and unnecessary. But the final paradox of all this that surrounds it is that some very specific but seemingly mundane behaviors, when applied, produce the ability to exist in a kind of sophisticated spontaneity that, in my experience, is a key element to a successful life. life. Now, I'm going to reinforce why I think this is essential, what would it be like if you had great success doing this? And I'm going to give some how to, how to do it. But what is the problem? The problem is when you are not in crisis.

A more subliminal crisis occurs. Because? The entire world can now enter your psyche. Boom! Now you can experience all the things you could/could/should/need/could/should do, all the things piling up in your inboxes and emails as I speak right now. All of that now floods your psyche, and that could easily create a feeling of overwhelming, of confusion, of conflict. Everything seems to demand the same kind of attention from you. And then you usually respond to that by either getting sleepy or freaking out. And then you blame that stress on lack of time: "Oh!

I just have... Oh! God! All I need is more time!" Good! I'm sorry! Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, Einstein, Mother Teresa, they only had 24 hours. Johann Sebastian Bach only had 24 hours. I know he didn't have email but he had 20 children. (Laughter) And you say, "Give me two more hours! David, two more hours, please!" Do you know what you would do with two more hours? You would have two more hours of overwhelming stickiness. Actually, for most of you it would be nice not to have two more hours. Because the issue is not time. How long does it take to come up with a creative idea?

Zero time! How long does it take to get inspired? Zero time! How long does it take to recognize an opportunity that you could pursue or take advantage of? Zero time! Time is not the problem for those things. You need something for those things. What's that? Psychic bandwidth. You need space to think. Believe me. Every executive that I coach, once I say those words, "Oh yeah! I need space to think. I need space to be able to be creative, be innovative, all those things that I've been tasked with doing, being a leader, all of that. I just need a room!

And if you don't have psychological space, you could have two hours of

free

time and waste it. If you have psychic bandwidth, two minutes in an elevator, you can have a good idea and have a fabulous relationship with someone who. moves the needle. So this is the real key problem here: the lack of bandwidth to be able to engage with it properly. Even worse than that is that our creative energy is not available. using to try to fix, manage, remember, remember and try to do all those things that most people are trying to manage: all the details and things in their psyche instead of just trying to. keep up with the clutter.

And by the way, life is a mess if you haven't noticed it. Actually, mess is great. Actually, the most productive times I'm in are when I have the freedom to make a creative mess; you too. I need space to go crazy, make some mistakes, brainstorm, be chaotic, go a little off the edge. That will be your most productive time. It's when you have that kind of freedom to do that. However, friends, if you're already in a mess, you don't have room to create one. If your kitchen is a disaster, you don't have the time or energy to prepare a creative dinner for your friends.

If your desk and office are a mess, you don't have room or space to get crazy with some new project, spread out, and brainstorm. If your email is backed up with 1,000 raw emails and you have 3,000 other things in your head, you don't have room to take advantage of the discretionary time that can show up in terms of creativity, in terms of your energy. The results of that, if you're trying to use your psyche to deal with that mess and you never get out of it, is that you get the results of two things that are the critical elements of personal and organizational

productivity

.

You will lose perspective, that is, you will lose the ability to focus where you need to, exactly on what you need at the horizon that you need it, and/or you may be experiencing the results of what happens when you lose control, that is, not now. I have stability and I don't have the freedom in my head to be able to put the right tension and execute it when I do. So those are the two key elements. Friends, you can't manage time. You don't mismanage five minutes and keep six. The only time you think you need time management is when one or both dynamics are not optimal.

Or things need to be more under control or better focused. If you map those two things together, what do you get? If you are at the bottom left here, where you have no control or concentration, have you ever been there? - that's your basic victim experience. You know, driven by the latest and loudest. For the most part, most of us are thrown there by our own overcommitments and creativity, where we can't even try to come up for air. Now, if that part of you appears that has great concentration and perspective but no control, now you are the mad scientist, now you are the desperate artist, now you are the crazy creator with all kinds of crazy ideas and no limitations. of what you do; and you don't have anything very well organized.

Mid-morning, you decide to go buy the new iPhone that your IT department won't support. On the other hand, if you dive into the weeds and say, "I need to organize 10,000 things, I need to clean all this up and level it out"; and now you're getting into micromanagement. If you don't have the right concentration, you can sink into that weed and hang on it like crazy. And you spent a lot of time doing a lot of things, trying to organize yourself on things that maybe aren't that important. Just like in the morning you were crazy about getting the new iPhone, in the afternoon you spent two hours of what could be a strategic afternoon, trying to set the right ringtones.

This is what is true about those three people. You better prepare for what's cominglooms You will not be optimal in terms of your ability to handle surprises, and they are coming. Good, bad or indifferent. They come. Trust me. And you want to be optimally available for those things, when they come to you. Everyone says, "I'm fine." And I doubt many of you here feel motivated enough to do what I'm talking about because a part of you may not feel like it's that bad. Of course you got a job. You're doing it right. You have relationships. You have money.

You're doing it right. Although I am suggesting that thousands of people would implement what I am sharing with you here; It could be much better. How sustainable is your life and work style right now in terms of long howl? How available are you to all kinds of creative things that are around you right now, but you don't have the bandwidth to recognize and take advantage of them? And it could be much better. What would it look or sound better? Well, let's use a metaphor from nature. Nature seems to do many things but is not stressed or worried.

You know, there seems to be a kind of natural rhythm to how things happen here. So if you go back to our matrix and say, "Look! If I had just the right amount of perspective and just enough structure, just the right amount, to have the stability to focus on that and then execute on it." now you're in captain commander mode, which, by the way, is great, because that's the place where you'll be able to engage with life and your creativity and what it was designed to do, which is Using your creative intuitive intelligence, You know, in the new frontiers, you'll be much more in your zone as a normal state rather than an exceptional state and you'll be much more able to deal with that. surprise and change as it comes towards you.

And by the way, it's coming faster and faster. That's the new thing in the world; be prepared for that. a martial arts term that is "mind-like water." A body of water responds to the physical forces around it in entirely appropriate ways. He does not overreact or underreact. If you throw in a pebble, it becomes a pebble. Return to calm and balance. You throw a rock. What are you doing? does bouldering. He does it in a very dispassionate way. It does not tighten whatever the rock. He is not angry with the rock for disturbing his peaceful life.

Return to calm and balance. From these nature metaphors, I learned a couple of lessons. Lesson number one is: "Hello friends, flexibility is the basis of perfection. Way, way, way beyond." Life is not static, friends. There is no perfection. Or if there is, it means that I am now married and adapted to the dynamics of life and its activity. The second lesson I have learned is: I need the ability to be able to change my focus quickly; in, out, up, down, quickly. You know, in a very few minutes I could be dealing with a family issue, and then taking out the trash, and then I could be dealing with a business negotiation, and not go from one to the other, but be completely available for each thing that applies. earring.

Most people carry one meeting into the next. Most people take work home and work from home. That's not "mind like water." This is what you are really looking for. You want to have the ability to be able to focus exactly where you need it and the way you need it, and not use your mind to try to accumulate things and avoid them. Great key! If you don't pay adequate attention to what catches your attention, it will start to get more attention than it deserves. So the strange thing here is that you actually have to use your mind to get things out of your mind.

So you have to apply a process to get things out of there. It won't happen on its own. How do you do that? Key number one. Get it out of your head. Simple, but wow, it's a great habit for most adults to change! Anything that is potentially significant, write it down. So I'll ch

allen

ge you all: to choose the next 24 hours. Carry a notebook and pen, if you don't already have them. And don't think twice. Small, big, personal, professional, just get it all out there. You don't have to do anything with it. Just capture whatever is engaging your psyche, whatever is happening, that is not on cruise control.

And I guarantee that if you do that process, thousands of people that we've put through that process would absolutely guarantee that once they've done that, they'll have a much better sense of control and perspective, and they'll be more appropriately committed to what they're about. doing, not with what they should be doing. That's just stage one. The second stage, which is necessary, because once you complete the first stage, you will still see a lot of things on that list that still need more thought. By the way, most to-do lists are incomplete lists with things that are not yet clear.

What you see on to-do lists are things like budget, mom, dog, babysitter. Well, I understand that that probably indicates something you need to do something about, but what exactly is the work you need to do? That is the second thing you will have to do. It's taking those things that you've identified that are pulling your chain, and you need to make some really specific decisions about what the job entails. And there are two key questions you should ask about everything on your list: "What outcome am I committed to achieving?" so you can define that goal out there.

What is the project on budget? About the dog? About the babysitter? And identify them; and then, you have to ask yourself, "What's the next step I should take to move forward with that, if I were to move forward?" Result and action: zeros and ones of productive behavior. What are we trying to achieve? How do we allocate resources to make this happen? But you have to apply that very specifically, if you want to properly engage with whatever is pulling your chain. The late great Peter Drucker, who you should know, would tell us all that his knowledge workers are the harshest warning;

Your hardest job is to define what your job is. He put it broadly, this is very specifically what he's talking about: what is the work involved in that? And be very clear. I guarantee that if you sit down and check at least a few things off your list and make these decisions: What is the project? Write it. What is the action step? Write it. You will feel exponentially more appropriately engaged with your world. I've never seen an exception to that. So of course it will feel great, but then you'll hit another wall because you'll see all of that.

By the way, most of you have between 30 and 100 projects right now. . And most of you have between 150 and 220 following stocks right now. Then, very quickly you will come out of "mind like water", when you look at that immensity. Unless you start putting it all together. So in all of that, what you'll need are maps. You need the appropriate maps of all the projects, you need the maps of all the actions you have, and there are other maps that you will probably need to have. What is my work? Key areas of focus and accountability. What are the things in my personal life that I need to monitor, manage and take care of on a regular basis?

That's another great map. So, you need to build maps of all of this, so that you can step back and see the whole "gestalt" of what your life is involved, so that you can then make good intuitive decisions about what to do. By the way, once you experience that, I've never had anyone make that list and not say "Oh! That reminds me!", and at least add three, four, or five major projects to their list. necessary; They were already there but they were more subtle, more strategic; They had not yet been identified. So, I guarantee you those three things.

It may have brought you back to reality and maybe reminded you that you're not a productivity ninja yet. Alright. It won't take you long to get where you want to go in this regard. Very simple people! Just write things down. Decide on the actions and the results included in them, get a map of all of that, so you can step back and take a look. And then you basically use the map to decide, "Okay, this is the path we're going to follow." Then you launch the ship toward a reliable short-term course, as well as toward the long horizon you're moving along.

And then on a regular basis you need to reassess, “Okay, we need to take in new data, clean it up, recalibrate it, and refocus for the next stage of the journey.” It's that easy. By the way, my girlfriend in that adventure did not remain my girlfriend for long, she quickly became my wife and over the past 22 years we have experienced and enjoyed many planned and unplanned adventures. So my wish for all of you is that all those adventures that are coming your way, and are coming your way, in order to make the most of them, you find your own ways to engage appropriately.

Thank you for your time. (Applause)