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I have recently started reading a very famous book Getting Things Done by David Allen. It’s a book that tells you how to increase your productivity, decrease the stress from your work and life, and shows you how to set up an organizational system from scratch!

I personally found this book VERY helpful, I can tell when David was just introducing his techniques that it will have a positive effect on me. After setting up the system, it helped me get a lot of things done that I would’ve otherwise never done! It’s also very motivating, some of the exercises he tells you to do in this book simply motivates you to do more stuff! I definitely recommend this book to anyone who hasn’t read it yet!

For those of you who wants some quick tips from this book, one of the most important things from this book is the “next action” principle. I’m sure everyone has a to do list somewhere, or has made one before. But what kinds of things were on there? Most people’s list looks like this:

• Study for accounting midterm
• Write Report
• Join some clubs on campus
• Get a new laptop

David classified these kind of things as “stuff”, things that you have to, but doesn’t have a clear picture of what you should be doing, and thus you resist it. What do you mean study for accounting midterm? That’s such as big project, not now, don’t have the energy now!

If your to-do list if full of “stuff” and the scenario above is familiar, you should start applying the next action principle. It’s very simple, define the next action for everything on your to-do list! Meaning:

• Open binder and write down the chapter numbers and topics I need to study, and mark the pages of my notes I need to study.
• Find out what the topic of the report is, brainstorm what knowledge I need to know on the topic. Research and jot some ideas down.
• Find out what clubs are on campus, ask some friends what clubs they’re in when I meet them.
• Figure out what features I need for the laptop, and check some major electronic stores to see if anything matches.

It’s probably easier to look at the second list than the first list. This is because your brain is no longer resisting or overwhelmed by the large volume of work it learned to associate with “study for midterm”. We have a natural resistance to “stuff”, because we don’t really know where to start, but normally it only takes 10 seconds to figure out the next action, we just don’t really want to think about it, but it makes a world of difference! We have to make this decision at some point anyways, but it’s better to make it “when it shows up rather than when it blows up”! So try it right now! Pick up your to do list, and decide on the next action for everything!

However, remember just because you’ve defined a next action, doesn’t mean you have to to it right away or at all.

In Getting Things Done, you’ll learn how to set up a whole organizational system based on this fundamental concept, and how to decide the next action the moment you get the task to be more productive in life. There is so much more in the book Getting Things Done, I think for students like us that have to balance life, activities, and school, it’s a must read! I will continue writing tips from this and other books to help you out, so say tuned!

Please comment and tell us what you think about this post, or share your own productivity and organizational tips!

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***Also everyone, I’m deciding to specialize in Information Technology, and possibly work towards a CA.IT designation. I’m still in the process of researching, if anyone has any information on what I need to do to get there, please contact me. I would really appreciate it! I would prefer to not take the courses required in UW because of my full and rather unflexible schedule. Thank you very much!