Chapter six describes the workflow for emptying one's in box. It lays down a set of rules to follow, much like a computer's control logic allows it to accurately and effectively process input. The processing guidelines--top item first, one item at a time, nothing gets returned to the back of the queue--form a pattern that efficiently gets every item acted upon. Of these, the last, that nothing gets put back into 'in', is most important. It is the provision that guarantees the number of items in the in box will go to zero.
Allen's instructions on how to act on a particular item are very thorough, as knowing exactly what to do makes doing so far easier. First he instructs to identify the next action, if one exists. If there are no more actions, and this item is a dead end, one must re evaluate why it is there, and whether it should be preserved or discarded. His emphasis on dealing with this case is essential to preventing garbage from piling up; items are either preserved in an organized location, or thrown away if no longer needed.
His instructions are equally clear and concise for available actions: find out what it is, and do it. Allen's breakdown of actions into 2-minute, delegation, and deferral helps form the basis of the acting process, although I imagine that a common pitfall is to repeated defer items. Perhaps a organized deferral system that also follows Allen's principle of not putting things back into the queue they came out of would prevent this.
The last instruction, identifying projects, seems most relevant to me, as most of my in box involves only a few goals. Following his breakdown of projects into single items to be done sequentially seems useful for completing projects effectively.
No comments:
Post a Comment