Chapters 4 and 5 post

Chapter 4 was very informative for actually implementing the abstract ideas of collecting, organizing, and planning that Allen introduced in the first part of the book.  When reading through his list of necessary items for a workstation, be it a desk in an office or a table at home, it dawned on me that having the right tool set is essential for becoming more focused and productive--just as for any job.  It is worth noticing, however, that the list he provided, and his recommendations for it, feel a bit dated.  Whether it's due to the age of the book, or the fact that I'm a computer science student, it seemed that his emphasis on physically marking, labeling, and sorting documents, while valuable information, is not sufficient to become properly organized.  The vast majority of documents that are crucial to my professional life are scattered across an array of online file folders, including some on my local machine, google, dropbox, and many other virtual platforms.  That said, his general outline for creating a tidy work area was solid and helpful.  Many of his recommendations, especially those for effectively organizing file systems, can be abstracted to pertain to digital, as well as physical, systems.

The message in chapter 5 which struck me most deeply was his advice to quantify the amount of "stuff" that you have to deal with.  This point seems analogous to the in class exercise in which we wrote down all of the open loops of things in our minds.  Seeing everything written down on a sheet of paper, regardless of the size of the list, inherently made the tasks seem more manageable; as Allen says, the exactly quantified list lacks the psychological distraction of a dauntingly amorphous slew of things to do.