Chapter 11 Response

Shobna Khunkhun
I found chapter 11 a surprisingly helpful one that strayed away from the nitty gritty techniques of setting up an organizational system and emphasized the importance of creating a habit of collecting, organizing and processing the items in ones mind. Creating this habit is important because it creates a sense of self-trust and decreases the negative emotions that come with breaking agreements with oneself. What really resented with me was Allen’s ways of preventing broken agreements. One method he stated was “don’t make the agreement”. I find myself saying yes to new tasks too often, while it comes from a good place I do get overwhelmed with the amount of responsibilities I have agreed to do without having assessed the inventory that already exists. Having an inventory [an organization system] allows one to analytically and logically think before saying yes to a new task. After applying the use of inboxes, action lists, redefined calendars, I found that I am now able to logically assess where a new task will fit/how to process it in my system before agreeing to take it on or having the courage to say no with a valid reason.  Additionally, what resinated with me was his notion that open loops in your mind are like internal agreements you make to yourself and if they stay open they rot and turn into broken agreements which essentially cause feelings of stress and guilt. However, when we capture, define, and regularly review [process] those open loops we have a method to fulfill those agreements creating self-trust, confidence and motivation.