The subtitle of the book Getting Things Done is “the art of stress-free productivity”. When I invite folks to learn about GTD and especially when I help them make use of the system, I emphasize the stress-free part and not the productivity part. I invite you to do the same.
Don’t try GTD because you feel the need to produce more, especially not to try to “produce more with less”, although that will probably eventually happen.
Instead, try GTD because you need a break from chronic cortisol activation. Because you can’t handle the overwhelm much longer. Because at some point, you’d like to reconnect with the parts of your work that you actually like.
Safely forgetting, safely ignoring, concentrating on current task, working in short bursts… all these ideas have two things in common:
- They improve productivity by reducing the cost of mistakes.
- They improve your experience of working by reducing the weight of stress.
Your clients, your employer, and all the folks in your life that depend on what you produce care about the first one. I only care about them indirectly.It matters much more to me that you feel less stress while you work.
- You worry less about significant work falling through the cracks.
- You train yourself to take a real break from the ongoing concern about upcoming deadlines.
- You learn to balance responsiveness to others with finishing the tasks you’ve already accepted, so that continued requests for work feel less like drowning.
This is just the beginning. Over the longer term, you feel more confident saying “No” when you need to, so that your “Yes” becomes much more trustworthy and meaningful. You disappoint others less and less often. You disappoint yourself less and less often. You feel less guilt, less shame, and find it easier to withstand it when others try to blame you or hold you responsible for the outcome.
You can start with the Two-Minute Rule and Inbox Technique, which might just lead you to something you might not have felt in a long time: a break from the stress. Maybe a short break, but a break. Any break is a starting point and those breaks tend to accumulate.
This is the real power of Getting Things Done: gradually accumulating breaks from the stress in order to bring more energy to bringing your backlog under control. You might even find moments to enjoy some of the work tjhat you used to enjoy!
That’s enough to start. I invite you to give these techniques a try, then let me know how it’s going.