GettingThings Done. The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

THERE'S MUCH MORE to these simple techniques and models than may appear at first glance. Indeed, they offer a systematic method to keep your mind distraction-free, ensuring a high level of efficiency and effectiveness in your work. That in itself would be sufficient reason to implement these practices.

But there are even greater implications for the fundamental principles at work here. What follows in the next three chapters is an accounting of my experience, over the last twenty years, of the subtler and often more profound effects that can transpire from the implementation of these basic principles. The longer-term results can have a significant impact on you as an individual, and they can positively affect larger organizational cultures as well.

When people with whom you interact notice that without fail you receive, process, and organize in an airtight manner the exchanges and agreements they have with you, they begin to trust you in a unique way. Such is the power of capturing placeholders for anything that is incomplete or unprocessed in your life. It noticeably enhances your mental well-being and improves the quality of your communications and relationships, both personally and professionally.

The Personal Benefit

How did it feel to go through the collecting and downloading activity? Most people say it feels so bad, and yet feels so good. How can that be?

If you're like most people who go through the full collection process, you probably felt some form of anxiety. Descriptive terms like "overwhelmed," "panic," "frustration," "fatigue," and "disgust" tend to come up when I ask seminar participants to describe their emotions in going through a minor version of this procedure. And is there anything you think you've procrastinated on in that stack? If so, you have guilt automatically associated with it—"I could have, should have, ought to have (before now) done this."

At the same time, did you experience any sense of release, or relief, or control as you were did the drill? Most people say yes, indeed. How does that happen? Totally opposite emotional states showing up as you're doing a single exercise, almost at the same time—anxiety and relief; overwhelmed and in control. What's going on here?

When you understand the source of your negative feelings about all your stuff, you'll discover, as I did, the way to get rid of them. And if you experienced any positive feelings from collecting your stuff, you actually began the process of eliminating the negativity yourself.

The Source of the Negative Feelings

Where do the not-so-good feelings come from? Too much to do? No, there's always too much to do. If you felt bad simply because there was more to do than you could do, you'd never get rid of that feeling. Having too much to do is not the source of the negative feeling. It comes from a different place.

How have you felt when someone broke an agreement with you? Told you they would meet you Thursday at 4:00 P.M. and never showed or called? How did that feel? Frustrating, I imagine. The price people pay when they break agreements in the world is the disintegration of trust in the relationship—a negative consequence.

But what are all those things in your in-basket? Agreements you've made with yourself. Your negative feelings are simply the result of breaking those agreements—they're the symptoms of disintegrated self-trust If you tell yourself to draft a strategic plan, when you don't do it, you'll feel bad. Tell yourself to get organized, and if you fail to, welcome to guilt and frustration. Resolve to spend more time with your kids and don't—voila! anxious and overwhelmed.

The sense of anxiety and guilt doesn't come from having too much to do; it's the automatic result of breaking agreements with yourself.

How Do You Prevent Broken Agreements with Yourself?

If the negative feelings come from broken agreements, you have three options for dealing with them and eliminating the negative consequences:

• Don't make the agreement.

• Complete the agreement.

• Renegotiate the agreement.

All of these can work to get rid of the unpleasant feelings.

Don't Make the Agreement

It probably felt pretty good to take a bunch of your old stuff,decide that you weren't going to do anything with it, and just toss it into the trash. One way to handle an incompletion in your world is to just say no!

You'd lighten up if you would just lower your standards. If you didn't care so much about things being up to a certain level—your parenting, your school system, your team's morale, the software code—you'd have fewer things to do.[14]