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Getting Things Done

From the book "Getting Things Done Secrets" by Rus Slater- If you want to get on in your career or your home life you will need to get things done. In the modern world, however, there are lots of different people wanting lots of different things to be done, and you can't do everything for everyone unless you get much better at a number of different things.

Knowing what things to do

  • Recognize that everyone only has 86,400 seconds a day. Use them wisely. Time waits for no one.

  • Ask for clear instructions. If someone asks you to do something for them, make sure you are 100% certain about what's required. Whenever possible, get a written instruction or request- the act of writing down instructions makes people think more carefully and fully about what they actually want. Try to get the request in as much specific detail as possible. Getting it right first time is always better than having to come back and do it again.

  • See the relevance of the bigger picture. Knowing how your tasks relate to the bigger picture helps both you and your boss to organize the workload.

  • Plan for output, not activity. Aim for specific achievements. It is very satisfying to see that you have achieved something, rather than just spending time doing something.

  • DREAM to get more done. Delegate it. Refuse it. Escalate it. Action it. Make a time for it.

  • Have a personal vision or mission. Write down your long-term career goals and what you need to do in the medium term to achieve them.

  • Make to-do lists.

  • Find out how others do it. It is always worth investigating how others may have done a task in the past. Then compare it with your task and use your judgement to decide whether to follow a tried and trusted method or to develop a new, better way.

  • Know how to KISS- keep it short and simple. If you have a choice between a simple and a complex way to do something, always go for the simple way.

  • Look at effort versus payoff. Judge every task by cost and reward. Work first on the tasks with the least cost and highest return. By assessing the ratio of effort to payoff, you ensure that you are doing thing that are worthwhile.

  • Go for quick wins. A quick win is a personal motivator. You get to tick something off the to do list, which means you have a little less left to do and something to say you have finished.

  • Learn to say no. Dont say 'yes' to every request. If we say yes to every request, one of two things will happen- either we will end up working 24 hours a day or we will end up letting people down because we said yes to something we cannot do.