Stressed Out? Here's How to Get Organized

It's 4:18 p.m. on Tuesday. Your afternoon meeting ran late and a Post-it note on your keyboard reads "proposal status?" Proposal? S&*#! That's due tomorrow, isn't it? You check your e-mail inbox. Unread messages: 837. One of them, you think, might have the details. Which one? The phone rings. It's your child's teacher. There's a problem. Can you meet at 5 p.m.? Today?

Ahhhh!

Sound familiar? Stressed out? Most of us have been there – that awful feeling of too much to do and no time to do it. Our fix? We make a promise to get organized … someday. But how?

"For most people, organization is rearranging incomplete piles of unclear stuff," says David Allen, an Ojai, Calif. -based productivity guru. "That's why that doesn't work very well."

Getting things done

Allen developed a system -- outlined in his best-selling book "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" and presented at seminars around the world -- that he says helps people clarify their stuff so they can get it done with the least amount of psychic and physical effort. The result is a stress-free you and a bundle of creative energy eager to embrace even more of what life tosses your way.

The crux of the system, known by its followers as GTD, is to get stuff off your mind by writing it down and, importantly, deciding what to do with it. Is it trash? Toss it. Is it useful for future reference? File it away. Is it actionable? Figure out what the next action step is and get it to the right place, such as a to-do list, so that it will get done when it needs to get done.

"Most people's lists do not have the next actions that are required to move things forward," Allen says, emphasizing the need to make decisions on what to do to get things done. Otherwise, the lists of stuff are unclear, creating more pain and fatigue.

Allen recommends people set aside at least two days to set up a GTD system – and if the system is followed, he promises it will save far more time down the road.

The system requires a trusted set of tools to manage everything written down and filed. Tool choice, he notes, is personal: Some people prefer pen and paper, others digital toys, but tools are necessary to free the mind to focus on the task at hand and regularly remind people of what they need to get done.

"I've used paper for 15 years and I've used digital for another 10. And frankly, it doesn't matter," Allen says. "Once you get this stuff, who cares, as long as it is easy and as long as it is ubiquitously available."