I've been feeling more disorganized, flustered and stressed out than normal lately. In particular I am finding it more difficult to focus and get my work done. I had been attributing it to my easily distracted nature and the new situation of working from home full time. There is just so much to distract me at home and no-one walking by to instill guilt in me ( they don't have to do a thing, just their presence can be enough). So I find it easy to get off-task and hard to find my way back. While I am sure some of my problem has to do with personal fortitude and willpower, I have found a book that has almost immediately had an impact.

The book is called "Getting Things Done" and the writer is David Allen. He is a personal productivity consultant and has worked for various fortune 500 companies and the government etc. His approach is pretty simple. Basically his view is that we need to unclutter our minds of all the things we think we need to do and get them in whatever form of organization works. But it has to be something that is written down and something we can refer to frequently. Then you make a note about the very next thing that has to be done for each task. I find it helpful to put a note about how long it will take to complete as well ( that's a personal growth thing for me since I don't estimate task time commitments well ).

I've only read a chapter and a half so far but his approach rings true with things I've heard before and with concepts that I have tried previously. I love to make lists but looking at the lists they don't tend to be things associated with actions (that's another of his things). Plus I make tons of lists and have the scattered all over the place and then never look at them again and never take any action on them. It's almost liberating to realize that lots of people have the same issues and there is a simple, straight forward way to fix the problem.

Anyway here is the link to the book at Amazon.com and yep, he has a website too: http://www.davidco.com/