Getting Things Done

PRACTICING STRESS-FREE PRODUCTIVITY I PART TWO

Events You Might Want to Participate In You probably get notices

constantly about seminars, conferences, speeches, and social and

cultural events that you may want to decide about attending as the

time gets closer. So figure out when that "closer" time is and put a

trigger in your calendar on the appropriate date—for example:

"Chamber of Commerce breakfast tomorrow?"

"Tigers season tickets go on sale today"

"PBS special on Australia tonight 8:00 P.M."

"Church BBQ next Saturday"

If you can think of any jogs like these that you'd like to put

into your system, do it right now.

Decision Catalysts Once in a while there may be a significant

decision that you need to make but can't (or don't want to) make

right away. That's fine, as long as you've concluded that the addi-

tional information you need has to come from an internal rather

than an external source (e.g., you need to sleep on it).

(Obviously, external data you need in order to make a

decision should go on your "Next Actions" or "Wait-

ing For" lists.) But in order to move to a level of OK-

ness about not deciding, you'd better put out a safety

net that you can trust to get you to focus on the issue

appropriately in the future. A calendar reminder can

serve that purpose.*

Some typical decision areas in this category include:

• Hire/fire


• Merge/acquire/sell/divest


• Change job/career

*If you're using a group-accessible calendar, you must maintain discretion about

these kinds of triggers. Digital calendars usually have "private" categorization

functions you can use for entries you don't necessarily want everyone to see.

It's OK to decide not
to decide—as long
as you have a
decide-not-to-
decide system.