Getting Control of
Your Life: The Five Stages of
Mastering Workflow
THE CORE PROCESS I teach for mastering the art of relaxed and con-
trolled knowledge work is a five-stage method for managing
workflow. No matter what the setting, there are five discrete
stages that we go through as we deal with our work. We (1) collect
things that command our attention; (2) process what they mean
and what to do about them; and (3) organize the results, which we
(4) review as options for what we choose to (5) do.
This constitutes the management of the "horizontal"
aspect of our lives—incorporating everything that
has our attention at any time.
The method is straightforward enough in princi-
ple, and it is generally how we all go about our work in
any case, but in my experience most people can stand
significantly to improve their handling of each one of
the five stages. The quality of our workflow manage-
ment is only as good as the weakest link in this five-
phase chain, so all the links must be integrated
together and supported with consistent standards.
Most people have major leaks in their collection
process. Many have collected things but haven't
processed or decided what action to take about them. Others make
good decisions about "stuff" in the moment but lose the value of
that thinking because they don't efficiently organize the results. Still
others have good systems but don't review them consistently
enough to keep them functional. Finally, if any one of these links isThe knowledge
that we consider
knowledge proves
itself in action.
What we now
mean by
knowledge is
information in
action,
information
focused on results.
—Peter F. Drucker