MBA1058 Must Read: Getting Things Done by David Allen

Hey. Oh. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show where we're all business every day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar is at home. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar mba, a complete business training and community online. And today's episode is a must read episode on our must read episodes. I share with you a book that has greatly influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you some of its takeaways and why you should read it too. Today's must read is Getting Things Done by David Allen. This is a very, very popular book in the space of productivity and as entrepreneurs we want to be as productive as possible. We want to get as much done as possible, right? So today I'm going to share with you the takeaways from that book, the simple yet effective concepts that he shares to make sure that you get things done, you don't get overwhelmed, you don't procrastinate and you're productive without losing your hair in the process. There's lots to cover, so let me get into it. Let's get down to business. Today's episode of the Hundred Dollar MBA show is supported by Podia. Podia helps thousands of creators earn money from their passion. It's an all in one digital storefront that you can sell courses, memberships and digital downloads in one place. It's the most creator friendly platform on the market with zero transaction fees and a super friendly 247 life support team no matter what plane you're on. So they're going to take care of you even if you're just getting started. What's great about Podia is that it eliminates all the technical headaches. It takes care of every aspect of selling your course or membership or digital download. 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What David Allen offers in Getting Things Done is stress free productivity. The point of the book is so you can have the sense that you have control over all your work. It's based on principles of having a system of external lists and always defining a clear and tangible next action. So you're not overwhelmed. You know what you have to do and you know what you have to do next. This allows you to free your brain and actually just focus on what you have to do right now. You know, you got a whole ton of stuff you have to do on your to do list, but often they never get done because we get overwhelmed because we don't know what to do right now. And that's really the biggest takeaway from the book. That's really. If you can get that out of the book and really understand how to do that, then you really gained a lot. In the book he talks about how you have projects and not really to do's. For example, you might think this is a simple to do write my next blog post. It's pretty straightforward. Write a blog post, get it out there. Right. Well, he sees David Allen as a project and he wants you to see as a project. Why? Because when you see a task as a project you, you innately believe and understand that there are many steps to a project. And that's really the key here of getting things done is seeing things in steps or micro steps. So that to do write your blog post should be broken down into steps. So that could be. Step one, come up with a blog topic or title. Step two, write your blog post first draft. Step three, edit and write the second draft. Step four, source images for your blog post. Step five, put it all in WordPress and make sure it's formatted properly. Step six, schedule your blog post for the right date and time. Step seven, write some social media snippets for the promotion of this blog post. You get the point. It's one task, but really it's a project with many steps. Now what this enables you to do is to understand what you have to do now, what you have to do next, what you have to do later. And by having the steps it Makes you understand, okay, I can do this. I have a plan of action and I see the finish line. The problem is that people don't see the finish line or they get overwhelmed because they don't know where to start, or they know how to start, but they don't know what to do next. They get stuck, and they just never finish the actual task. So this is really the key takeaway of the gtd, the Getting Things Done methodology. And I'll be honest with you, that's the biggest takeaway from the book, where it's like, look at your to dos as projects and break them down into steps. Now, there are other takeaways I want to share with you as well, but that one is the biggest one. The kind of the aha moment, the kind of thing that says, yeah, I kind of know that conceptually, but I don't actually do it, and I should start doing that. So what you'll find is that you'll start creating a whole bunch of projects, right? This is now the new terminology you're going to be using. So you're going to have a list of projects, and each project will have steps, but you have to list your projects in order so that way you know when you finish all the steps in one project and that project is done, you mark it as done and you move on to the next project. You don't have to reevaluate. What do I do next? You don't want to waste any time. What you want to do is you want to plan everything out and then just execute. So, for example, I might have these four projects write a blog post, run a sales webinar, hire a new customer service agent, and create a new email campaign. So I have four projects. Which one is going to go first? Which one's going to go into second? Which one's going to go third? Which is going to go fourth? Does each project have steps under each one? They have to be clearly written out. So that way, when I finish one project, I know what the next project I'm working on and what step one is. You don't want a gap in time. You don't want any gap where it's like you're wondering, what do I do now? And you start twiddling your thumbs and wasting your time on Facebook. Right? We all know that feeling. So he likes to have a very tight game plan. So you plan everything out. You know all your projects for the week, you know all the steps inside so that you just execute when it's time to go. David Allen Also suggests that instead of using a daily to do list, like I have to do these things today is to plug them into your calendar so you know what you're doing at what time every moment of the day. So I'm not a big fan of not having a to do list because I like to have it all written in front of me what I have to get accomplished today. But I like the idea of taking that to do list and plugging into the calendar so I know when I'm doing what. So it's just a whole blob of stuff. It also keeps you on your toes. It also is like, okay, it's 9 o'. Clock. Have I finished all my tasks that I have, you know, all lined up before 9 o'? Clock. It also makes you mindful of not putting things on a to do list that are actually to do's. We forget about like taking a sales call or being on an interview. Sometimes they're on our calendar, but they're not on our to do list. So by having both a list and a calendar where we have everything in there and they're all synced up, I don't miss a beat. I know that I have things on my calendar I have to do. I don't forget about them and I take them into account. So if I have like 10 things to do today and I have also four appointments on my calendar, maybe I can't get all 10 done today. And I'll only know that if I put all my stuff in the calendar. Another great tip that he gives in getting things done is, you know what we talked about, when you have projects, and inside those projects there are to do's, there are steps, right? He emphasizes that this is particularly important when you're working on a project with a team. So say for example, with our software company, Webinar Ninja, we're releasing a new feature that's a project that requires a lot of people involved to make sure that gets delivered or gets released properly. And there are steps to that project. There are things I need to take step by step. Now his suggestion is brilliant, where you have to make sure that all these steps are outlined for everybody and everybody knows who's doing what on every step. So if step one is my responsibility, writing the documentation for this feature, and then step two, designing the UI in Photoshop, for example, by designer. And that's Irina, our designer's responsibility. Irina knows that she's on deck. She's waiting for that documentation. She's waiting to hear from me. She knows that I'M the person she's waiting for. She also knows if step three is implementing the front end design of that design is Eugene's job. Then she knows Eugene's waiting on her. Everybody should be in the know when you're working in the team, what the steps are and who's responsible for each step. Why? Because when I'm done with my step, it's my responsibility to hand over the work I've done to the next person in the step. And the only way I know that is if I look at that plan or I have that plan in front of me. I have those steps in front of me. This is incredibly important and super time saving. Why? Because in your team, if you don't establish this, if you don't have that transparency where everybody knows the steps and who's responsible for each step and who has to hand over to who, then every time they finish a task, they're just going to sit there and wait for direction. You're going to have to nag them as the CEO or the manager, hey, what's going on with that? Oh yeah, I'm done. Or I will be done. Okay, when you're done, give it to this person. They don't need that instruction if they have all the actual plans in front of them. They have all the steps and they know who's doing what. So I love this advice by David Allen. It makes project management so much more efficient. So when you start any project in a team, everybody needs to know the steps. Everybody needs to know who's responsible for each step. And they all have to know that, hey, you're responsible for handing over to the next person and it keeps going throughout the steps. Even when we release the feature and it's been pushed to our servers, it's my responsibility to inform the customers, right? I have to write a newsletter or I have to put an update so the developers will tell me, hey, it is pushed to the server so I know it's my time to do my step of the project. Another cool tip that he gives is having a maybe someday list. So this is a list that you're going to dump any ideas that are not crucial, that are not time bound or not really a priority right now. These are any ideas, business ideas, marketing ideas, ideas for your products or services. Sometimes you just can't implement everything right now. You just got to put it on the back burner for now. He says make sure you document them and have a list somewhere in an Excel sheet in your project management tool, whatever. And I've done this and we have our whole team contributing to this list where they jot down, you know, nice to have features that people have requested or ideas they've come up with. And then every six months we can revisit these ideas and see, hey, is there any room in our roadmap in our planning for the next six months to include some of the best ideas? Or we might be reworking a part of our product or our service, redesigning something and saying, hey, we're starting from scratch in this area. What are all the ideas when it comes to this part of our product? We're redesigning it anyway. Let's hear from that list. Now. Mind you, this is not a procrastination list. This is just a list of ideas that you just can't take action on right now. Don't let them just pass through your head. Jot them down so you have them when you have the bandwidth and the time to explore. Hey, maybe I can implement them. Guys, I got more on today's must read episode. But before that, let me give love to today's sponsor. Are you struggling to get to sleep? If so, the fine people at Mattress Firm want to help. Mattress Firm is here for you when you're looking for ways to improve your sleep. As an entrepreneur, you know how important sleep is. You got to get a good night's rest so you can be ready to take on the day the next day. At Mattress Firm they are the mattress experts. And they're not just mattress experts that they can help you build your bed. From headboards to adjustable bases to sheets. 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When it comes to your to do list, when it comes to getting your work done, as entrepreneurs we have a ton of things to do. Our to do list is never ending, right? And sometimes you're just not going to feel like doing any of it. Sometimes you're going to just feel really overworked and tired. Now what David Allen shares in Getting things Done is giving you a system so you can just follow the system even when you are not feeling it. Sometimes when you have structure, when you know what you have to do right now and what you have to do next and it's step by step, it makes it easy for you to just get your stuff in order and get everything done. Listen, I'll be honest. Sometimes I get up in the morning and I just wish I was not working today. I was just had a day off. But I have to work. There's something I have to take care of. There are some tasks and some deadlines I need to meet. Systems like these help me accomplish the tasks when I'm low on energy. Because one, I don't have to spend energy trying to plan. I already did all the planning for myself with the actual structure. Number two, I could just laser focus in what do I have to do right now? This, this is what's on my list. This is what's next on my project and that's it. I don't look at anything else. Let me just do that. I do that. I focus in, I, you know, block out distractions. Once that's done, I go back to my, you know, list of projects or my list of things to do within the project. What's next? This is next. Okay, great. Let me just do that and just completely gets rid of the overwhelm because I'm not worried about a bunch of things. I'm just worrying about one thing. Let me be straight with you. This takes discipline, this takes time or you taking the time to plan out your projects, to plan out your day, to plan out your to do's, to put them in your calendar. You can't just think it's going to happen magically. You have to make time to plan. So when you implement it's a lot easier. So you may want to carve out a couple of hours every week to plan out your whole week and put all these things in order to write out your projects and your to dos inside the projects, to plug them in the calendar, to make your team aware of who has to do what, to update these to do lists from, from last week, what did you not do from last week that you have to pass on to this week? Spend some time at the start of the week to organize yourself that way for the rest of the week, you could just focus on what you need to focus on. Pick up Getting Things Done by David Allen. It's a great book. It's a short read, and it's also very easy to kind of digest. He's very direct, and his concepts are not like, crazy. They're things that you read and you're like, huh, I could do that. That's not too bad. It's really practical productivity. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you love what you hear, leave us an iTunes rating and review. We'd love to hear from you. We read every single review and it helps other people who are checking out our show to read and find out what you think of the show, what they can get out of listening to this podcast. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. It's easy to get lost in the world of productivity and productivity tips and productivity hacks. You need to find something that works for you, and if you find it, just stick with that and you can refine your system as you go. That's what I did. I found a system that really works for me, and I refined it, I changed it, I modified it, I updated it. I read books like Getting things Done, and then I, you know, take a couple tips from that book and add it to my procedure. You gotta carve something that works for you. You don't have to follow everything to the T. And there's no really wrong way to do it. Having no system is really the wrong way. Having some sort of system that works for you and your schedule and the way you like to work is really what you're looking for. So don't get overwhelmed by all the tips and tricks that are out there. As you read new books, as you pick up tips from other articles, see how you can add them to your repertoire, add them to your procedures and your productivity. And hey, if you don't add anything, if you don't add any tips to your actual process, your productivity process, it's okay. It's good just to listen and think about different perspectives of doing things. All right, I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care, Sam.