THE CORE PROCESS for mastering the art of relaxed and controlled engagement is a five-step method for managing your workflow—the ever-present ingestion and expressions of our experiences. No matter what the setting, there are five discrete stages that we go through as we deal with our life, our work, and their consistent inputs and changes. Getting things under control, whether that’s in your kitchen or in your company, will incorporate them. And each of these separate aspects has its own best practices and tools, and must work together with the rest as a whole to produce that wonderfully productive state of being present amid all the complexity. It’s not simply about “getting organized” or “setting priorities.” Those are good things, but they happen as a result of applying these five steps—not by themselves. These procedures I will describe work together as a whole, and using them to produce results is both easier and more challenging than you may think.
We (1) capture what has our attention; (2) clarify what each item means and what to do about it; (3) organize the results, which presents the options we (4) reflect on, which we then choose to (5) engage with. This constitutes the management of the horizontal aspect of our lives, incorporating everything that we need to consider at any time, as we move forward moment to moment.
These are not arbitrary or purely theoretical suggestions—they are what we all do, anytime we want to bring something under control and stabilize it for productive action. If you’re planning to cook dinner for friends, but you come home and find the kitchen a total mess, how do you get on top of it? First you identify all the stuff that doesn’t belong where it is, the way it is (capture); you then determine what to keep and what to throw away (clarify); you put things where they need to go—back in the refrigerator, in the garbage, or in the sink (organize); you then check your recipe book, along with the ingredients and utensils you have (reflect); and you get started by putting butter in the pan to start melting (engage).
The method is straightforward enough in principle, and it is generally how we all go about our work in any case, but in my experience most people can significantly improve their handling of each one of the five steps. The quality of our workflow management is only as good as the weakest link in this five-phase chain, so all the links must be integrated and supported with consistent standards.
Most people have had major inefficiencies in their versions of this control process in the larger contexts of life and work, but the stresses of our new world are blowing out the weak spots. The ubiquity of information access and rapidity of change happening, as you read this, consistently increase the complexity of your life and work. Only having to deal with a messy kitchen would be a relief! Small leaks, with added pressure, become big ones. One missed e-mail, untracked commitment, or decision avoided can have hugely magnified consequences. Because the volume of pertinent content is not diminishing or the input slowing down, avoiding getting a grip on the martial art of workflow mastery will be at your own peril.
Most people have major weaknesses in their (1) capture process. Most of their commitments to do something are still in their head. The number of coulds, shoulds, might-want-tos, and ought-tos they generate in their minds are way out beyond what they have recorded anywhere else.
Many have collected lots of things but haven’t (2) clarified exactly what they represent or decided what action, if any, to take about them. Random lists strewn everywhere, meeting notes, vague to-dos on Post-its on their refrigerator or computer screens or in their Tasks function in a digital tool—all lie not acted on and numbing to the psyche in their effect. Those lists alone often create more stress than they relieve.
Others make good decisions about stuff in the moment but lose the value of that thinking because they don’t efficiently (3) organize the results. They determined they should talk to their boss about something, but a reminder of that lies only in the dark recesses of their mind, unavailable in the appropriate context, in a trusted format, when they could use it.
Still others have good systems but don’t (4) reflect on the contents consistently enough to keep them functional. They may have lists, plans, and various checklists available to them (created by capturing, clarifying, and organizing), but they don’t keep them current or access them to their advantage. Many people don’t look ahead at their own calendars consistently enough to stay current about upcoming events and deadlines, and they consequently become victims of last-minute craziness.
Finally, if any one of these previous links is weak, what someone is likely to choose to (5) engage in at any point in time may not be the best option. Most decisions for action and focus are driven by the latest and loudest inputs, and are based on hope instead of trust. People have a constant nagging sense that they’re not working on what they should be, that they “don’t have time” for potentially critical activities, and that they’re missing out on the timeless sense of meaningful doing that is the essence of stress-free productivity.
The dynamics of these five steps need to be understood, and good techniques and tools implemented to facilitate their functioning at an optimal level. I have found it very helpful, if not essential, to separate these stages as I move through my day. There are times when I want only to collect input and not decide what to do with it yet. At other times I may just want to process my notes from a meeting. Or I may have just returned from a big trip and need to distribute and organize what I collected and processed on the road. Then there are times when I want to review the whole inventory of my work, or some portion of it. And obviously a lot of my time is spent merely doing something that I need to get done.
I have discovered that one of the major reasons many people haven’t had a lot of success with getting organized is simply that they have tried to do all five steps at one time. Most, when they sit down to make a list, are trying to collect the “most important things” in some order that reflects priorities and sequences, without setting out many (or any) real actions to take. But if you don’t decide what needs to be done about your assistant’s birthday, because it’s “not that important” right now, that open loop will take up energy and prevent you from having a totally effective, clear focus on what’s important.
This chapter explains the five steps in detail. Chapters 4 through 8 provide a step-by-step program for implementing an airtight system for each phase, with lots of examples and best practices.
Capture
It’s important to know what needs to be captured and how to do that most effectively so you can process it appropriately. In order for your mind to let go of the lower-level task of trying to hang on to everything, you have to know that you have truly captured everything that might represent something you have to do or at least decide about, and that at some point in the near future you will process and review all of it.
Gathering 100 Percent of the “Incompletes”
In order to eliminate “holes in your bucket,” you need to collect and gather placeholders for, or representations of, all the things you consider incomplete in your world—that is, anything personal or professional, big or little, of urgent or minor importance, that you think ought to be different than it currently is and that you have any level of internal commitment to changing.
Many of the things you have to do are being collected for you as you read this. Mail is coming into your various mailboxes—physical and virtual. You’re likely still getting packages and letters at home. Physical stuff is still landing in your in-tray at work, along with e-mail, texts, and voice mails into your digital tools. But at the same time, you’ve been capturing things in your environment and in your head that don’t belong where they are, the way they are, for all eternity. Even though it may not be as obviously “in your face” as your e-mail, the stuff still requires some kind of resolution—a loop to be closed, something to be done. Strategy ideas loitering in a notebook, “dead” gadgets in your desk drawers that need to be fixed or thrown away, and out-of-date magazines on your coffee table all fall into this category of stuff.
As soon as you attach a “should,” “need to,” or “ought to” to an item, it becomes an incomplete. Decisions you still need to make about whether or not you are going to do something, for example, are already incompletes. This includes all of your I’m-going-tos, in which you’ve decided to do something but haven’t started moving on it yet. And it certainly includes all pending and in-progress items, as well as those things on which you’ve done everything you’re ever going to do except acknowledge that you’re finished with them.
In order to manage this inventory of open loops appropriately, you need to capture it into “containers” that hold items in abeyance until you have a few moments to decide what they are and what, if anything, you’re going to do about them. Then you must empty these containers regularly to ensure that they remain viable capture tools.
Basically, everything potentially meaningful to you is already being collected, in the larger sense. If it’s not being directly managed in a trusted external system of yours, then it’s resident somewhere in your mental space. The fact that you haven’t put an item in your in-tray doesn’t mean you haven’t got it. But we’re talking here about making sure everything you need is collected somewhere other than in your head.
The Capture Tools
There are several types of tools, both low-and high-tech, that can be used to collect your incompletes. The following can all serve as versions of an in-tray, capturing self-generated input as well as information from external sources:
The Physical In-Tray
The standard plastic, wood, leather, or wire tray has for years been the most common tool for collecting paper-based and physical materials that need some sort of processing: mail, magazines, meeting notes, corporate reports, tickets, receipts, flash drives, business cards—even flashlights with dead batteries!
Writing Paper and Pads
Loose-leaf and bound notebooks, note cards, and paper pads of all shapes and sizes work fine for collecting random ideas, input, things to do, and so on. Whatever fits your taste and logistical needs.
Digital and Voice Note Taking
Computers, tablets, smartphones, and all kinds of new mobile tech gadgetry emerging daily can be used for capturing notes for later processing, preserving an interim record of things you need to remember to deal with.
E-mail and Texting
If you’re wired to the rest of the world through e-mail and texting, your software contains some sort of holding area for incoming messages and files, where they can be stored until they are viewed, read, and processed.
Technology Integration
The evolution of the digital world has made it increasingly possible to integrate these various channels automatically. Written notes from paper and whiteboards can be instantly recorded, recognized, and funneled into software storage. Voice messages can be recorded, digitized, and printed out. You can text an idea to your e-mail from your mobile device.
Whether high-tech or low-tech, all of the tools and functions I’ve described serve similarly as in-trays, capturing potentially meaningful information, commitments, ideas, and agreements for action.
The Success Factors for Capturing
Unfortunately, merely having an in-tray doesn’t make it functional. Most people do have collection devices of some sort, but usually they’re more or less out of control or seriously underutilized. Let’s examine the three requirements to make the capturing phase work:
Get It All Out of Your Head
If you’re still trying to keep track of too many things in your mental space, you likely won’t be motivated to use and empty your in-trays with integrity. Most people are relatively careless about these tools because they know they don’t represent discrete, whole systems anyway; there’s an incomplete set of things in their in-tray and an incomplete set in their mind, and they’re not getting a real payoff from either one, so their thinking goes. It’s like trying to play pinball on a machine that has big holes in the table, so the balls keep falling out: there’s little motivation to keep playing the game.
These collection tools should become part of your lifestyle. Keep them close by so no matter where you are you can collect a potentially valuable thought—think of them as being as indispensable as your toothbrush or your driver’s license or your glasses. The sense of trust that nothing possibly useful will get lost will give you the freedom to have many more good ideas.
Minimize the Number of Capture Locations
You should have as many in-trays as you need and as few as you can get by with. You need this function to be available to you in every context, since things you’ll want to capture may show up almost anywhere. If you have too many collection zones, however, you won’t be able to process them easily or consistently.
An excess of collection buckets can easily happen in both the low-tech and hi-tech arenas. There is a real improvement opportunity for most people on the low-tech side, primarily in the areas of note taking and physical in-tray collection. Written notes need to be corralled and processed instead of left lying embedded in stacks, notebooks, and drawers. Paper and physical materials need to be funneled into physical in-trays instead of being scattered over myriad piles in all the available corners of the world. On the high-tech side, potential sources of input for stuff to be assessed and processed have proliferated tremendously, with the advent of social media, multiple connected devices, and the ubiquity of e-mail. People now often have more than one e-mail account, are participating in at least one if not several social media worlds, and operate with numerous digital devices. Paradoxically, the tendency to accumulate a huge backlog of random inputs to deal with, and the number of people troubled with that, have increased dramatically, as the digital revolution has “streamlined” our lives.
Implementing standard tools and procedures for capturing ideas and input will become more and more critical as your life and work become more sophisticated. As you proceed in your career, for instance, you’ll probably notice that your best ideas about work will not come to you at work. The ability to leverage that thinking with good collection devices that are always at hand is key to staying on top of your world.
Empty the Capture Tools Regularly
The final success factor for capturing should be obvious: if you don’t empty and process the stuff you’ve collected, your tools aren’t serving any function other than the storage of amorphous material. Emptying the contents does not mean that you have to finish what’s there; it just means that you have to decide more specifically what it is and what should be done with it, and if it’s still unfinished, organize it into your system. You must get it out of the container. You don’t leave it or put it back into “in”! Not emptying your in-tray is like having garbage cans and mailboxes that no one ever dumps or deals with—you just have to keep buying new ones to hold an eternally accumulating volume.
In order to get “in” to empty, however, an integrated life-management system must be in place. Too much stuff is left piled in in-trays (physical and digital) because of a lack of effective systems “downstream” from there. It often seems easier to leave things in “in” when you know you have to do something about them but can’t do it right then. The in-tray, especially for paper and e-mail, is the best that many people can do in terms of organization—at least they know that somewhere in there is a reminder of something they still have to do. Unfortunately, that safety net is lost when the piles get out of control or the inventory of e-mails gets too extensive to be viewed on one screen.
When you master the next two steps and know how to process and organize your inputs and incompletes easily and rapidly, “in” can return to its original function. Let’s move on to how to get those in-trays and e-mail systems empty without necessarily having to do the work now.
Clarify
Teaching them the item-by-item thinking required to get their collection containers empty is perhaps the most critical improvement I have made for virtually all the people I’ve worked with. When the head of a major department in a global corporation had finished processing all her open items with me, she sat back in awe and told me that though she had been able to relax about what meetings to go to thanks to her trust in her calendar, she had never felt that same relief about all the many other aspects of her job, which we had just clarified together. The actions and information she needed to be reminded of were now identified and entrusted to a concrete system.
What do you need to ask yourself (and answer) about each e-mail, text, voice mail, memo, page of meeting notes, or self-generated idea that comes your way? This is the component of input management that forms the basis for your personal organization. Many people try to get organized but make the mistake of doing it with incomplete batches of stuff. You can’t organize what’s incoming—you can only capture it and process it. Instead, you organize the actions you’ll need to take based on the decisions you’ve made about what needs to be done. The whole deal—both the capturing and organizing phases—is represented in the center “trunk” of the decision-tree model shown here.
What Is It?
This is not a dumb question. We’ve talked about stuff. And we’ve talked about collection buckets. But we haven’t discussed what stuff is and what to do about it. For example, many of the items that tend to leak out of our personal organizing systems are amorphous forms that we receive from the government or from our company—do we actually need to do something about them? And what about that e-mail from human resources, letting us know that blah-blah about the blah-blah is now the policy of blah-blah? I’ve unearthed piles of messages in stacks and desk drawers that were tossed there because the client didn’t take just a few seconds to figure out what, in fact, the communication or document was really about. Which is why the next decision is critical.