Essay - Read Allen's Getting Things Done - if You Want To Get a Layout Built

Essay

Many years past, the Layout Design Journal published a book review of Getting Things Done authored by yours truly. If you want to build a model railroad you must have some free time and a free mind. The way to free up some time is to bring efficiency into your life. 

Allen's core principal is that we don't manage our time, we manage our projects. And in his telling, a project is anything that takes more than one step - or as he calls them, "next actions". His thesis is that many to do lists just are not that helpful. What one must uncover is that what seems to be a to do item is really a project for which the list-maker has not determined what the next action is. 

For example, if you have "buy a drill press" on your to do list and nothing has happened, what may really be the case is that you have identified a project but not its next action. To get this project unstuck, you might just need to identify and execute a next action such as "email Dave to get his opinion on which drill press is the best for my budget and needs".

Read David Allen's book and you will find you are getting more things done.