Todd Brown, Co-founder and director of Next Action Associates, talks about work-life balance and how the ability to switch from one context to another quickly and efficiently is key.

I also did a lot of eating.

In fact, I sort of took my running as an excuse to eat pretty much anything I wanted, whenever I wanted. After all, I had run/would run five or 10 kilometres or more sometime in the day, so it would all be fine in the end, right?

Well, yes and no. As long as I was healthy/fit/uninjured (and young), I could run pretty much run as much as I wanted. The challenge came when I was injured (and, erm, not so young, with a need to warm up for half a day before jogging to the corner). I didn’t have decent eating habits, so my weight and fitness were up and down like a yo-yo.

One day, someone showed me how far I had to run to work off an ice cream cone (or the first cone of the day anyways), and I realized that there was no way that I could ever outrun my mouth. Unless I developed a sustainable approach to what I put in my face, I’d never be able to have a sustainable level of fitness either. Not if I wanted to hold down a job, as I’d need to spend most of my day exercising to deal with dessert, never mind the burgers and chips.

What does this have to do with anything? Much of our work is with people who are feeling overwhelmed by how much they have to do. Part of the problem is that – just like handling over-eating with over-exercising – working all the hours that God sends is not a huge problem when you are young. As responsibility, complexity and volume go up the brute force approach – staying up longer and counting on adrenaline to get you through – reaches a limit.

In the domain of work, we see the overwhelm is in part created by continuing to say yes to things that we really should be saying no to, and – while there are better and worse ways of organising yourself to get on top of your commitments – there is no system in the world that can cope with the absence of a good healthy ‘no’. If we were saying no to food like we are currently saying no to work, we’d all need a forklift to get into bed every evening.

“Yes, but you don’t know where I work”, we often hear, “that won’t work with my boss”. Perhaps. But ‘no’ doesn’t always sound like N-O. ‘No’ might be ‘not now’, or it might be delegating more effectively, but it isn’t a ‘yes’ with a vague sense that we might maybe hopefully be able to get to it. It is physically and metaphorically impossible to outrun our mouths, given everything else we have on, and this is true both for food and work.

To say ‘no’ more, we need to be clear on what we already have on. To be clear on that, we need to collect, process and organize all of our current commitments into one place, so we can have a quick look and understand on a deep level that taking on new stuff without dropping some of the old is not being helpful at all, it is being irresponsible.

So, in light of all that, what do you need to say no to, to be able to get on top of what really matters?

A: The whole planet is unproductive; it’s just that technology is making it more obvious.

What’s important is knowing where are you and how do you allocate your resources to get where you want to go. That’s been true forever.

It’s true all this tech is totally distracting all kinds of people, but then again, they are letting themselves be distracted. How come? Because they’re not clear about what they’re doing.

Q: So being distracted by tech is the symptom of a problem, rather than the core of the problem?

A: Yeah. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do. If you don’t know where you’re going, any tech is fine. It’s like: Why not? Why not surf the Web? There are worse ways to waste time.

But it comes down to the situation: Who’s doing it, why are you doing it, and what are you avoiding by doing it?

Snacking on e-mail is actually sometimes exactly what you need to do if, say, you’ve been in five meetings all day and gotten beat up in four of them. Snacking on e-mail is fine a few times a day to let your brain relax. But if you’re spending all day snacking and never get it all finished and you’re just sitting there avoiding the tough thing you know you need to be doing, you’re toast.

Q: For people like me who want to hold on to the productive, useful aspects of information technology but want to avoid being overwhelmed or continually distracted by them, what are the concrete steps to achieve that balance?

A: The answer comes back to: You really need to focus on where you’re going and what you’re producing in your life. One of the hallmarks of our methodology is a two-hour review time a week. Step back and take a look, get an overview of all your commitments, all the woulds, coulds, shoulds. Take an inventory of all the goals you have for yourself.

Otherwise, if it wasn’t technology, you’d find all kinds of other things to distract you.

It’s not a simple answer, because it’s only as simple as figuring out what you want to do with your life.

Q: But are there practical ways to reduce the temptations? Should we think about the way we set up our devices or desktop windows to prevent ourselves from tripping over Twitter on the way to Microsoft Word?

A: (Laughing) What you want is a technology chastity belt – and you’ll probably have as much luck as those did.

This article appeared on page D – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle last week.

HOW do you think most workers would respond if you asked them, “Do you feel more productive now than you did several years ago?” I doubt that the answer would be a resounding yes. In fact, even as workplace technology and processes steadily improve, many professionals feel less productive than ever.

It may seem a paradox, but these very tools are undermining our ability to get work done. They are causing us to become paralyzed by the dizzying number of options that they spawn.

Is there a way out of this quandary? Yes, but it’s not going to come from the usual quarters. To be successful in the new world of work, we need to create a structure for capturing, clarifying and organizing all the forces that assail us, and to ensure time and space for thinking, reflecting and decision making.

Most professionals are still using their subjective, internal mental worlds to try to keep it all together, but that’s a poor way to navigate the new work environment. It results in unclear, distracted and disorganized thinking, and leaves frustration, stress and undermined self-confidence in its wake.

Workers need a set of best practices that is sorely lacking in the professional world. Without it, we are seeing a growing angst — even a sense of desperation — in the workplace, as more employees feel that there is no rest and no way out. (In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see resurging interest in Sartre’s books and Beckett’s plays as a result.)

These are the kinds of comments I hear in my work as a consultant:

• “I’m overwhelmed, and with all the changes going on here, it’s getting worse. There aren’t enough hours in the day to do my job.”

• “I have new responsibilities that demand creative and strategic thought, but I’m not getting to them.”

• “I have too many meetings to attend, and I can’t get any ‘real’ work done.”

• “I have too many e-mails, and, given day-to-day urgencies, the backlog keeps growing.”

• “I feel like I’m not giving the right amount of attention to what’s most important.”

And here’s a common kicker, for those willing to admit it:

“I just can’t keep going like this.”

One could argue that these kinds of complaints are as old as work itself, and that no matter how productive we are, we’ll always find something to grumble about. That’s human nature. But a closer examination of these grievances reveals that they all relate to a sense of suboptimal performance. The core message is, “I don’t feel good about what I’m not getting done.”

TO better understand the realities of the accelerated work world, it helps to remember how far we have come. Imagine if you didn’t have a spreadsheet on your computer: How much effort would you need to produce the computations you can now perform in minutes?

Fifty years ago, how many hours would you have spent wandering library stacks and poring over volumes of materials to find information you can now get in a few moments online?

When there was no next-day delivery, e-mail or Web conferencing, how much energy would you expend traveling to meetings to discuss issues, make decisions and produce results now accomplished in short order, with people all around the world?

Productivity gains have not been limited to technology and transportation. Over time, better understanding of business processes has allowed companies to accomplish more with less effort and resources, and with more focus on quality, creativity and innovation. And support for workers’ satisfaction continues to spread, in forms like flexible schedules, more comfortable office space, and a range of professional and personal development programs.

Today, we really do live in a much cooler world in which to work, travel and communicate. So if we’re getting so much more bang for the buck, with this exponential leap forward in technology and support, why aren’t we reaping the benefits of productivity day to day as individuals?

The problem is that better overall productivity in an organization may not translate into increased productivity for an individual worker.

Though one person may now be producing the previous results of three, she’s not being paid three times as much. That’s the whole point of companies using technology and other improvements: fewer people are now needed for the same results.

But the workers who remain also tend to have much more responsibility. And they can’t just comfort themselves with the notion that their companies are more efficient than they used to be, because all of their competitors have the same new tools, and are using them to gain any advantage they can.

Cranking out widgets is one thing; deciding which widgets need cranking first, and in what quantity, is quite another — especially if you are now charged with continually improving the system, or determining whether you should even be cranking out those widgets at all.

It can be a recipe for frustration, as employees feel overwhelmed by their companies’ very progress. And the problems and logistics of workers’ personal lives add yet another layer of complexity.

So, given all the obstacles, how do you find your way to a productive state — the feeling that you’re doing exactly what you should be doing, with a sense of relaxed and focused control? What’s needed is a system that creates space to think, to reflect, to review, to integrate and to connect dots.

As Dr. Nicolas von Rosty, head of executive development at Siemens, once told me, “You must be able to be present, not distracted, to be able to trust your inner wisdom and make quick decisions without others’ input or waiting for perfection.”

How do you find the space needed to do that? By integrating all the chaos of the workplace and staying focused on the most important things, as they relate to your goals, direction, values and desired outcomes. You must constantly recalibrate your resources to generate the best results, and to say “not now” to what’s less important.

WE are not born doing this. It’s a focus that must be learned. And its results won’t show up by themselves. You can, however, use a sequence of five events to optimize your focus and resources, whether you’re trying to get it together in your kitchen, your conversation, your contract, your company or your country.

• Capture everything that has your attention, in your work and your personal life, in writing. Maybe it’s your departmental budget, a meeting with the new boss, an overdue vacation, or just the need to buy new tires and a jar of mayonnaise. For the typical professional, it can take one to six hours to “empty the attic” of your head. It may seem daunting, but this exercise invariably leads to greater focus and control.

• Clarify what each item means to you. Decide what results you want and what actions — if any — are required. If you simply make a list and stop there, without putting the items in context, you’ll be stuck in the territory of compulsive list-making, which ultimately won’t relieve the pressure. What’s the next action when it comes to your budget? The next step in arranging your vacation? Applying this simple but rigorous model puts you in the driver’s seat; otherwise, your lists will hold your psyche hostage. And keep in mind that much progress can be made and stress relieved by applying the magic two-minute rule — that any action that can be finished in two minutes should be done in the moment.

• Organize reminders of your resulting to-do lists — for the e-mails you need to send, the phone calls you need to make, the meetings you need to arrange, the at-home tasks you need to complete. Park the inventory of all your projects in a convenient place.

• Regularly review and reflect on the whole inventory of your commitments and interests, and bring it up to date. As your needs change, what can move to the front burner, and what can go further back? Make these decisions while considering your overall principles, goals and accountabilities. Schedule a two-hour, weekly operational review, allowing space to clean up, catch up and do some reflective overseeing of the landscape, for all work and personal goals, commitments and activities.

• Finally, deploy your attention and resources appropriately.

Does our productivity really depend on this basic set of behaviors and thought processes? So it seems. Everyone is already half-trying to do all of this, all the time. But many people just haven’t identified the process, or applied it.

I have never seen anyone apply these practices, with some degree of commitment and application, and not find significant improvement in focus, control and results. The technology, the organizational goals, the quirkiness and turbulence of external realities — these become things to manage, not a hoped-for source of productivity itself.

I have found that most professionals take action based on whatever is the latest and loudest in their universe, as opposed to making a conscious, intelligent choice springing from the model I’ve described. This day-to-day, minute-to-minute arena of “reaction versus pro-action” is where the scales tip to “productive” or “unproductive.”

ONE possible path to that feeling of control is to return to a make-it-or-move-it existence. Find work that requires little if any thinking, but merely reacts and responds to what presents itself. That’s a real option: I once met a senior vice president in a global pharmaceutical company who, after taking an early retirement package, became a duck at Disney World. In such a job, it was probably much easier to have a good day at work, and then leave it behind.

But most people won’t choose that path, partly because such jobs seldom pay what the figure-it-out-yourself ones do. And we need this second kind of job if we are to afford the children, education, hobbies, clothes and urban lifestyles whose options are themselves contributing to life’s overwhelming complexities.

And even if you tried to downgrade your work to something simpler, you’d probably bring along the itch to make it something more.

I’ve often made the point in my seminars that having a “bait shop in the Berkshires” is always an option for making life less stressful. But a client once told me that a friend of his had actually done that — by cashing out of Wall Street, going to the Berkshires and buying a fishing camp. When my client visited him, the guy was wrapped around his computer, on the Internet, trying to find the right baits to buy and sell, trying to figure out how to advertise his camp, and so on.

In other words, our attraction to a world of infinite possibility, information and complexity is here to stay. The challenge is how to participate productively in this new and turbulent world, and not be paralyzed by it.

David Allen is chairman and founder of the David Allen Company, a productivity consulting and training company, and author of “Getting Things Done.”

One of the questions that we invariably get asked at the end of each seminar is that while GTD is a great way for one to get things done, can it help a team or an entire organisation as well?

The truth is, GTD is not just about helping the individual. It goes far and beyond in helping teams and organisations play at an all-new level. As companies roll out GTD in teams and across the entire organisation they find that they now have a common language around tracking and taking action, and thus develop a culture of action within the organisation; a culture of everyone knowing what the desired outcomes are, what the next action is, and who ‘has the ball’.

In this great short video, Todd gets everyone thinking about the ready position. Ever wondered what your ready position looks like? Watch the video below and give it some thought!

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Where it will be held:
Sheraton Boston Hotel
39 Dalton Street
Boston, MA 02199
617-236-2000

Details about the day:
8:30am to 4:30pm
Registration and continental breakfast at 8:00am
Buffet lunch served at 12:00pm
15-minute refresh break in the morning and afternoon