Why The Front End Work Is Essential If You Want To Be Productive.
One of the biggest barriers to starting a productivity system such as David Allen’s Getting Things Done is the front end work. Most people want the results a productivity system like Getting Things Done gives, but most are not prepared to put the front end work in to get the results. Without doing the front end work though, you are not going to get the results you so desperately want.
No matter what productivity system you choose to use, all of them require you to do some front end work. You need to set up the notebook to use a bullet journal, you need to put your appointments and tasks into your calendar if you want to create a simple calendar system and you need to set up your collection buckets and projects and context lists if you want to start getting the most out of GTD.
Setting these systems up requires time. They require you to do something. The weirdest thing is, most people are willing to spend between $5.00 and $100 to buy the apps but are not willing to spend the five to hundred hours needed to set up the system so the app works for them.
We are not yet in a place where technology can find all the tasks in our heads and display them in a beautiful user interface on our phone or computer. You still need to get all that stuff out of your head and type it into your device. You still need to decide which task goes into which project and which context to attach to it. Machine learning can make a suggestion, but in my experience eight times out of ten the “machine” doesn’t quite get it right. Our lives are a bit more complex than machines would like them to be.
The reality is, if you want the results, you need to put in the front end work. You want washboard abs? You need to eat the right foods and spend time in the gym. You want to create your own app? You need to sit down and write code. There are no shortcuts. The same rules apply to getting yourself better organised and becoming more productive. You need to sit down and get all your stuff together into one system and you need to organise that system into projects and contexts. Doing that takes time. And if you want to maintain your washboard abs or to keep your app relevant and selling, you need to continue working at it to maintain it. Your productivity system is the same. You need to spend time maintaining it.
Setting up a productivity system that enables you to do more productive work and eliminate the non-productive work needs you to collect everything that is shouting for your attention. It needs you to decide whether those noisy attention seekers are worth your valuable time or not and it needs you to make a decision about what is important to you. All of which requires time. If you are not prepared to give it the necessary time, you are not going to change your current, unhappy situation.
At some point, over the next few weeks, you are going to have a few quiet days. During the end of year holiday period you are going to be faced with the opportunity to take yourself off to a quiet room, sit down and get all your stuff into a working productivity system, or you could sit down and watch the usual holiday movies of The Wizard Of Oz and Home Alone for the umpteenth time. It is a choice you will be faced with and what you decide to do will tell you a lot about how much you want to change your life. If you decide to spend the three hours watching the same movies you have watched in previous years, don’t go into the new year complaining about how stressed and busy you are. You had the opportunity to change that situation and you decided to do nothing. If however, you decide to use those three hours to develop your own productivity system and if you are determined to maintain the system you create, you will find the new year brings you a better life, a less stressed life and a much more organised life. That seems to me to be a much better use of your valuable time.
It is easy to get caught up in our stressed and busy day to day life, not feeling happy about the situation and not doing anything about it. The reason you are unhappy, the reason you are stressed and feel worn out at the end of the day is that you have not made the decision to take some time out to sit down and get your stuff organised. You can decide to change that at any time, it is your decision to make. Equally, it is your decision to do nothing. My advice is choose wisely.
If you do decide to make the change, then I recommend you start by reading David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done. Buying and reading this book, could turn out to be the best investment you have ever made. It is your choice.
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