I first learned about David Allen’s famous productivity system, Getting Things Done, several years ago. It’s an excellent book, building off a simple idea: the less you need to rely on memory, the easier it is to become productive. Since being popularized over the web, GTD has been associated with the art of productivity.

But there is only one problem, GTD is too complicated. When I first tried to set up GTD, I found it clunky and hard to stick with. The systems that Allen developed over years were being put in my lap on one day. Some of the ideas were immediately useful, others were wasteful and difficult to maintain.

GTD: The Swiss Army Knife (When All You Want is a Fork…)

Only several years later did I realize the source of my problem with GTD. The organizing system was robust, but it wasn’t tailored to my life. Keeping a notepad and calendar was a great idea. Keeping a set of dozens of folders to track action items over a period of months wasn’t.

To be fair to Allen, it wasn’t really his fault. GTD is a great system, but it’s difficult to create a system that suits everyone. The CEO of a Fortune 500 company has completely different productivity needs than a grad student. One person might need to track hundreds of pieces of information, while the other might need minimal tracking but a high degree of focus on one task.

Just saying “tailor it to your life” is a bit trite too. Obviously if everyone was born with the understanding of what productivity needs they have, they wouldn’t need to read books on productivity.
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A deadline is a budget for your time. Just like a budget for your spending can help keep you out of debt, keeping budgets for your time can keep you productive. If used appropriately, a deadline can greatly increase the chances you’ll finish a project. But if you misuse them, deadlines can just become a headache.

When Do Deadlines Work?

Deadlines can help you become more productive if:

1. You’re worried about feature creep. If your project has the tendency to expand and become larger, deadlines force you to focus on what’s most important.
2. You might procrastinate. Deadlines can push you through work you don’t enjoy. Without deadlines, some work would always be pushed until tomorrow.
3. You’re outside your comfort zone. Keeping a time limit can force you to push through fears. There’s a point when you are prepared enough and just need to move forward. Deadlines can help you find that point.
4. You need to build experience quickly. Sometimes trial and error is the best solution. It might not be pretty, but it works. Setting short deadlines force you to put your ideas to the test instead of endlessly polishing them.

Those four characteristics are all good reasons to use deadlines. I know whenever I plan a several month project, that a deadline is critical. If I leave the timeline open-ended, I will probably expand the project faster than I can complete it. Often my first step in these large projects is to pin down the date of completion.

Deadlines are also great for kicking yourself into action. If your motivation is running a bit low, you can use a time limit to beat procrastination. My productivity system is geared towards to-do lists that have either a daily or weekly deadline. Without that deadline, it would be harder to get started.

When Do Deadlines Break Down?

Deadlines can be overused, or used for reasons that aren’t appropriate. When you see the impact a deadline has on combating procrastination or finishing projects, it is easy to branch that idea into areas that don’t really work.

There are more than a few mistakes you can make when setting deadlines. Here are a few:
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One simple fact divides effective and ineffective people: effective people spend the majority of their time working on important rather than urgent things.

Have you ever felt like you spend a lot of time being really busy, but at the end of the day you don’t feel like you’ve really accomplished anything? I’ve felt this way on many occasions.

It’s not that I’ve been lazy or haven’t been productive. I’ve checked my email, responded to everyone, cleaned and organized my desk, filed everything and checked all the social networking sites. Basically I spent a lot of time doing things that kept me very busy and seemed important at the time.

But after finishing all of these tasks, I still had a feeling that I hadn’t really accomplished anything. I didn’t feel any real fulfillment. The reason is while I spent a lot of time working on urgent things, none of them were really important.

A Personal Example

Here’s an example of deciphering the important vs. the urgent. One of the things I’ve been struggling with recently is becoming an early riser. I know that if I wake up earlier, I can have more time to work on important projects. More often than not, though, when I wake up I have the urge to just push the snooze button one more time. It feels so good to go back to sleep for a few more minutes. An hour and a half later I will finally drag myself out of bed knowing that can’t push it any further. The whole time wishing I would have just had the willpower to get myself up when I said I would.

I know that working on my blog or going to the gym would have had more of a long term impact, but I sacrificed the urgency of wanting more sleep for the importance of having a greater impact. I’ve gradually been able to condition myself to wake up earlier over time. Not by using my willpower, but by raising my awareness of what’s more important to me.

The problem wasn’t that I didn’t have the discipline to wake up early, it was that I was conditioned to prioritize urgency over importance. My awareness alone has allowed me to get myself out of bed earlier, not grudgingly (okay maybe a little) but willingly - even cheerfully sometimes. That’s because I know that at the end of the day I’ll feel more fulfilled knowing I spent that time working to get closer to making my goals a reality, rather than getting a few more minutes of sleep.

So how do we raise our awareness of what is truly important? How can we recondition ourselves to have a greater impact? The following are 5 ways I try stay focused on important, rather than simply urgent, tasks each day:
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“We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many books, articles and blog posts have been written on the subject of productivity. Many of these contain great advice, including things such as: check your e-mail in bulk, and only twice a day; touch each paper that comes across your desk just once; set a strict limit on the amount of time you spend on social networking sites; have clearly defined goals; break your goals down into milestones and then into small, achievable steps; schedule those steps into your day; and so on. These are all logical, linear, and progressive steps that you can, and should, take to become more productive.

However, by putting so much emphasis on the linear aspects of productivity - that is, on things such as organization and time management - the non-linear, quantum leap aspects of productivity are being neglected. The other side of productivity involves synchronicity instead of decluttering, serendipity instead of creating processes, and coincidences instead of daily planners.

Coincidences

“Coincidence” is defined in Wikipedia as “the noteworthy alignment of two or more events or circumstances without obvious causal connection.” Swiss psychologist Carl Jung devoted a large part of his work to the study of “meaningful coincidences”, or synchronicity, and how seemingly chance occurrences can move our lives forward significantly. Sitting at a sidewalk café you overhear a conversation at the next table which you incorporate as a brilliant plot twist in the novel you’ve been struggling to finish for the past year; a book you pick up from the discount table at your neighborhood bookstore opens to a significant passage; a missed train starts a chain of events that changes the direction of your life; and so on.
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