Costco Connection - December 2008

“I wantto, Ineedto, Ireallyshould”onall these different levels. We really need to capture and achieve all of those things. We don”t want to be walking around like Pigpen withallthispsychicresidueofthingswe need todoor shoulddoor wanttodo; we justfigureouthowtodothem.It”sreally no big deal.

GTD is one of those marvelous things whereyoureaditandgo“Duh.”Everybody knows all of this stuff, basically. The pro-fundityofitisreallynobigdeal,butitis.

I”msomehowthemost well-knownguyto figureallofthisoutanddesignamethod-ology to work it all out.

culture and the unconscious work together to build a psyche—what we do, why we do it, why we don’t achieve what we could. It’s been a string of books and amazing people and chance encounters and inspiration. It’s all a part of where I am today.

Working with Lockheed many
years ago was a critical turning
point for you, the opportunity you
had to test this methodology in a
corporate environment.

Ihadbeenworkingwiththismaterial in my own consulting practice for many years, but it was the opportunity—not really a planned event—to take it to anotherlevel.Igottoworkwithman-agers and executives. I was invited in and I took all of my material and figured out how to, in two days, tell them the best information I knew about how to get stuff done and relieve their stress.

I put it all in an educational format. It was a bit ofawatershed.Iwasn”tevensureIcoulddoit before I did it, in the same way, after 20 years of doing the seminars, I wasn”t sure I could put it all in abookso Ididn”thavetogoeverywherepersonally. Could I convey the information in a valuable way?

Getting Things Done is peppered
with these beautiful and inspiring
quotes from major thinkers, major
texts—philosophical, spiritual, business.
I”m curious about your influences
and inspirations.

I was reading Zen and Alan Watts and Sufimastersinhighschool. Thatpartofit startedwayback.Iwasinterestedinphi-losophy and law. I started studying philosophy, butfoundthatitgotkindof wound upinitself.SothenIstartedstudyingthe philosophers themselves and why they thought the way they thought, and that wasinterestingtome.

That got me intrigued by these paradigms and belief systems, how the

The book was originally published seven
years ago, but it feels more relevant today than
ever. It’s also selling better today than it did
then. Why do you think that is?

In the larger sense, the book is designed for anyone who can’t finish what they need to as soon as they think of it. All of us have more than one thing to keep track of. Why this book is becoming more and more meaningful, and why it’s now a must-have instead of a nice-to-have, is because the world is that much faster than it ever was. There’s nothing new except how frequently everything is new.

We live in such a virtual world, such a global world, so immediate and always becoming more so, that it’s increasingly difficult to stay on top of our tasks. We’ve gotten really good at absorbing more and more, but not so good at dropping off the things we do not need to carry around with us everywhere we go. It’s triage most of the time. It’s harder and harder to keep track of, manage and renegotiate all your agreements with yourself, universally speaking. I’ve sold a million copies. I have 5.999 billion to go. In the larger scope, we’ve only just begun.

You’ve worked with most of the major corpo-
rations in the world. I’m guessing this has been
an amazing journey for you. Tell me about what
you learn working with these big companies.

The biggest revelation is that everybody is basically the same. There is virtually no difference between any company, corporation, Boy Scout troop, American Express, Google or any individual. The best news about my whole career is it’s a mark of my laziness: I don’t have to change, really, one thing I say, whether I’m talking to one of the biggest corporations in the world or a small office in the middle of the country. Everybody’s got the same issues.

I’ll dress up the language, tailor it to who I’m working with, but the truth is, once the office door is closed, I’m dealing with people—and we all have the same issues. We’re all in this together. We all have stuff in our heads that we need to get out, and we all feel better when we do. We all have decisions to make, and we all feel better when we do. We all need to be more productive, and we feel better when we are. That’s true for chief executives, and it’s true for 11-year-old kids.