Scott Belsky is a compelling speaker. When I heard him at an organizing conference earlier this year, I was so impressed with him — and with what he had to say — that I briefly thought about trying to get a job at his company, Behance. That's an idea that didn't happen, for many reasons — but when I read through my notes from his talk a few days ago, I decided to get his book and learn more.



Belsky is concerned with helping "creative professionals" — the ones who have lots of ideas — bring those ideas to fruition. His book talks about the three important components in doing that:



1. Organization and execution.

2. The forces of community.

3. Leadership capability.



While all three sections have great ideas, I'm going to focus on just the first one: organization and execution.



Sometimes this section reminded me of David Allen and his book, Getting Things Done — even the book titles have a similar ring. But there are plenty of differences, too. And some items reminded me of the things I learned in my corporate days.



The way Belsky recommends we handle organization and execution is what he calls the Action Method, which "begins with the simple premise that everything is a project." A project could be the kinds of things you might think about: preparing a major presentation, for example, or doing your taxes. But there are also projects like "the stuff you do to advance your career" which become a "career development" project.



And each project has three primary components: Action Steps, References, and Backburner Items.



Action Steps are "the specific, concrete tasks that move you forward: redraft and send the memo, post the blog entry, pay the electricity bill, etc." We need a way to capture these anywhere they happen: at the office, surely, but also "when you are reading an article, taking a shower, daydreaming, or getting ready for bed."



Each Action Step "must be owned by a single person" because "an unowned Action Step will never be taken." This was a familiar idea to me, but what was new to me was Belsky's insistence that we not have one person take notes of all the Action Steps agreed to in a meeting, and send them around. "Each person needs to 'own' their Action Steps," he says. "When tasks are written in your own handwriting, in your own idiom, they remain familiar and are more likely to be executed." He also notes that "Some teams take a few minutes at the end of every meeting to go around the table and allow each person to recite the Action Steps that he or she captured. Doing so will almost always reveal a missed Action Step or a duplication on two people's lists."



Given that we're dealing with the Action Method, it's not surprising that Belsky says: "Taking and organizing extensive notes aren't worth the effort. We have found that notes are seldom used and can actually get in the way of capturing and following up on Action Steps."



Which brings us to References — all those things you may want to refer back to that are not actionable: handouts, manuals, web sites, etc. Belsky says many of us were trained back in our early school years to write everything down, and now have well-developed habits of doing so — but that for many of us "this habit of recording and organizing everything has become a time- and space-consuming behavior with no real payoff." Furthermore, "the more energy you spend on scribbling down notes, the more liable you are to miss the opportunity to capture valuable Action Steps."



Belsky provides suggestions for easy ways to store the References we keep. But he says we should ask ourselves "For what purpose would I refer back to this at some point?" — and if we can't think of anything, there's no need to keep it.



And then there are Backburner Items — the "things that are not actionable now but may be someday" — which reminded me of David Allen's someday/maybe list. Belsky mentions the need for a "Backburner ritual" to "periodically revisit and curate the Backburner as time goes on" and he suggests doing this monthly. Some items will become Action Steps, some will have become irrelevant and can be eliminated, and others will stay on the Backburner.



Belsky also dives into prioritization, recommending that we place all our projects on an Energy Line "according to how much energy they should receive." His sample line has five categories: extreme, high, medium, low and idle. At first, there's often a tendency to put too many items on the extreme end of the line; doing this exercise may force us to make tough decisions. "Energy is a finite resource that is seldom managed well," Belsky says, and going through the Energy Line exercise can help.



There's much more in this section, including many ideas about processing your email and the notes you take during the day, and many ideas about making the most of meetings. ("Most meetings are fruitless," he says.) Belsky quotes Seth Godin on the importance of shipping — getting your product, whatever it might be, out the door — and Jesse Rothstein on the importance of follow-up. There's also a mention of the importance of selecting good tools; Belsky says, "The aesthetics of the tools you use to make ideas happen matter."



As you can tell from how long I've nattered on here, I found a lot of worthwhile ideas in this book; I'm glad I read it. Now I need to go distill the Action Steps and Backburner Items I'm taking away from my reading; the book itself is my Reference, and it's one I'm going to keep.

I've long been a fan of David Allen's book, Getting Things Done. So when KQED's Forum ran an hour-long hour-long interview with Allen, I downloaded the podcast to my iPhone, and listened in the car. (Ignore the host calling this a "new book"; he was confused.) Allen covered many of the GTD basics, but he also had some ways of putting things that I hadn't heard before. I thought I'd share some of my favorite snippets.



Allen talked about "the GSA of life — the Gnawing Sense of Anxiety — that somewhere out there I ... could/should/ought to be doing something, and it might be more important than whatever I'm currently doing; oh damn." His answer to avoiding GSA starts with having a written inventory — on paper, or electronically — of all our commitments.



Allen noted that we're dealing with an awful lot of these to-do type items — and to make things more complicated, "life changes a whole lot." One of the biggest changes in recent years, he said, is "how frequently we need to recalibrate" — so he advised that we not try to over-structure our days. More specifically:

Most people have between 30-100 projects — what I call projects, things that take more than one step to finish, that they can finish within a few weeks or months: get tires on my car, the next vacation, hire this person ... stuff like that. ...



You need a list of what you've got to do that day ... that's what I call the hard landscape. ... But then all the other things, which actually happens to be the vast majority, is the "as soon as I can get to" list. ... So you look at the hard landscape and say, "OK, that's what I got to" and then if you have any discretionary time at all, then you have the list of all the other things to do — and by the way, most people have over 150 of those other things they need to do, if they actually sat down and had integrity about keeping track of the inventory.

Allen also spoke about how, if we don't have good systems for managing our commitments, we wind up being "at effect" of all that stuff coming at us — so we're "driven by latest and loudest" versus "consciously making good choices." The host asked:

Isn't it easier to be in charge of your life if you're in charge of your company, or your organization, as opposed to being way down on the list and taking orders from the boss?

Allen's answer stressed taking control of the things we can control:

Oh, well, we're all at effect of the weather and our bosses and a lot of other things, so we start with well, let's at least handle the 10 acres that you're in — make sure that's under control.

Allen also addressed the ongoing maintenance issue that comes up with any such system:

I empty my in-basket and do regular reviews and keep all this current for the same reason I brush my teeth and take showers: If I don't, the scuzz factor gets too high.

And while Allen always advocates tools that are simple to use, including paper tools like the notebook he uses to capture ideas, he did admit:

I like things small, black, high-tech and expensive.

Chris Guillebeau blogs at The Art of Non-Conformity and has written a book by the same name — while traveling constantly. ... Guillebeau’s favorite tool is a paper notebook. “I try to avoid keeping things in my head… so I carry the notebook everywhere.” [from Favorite Tools from 9 Exceptionally Productive People, at Distracted Enterprise]

I've long been a fan of what the Getting Things Done community calls the "ubiquitous capture tool" - whatever it is you carry with you, all the time, to capture those random ideas that pop into your head, or commitments you've made, or anything else you need to remember. This tool could be a voice recorder, an app on your smartphone - or some sort of paper note-taking device.

For years I've been happily using Levenger's pocket briefcase, as I've noted before. There are many different styles; some come with pens, and others (like mine) do not.




But at the organizer's conference I just attended, I saw another interesting option - the NotableXchange from KC Streamline Concepts. You can see I chose one that matches my iPhone case; the bright color makes it easy to find in my purse. It had a bad off-gassing odor when I first removed it from its packaging, but the odor went away within a day.




Another similar option, available in leather or cloth, is the GTD NoteTaker Wallet from the David Allen Company.




For an extremely small note-taking device, there's the PicoPad - available through Bas Bleu and other sources.

And of course you could simply carry some sort of notebook, as Chris does; there are many great choices if you want to go that route.

The inventors of the Post-it were just inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, as organizer Jane Campbell pointed out on Twitter. The Post-it product range is pretty darn large; "Post-it Notes are now available in eight standard sizes, 25 shapes and 62 colors." But sometimes you might want to consider another product.




Jane asked about Post-its with carbonless copies - and while that type of Post-it doesn't seem to exist, you can get carbonless copy sticky notes made by Rediform. [via Lifehacker]




MegaSticky provides giant sticky note pads, called Genius Pads, which measure 30cm x 30cm (11.81" x 11.81"). (Post-it also has a number of large pads, but nothing the size of the Genius Pads.)




For pretty sticky notes in a range of patterns, head over to Cavallini & Co; the company's products are sold many places on the web.




The Unemployed Philosophers Guild has sticky notes featuring a number of famous people: Shakespeare, Frida Kahlo, Einstein, Freud, etc.




Fans of David Allen's Getting Things Done might especially appreciate these sticky notes, provided by From Piles to Smiles, which ask, "What's the next action?"




Or you could get origami sticky notes - notes with folding instructions on each sheet. Again, a number of sites sell these, including ThinkGeek.




And finally, over in Japan, you can get these exquisite fruit-shaped sticky notes - available individually or by the case. [via sub-studio and TokyoMango]

Related Post:
The Ubiquitous Sticky Note

[photo by Michael Cory, licensed under Creative Commons]