Getting Things Done

CHAPTER 11 I THE POWER OF THE COLLECTION HABIT
I suggest that you use your mind to think about things, rather
than think of them. You want to be adding value as you think
about projects and people, not simply reminding yourself they
exist. To fully realize that more productive place, you will need to
capture it all. It takes focus and a change of habit to train yourself
to recognize and download even the smallest agreements with
yourself as they're created in your mind. Doing the collection
process as fully as you can, and then incorporating the behavior of
capturing all the new things as they emerge, will be empowering
and productive.
When Relationships and Organizations
Have the Collection Habit
What happens when everyone involved on a team—in a mar-
riage, in a department, on a staff, in a family, in a company—can
be trusted not to let anything slip through the cracks? Frankly,
once you've achieved that, you'll hardly think about whether peo-
ple are dropping the ball anymore-—there will be much bigger
things to occupy your attention.
But if communication gaps are still an issue, there's likely
some layer of frustration and a general nervousness in the culture.
Most people feel that without constant baby-sitting and hand-
holding, things could disappear in the system and then blow up at
any time. They don't realize that they're feeling this because
they've been in this situation so consistently that they relate to
it as if it were a permanent law, like gravity. It doesn't have to be
that way.
I have noticed this for years. Good people who haven't incor-
porated these behaviors come into my environment, and they
stick out like a sore thumb. I've lived with the standards of clear
psychic RAM and hard, clean edges on in-baskets for more than
two decades now. When a note sits idle in someone's in-basket
unprocessed, or when he or she nods "yes, I will" in a conversation
233

---

THE POWER OF THE KEY PRINCIPLES I PART THREE
but doesn't write anything down, my "uh-oh" bell rings. This is
unacceptable behavior in my world. There are much bigger fish to
fry than worrying about leaks in the system.
I need to trust that any request or relevant infor-
mation I put on a voice-mail, in an e-mail, in a con-
versation, or in a written note will get into the other
person's system and that it will be processed and
organized, soon, and available for his or her review as
an option for action. If the recipient is managing
voice-mails but not e-mail and paper, I have now been hamstrung
to use only his or her trusted medium. That should be unaccept-
able behavior in any organization that cares about whether things
happen with the least amount of effort.
When change is required, there must be trust that the initia-
tives for that change will be dealt with appropriately. Any intact
system will ultimately be only as good as its weakest link, and
often that Achilles' heel is a key person's dulled responsiveness to
communications in the system.
I especially notice this when I walk around organizations
where in-baskets are either nonexistent, or overflowing and obvi-
ously long unprocessed. These cultures usually suffer from serious
"interruptitis" because they can't trust putting communications
into the system.
Where cultures do have solid systems, down through the
level of paper, the clarity is palpable. It's hardly even a conscious
concern, and everyone's attention is more focused. The same is
true in families that have instituted in-baskets—for the parents,
the children, the nanny, the housekeeper, or anyone else with
whom family members frequently interact. People often grimace
when I tell them that my wife, Kathryn, and I put things in each
other's in-baskets, even when we're sitting within a few feet of
each other; to them it seems "cold and mechanical." Aside from
being an act of politeness intended to avoid interrupting the
other's work in progress, the practice actually fosters more warmth
and freedom between us, because mechanical things are being
234
Bailing water in a
leaky boat diverts
energy from rowing
the boat.

---