David Allen - Ready for Anything
Monday -October 13, 2003 2:00 PM posted by Diane Ingram

I have accepted the playful title of "Princess Di", the VLAS ribbing me that I'm too chicken to follow Virtue Number Three (You are the ruler of your Queendom) but I could be called the Queen of Packrats. I just don't want to throw anything away. It might be important someday, you know?

Then on Thursday, October 9th I was given the opportunity to spend an evening with David Allen, best-selling author, coach and management consultant, whose methods of personal organization have been adopted by leaders at organizations including Microsoft, L. L. Bean, General Mills and the U.S. Navy. While Mr. Allen was in the Twin Cities as the keynote speaker for the Institute for Management Studies and to introduce his second book, Ready for Anything, at the Midwest Booksellers Association, he graciously arranged his schedule to include an evening seminar for the Elliot Park Neighborhood Inc., hosted by publisher Viking Penguin and the David Allen Company.

I was already familiar with David's ideas. I've been receiving his e-newsletter for nearly two years thanks to my best friend and business mentor, Shar Kanan. At one time, Shar was the organizational whiz that kept David's OWN office productive while he was out teaching his methods to his ever-growing client base. As the administrative coordinator of Elliot Park Neighborhood Inc., Shar is now, spearheading the adoption of these skills within this nonprofit organization. While using many of David's methods to help organize my business self, I've resisted putting order to my personal space. Call it being stubborn, call it being hardheaded or call it what it really is…being just plain lazy.

As David spoke of ways to clear your head and focus your attention I thought about a letter I had sitting in a stack of opened and read mail. Why was it still sitting on my desk? I had read it. I had relayed it's contents. But as long as it was in that stack…as long as that entire stack was on my workspace, it was creating an incomplete for my brain. "What's the next action?" my subconscious must be asking. How much stress was I bringing into my personal life by "being lazy"?

OK…I'm not Ready for Anything yet. It's going to take some habit changing. With David's book of 52 productivity principles for work and life I might just be motivated enough to get there. The jacket sleeve promises Ready for Anything will "show readers how to make things happen with less effort, stress, and ineffectiveness, and lots more energy, creativity, and clarity." David says he follows the methods because he's lazy, too. Maybe there's hope for me, huh?

Spending an evening with David Allen sure showed me that his system has worked for him and I'm now ready for one thing…learning how to be Ready for Anything!