Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity pdfdrive com

The “Mind Like Water” Simile
In karate there is an image that’s used to define the position of perfect readiness:
“mind like water.” Imagine throwing a pebble into a still pond. How does the
water respond? The answer is, totally appropriately to the force and mass of the
input; then it returns to calm. It doesn’t overreact or underreact.
The power in a karate punch comes from speed, not muscle; it comes from a
focused “pop” at the end of the whip. That’s why petite people can learn to break
boards and bricks with their hands: it doesn’t take calluses or brute strength, just
the ability to gen erate a focused thrust with speed. But a tense muscle is a slow
one. So the high levels of training in the martial arts teach and demand balance
and relaxation as much as anything else. Clearing the mind and being flexible
are key.
If your mind is empty, it is always ready for
anything; it is open to everything.
—Shunryu Suzuki
Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often
does. Responding inappropriately to your e-mail, your staff, your projects, your
unread magazines, your thoughts about what you need to do, your children, or
your boss will lead to less effective results than you’d like. Most people give
either more or less attention to things than they deserve, simply because they
don’t operate with a “mind like water.”
Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and
often does.

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Can You Get into Your “Productive State” When Required?
Think about the last time you felt highly productive. You probably had a sense
of being in control; you were not stressed out; you were highly focused on what
you were doing; time tended to disappear (lunchtime already?); and you felt you
were making noticeable progress toward a meaningful outcome. Would you like
to have more such experiences?
There is one thing we can do, and the happiest
people are those who can do it to the limit of
their ability. We can be completely present. We
can be all here. We can . . . give all our
attention to the opportunity before us.
—Mark Van Doren
And if you get seriously far 
out
of that state—and start to feel out of control,
stressed out, unfocused, bored, and stuck—do you have the ability to get
yourself back 
into
it? That’s where the methodology of 
Getting Things Done
will
have the greatest impact on your life, by showing you how to get back to “mind
like water,” with all your resources and faculties functioning at a maximum
level.

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