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

The “Big Picture” vs. the Nitty-Gritty
At the other end of the spectrum, a huge number of business books, models,
seminars, and gurus have championed the “bigger view” as the solution to
dealing with our complex world. Clarifying major goals and values, so the
thinking goes, gives order, meaning, and direction to our work. In practice,
however, the well-intentioned exercise of values thinking too often does not
achieve its desired results. I have seen too many of these efforts fail, for one or
more of the following three reasons: 1. | There is too much distraction at the day-
to-day, hour-to-hour level of commitments to allow for appropriate focus on the
higher levels.
2. | Ineffective personal organizational systems
create huge subconscious resistance to
undertaking even bigger projects and goals that
will likely not be managed well, and that will in
turn cause even 
more
distraction and stress.
3. | When loftier levels and values actually 
are
clarified, it raises the bar of our standards, making
us notice that much more that needs changing.
We are already having a serious negative reaction
to the overwhelming number of things we have to
do. And what created much of the work that’s on
those lists in the first place? Our values!
Focusing on values does 
not
simplify your life. It gives meaning and
direction—and a lot more complexity.
Focusing on primary outcomes and values 
is
a critical exercise, certainly. But
it does not mean there is less to do, or fewer challenges in getting the work done.
Quite the contrary: it just ups the ante in the game, which still must be played
day to day. For a human-resources executive, for example, deciding to deal with
quality-of-work-life issues in order to attract and keep key talent does 
not
make

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things simpler.
There has been a missing piece in our new culture of knowledge work: a
system with a coherent set of behaviors and tools that functions effectively at the
level at which work really happens. It must incorporate the results of big-picture
thinking as well as the smallest of open details. It must manage multiple tiers of
priorities. It must maintain control over hundreds of new inputs daily. It must
save a lot more time and effort than are needed to maintain it. It must make it
easier to get things done.

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