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

The Promise: The “Ready State” of the Martial Artist
Reflect for a moment on what it actually might be like if your personal
management situation were totally under control, at all levels and at all times.
What if you could dedicate fully 100 percent of your attention to whatever was
at hand, at your own choosing, with no distraction?
It 
is
possible. There 
is
a way to get a grip on it all, stay relaxed, and get
meaningful things done with minimal effort, across the whole spectrum of your
life and work. You 
can
experience what the martial artists call a “mind like
water” and top athletes refer to as the “zone,” within the complex world in which
you’re engaged. In fact, you have probably already been in this state from time
to time.
Life is denied by lack of attention, whether it be
to cleaning windows or trying to write a
masterpiece.
—Nadia Boulanger
It’s a condition of working, doing, and being in which the mind is clear and
constructive things are happening. It’s a state that is accessible by everyone, and
one that is increasingly needed to deal effectively with the complexity of life in
the twenty-first century. More and more it will be a required condition for high-
performance professionals who wish to maintain balance and a consistent
positive output in their work. World-class rower Craig Lambert has described
how it feels in 
Mind Over Water
(Houghton Mifflin, 1998):
Your ability to generate power is directly proportional to your ability to relax.
Rowers have a word for this frictionless state:
swing. . . . Recall the pure joy of riding on a
backyard swing: an easy cycle of motion, the
momentum coming from the swing itself. The

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swing carries us; we do not force it. We pump our
legs to drive our arc higher, but gravity does most
of the work. We are not so much swinging as
being swung. The boat swings you. The shell
wants to move fast: Speed sings in its lines and
nature. Our job is simply to work with the shell, to
stop holding it back with our thrashing struggles
to go faster. Trying too hard sabotages boat
speed. Trying becomes striving and striving
undoes itself. Social climbers strive to be
aristocrats but their efforts prove them no such
thing. Aristocrats do not strive; they have already
arrived. Swing is a state of arrival.

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