You have developed, used and digest many GTD systems over years. These systems produced a bunch of outputs that you put in the bin, or classified somewhere in a file cabinet. However, what about learning of these outputs? I mean, coming back at them and see what goes well and what goes wrong. Bellow is a little text wrote by Dale Carnegie that reported the sayings of the Wall Street bank’s president in years 1930. I think it worth reading and thinking about it.
“For years I have kept an engagement book showing all the appointments I have during the day. My family never makes any plans for me on Saturday night, for the family knows that I devote a part of each Saturday evening to illuminating process of self-examination and review and appraisal. After dinner I of by myself, open my engagement book, and think over all the interviews, discussions, and meetings that have taken place during the week. I ask myself:
“’What mistakes did I make that time?’
“’What did I do that was right – and in what way could I have improved my performance?’
“’What lessons can I learn from that experience?’
“’I often find that this weekly review makes me very unhappy. I am frequently astonished at my own blunders. Of courses, as the years have gone by, these blunders have become less frequent. Sometimes now I am inclined to pat myself on the back a little after one of these sessions. This system of self-analyses, self-education, continued year after yea, had done more for me than any other one think I have ever attempted.’
“It has helped me improve my ability to make decisions – and it has aided me enormously in all my contacts with people. I cannot recommend it too highly.”
You need to have in mind that that president had little formal schooling and was one of the most important financiers in America in that time.
Note: this excerpt come from the book “How to Win Friends and Influence people” by Dale Carnegie. I will write back on that really interesting work in the next days.
Technorati: gtd | management | organisation | systems | learning | review |
Fortrel
July 14, 2005 — 8:45 pm
I read How to win friends and influence people a couple of years ago and it’s one of the few books that changed my life. This is definitivly a must-read. I think the title of the book is somehow not a really good one. I was thinking: “I know how to make friends, I don’t need a book for that!” when it’s actually not really about how to win friends, but rather how to be a nicer human being.
Alex
Fred
July 15, 2005 — 3:25 pm
Hello Alex!
It is exactly what I wrote in the resume I am writing for that book: it shows you how to be a nicer human being. I was also perplex about the book when I first read the title, however I bought it (the 1936 edition), and Wow, what a reading. I am slow to read it because I am reading 2 other books at the same time, but I read at least one chapter per day, and savor it.
If you liked it, I can suggest you another really interesting book in the same trend. It is called “First Impressions: What You Don’t Know About How Others See You” by Ann Phd Demarais and Valerie Phd White two New-York psychologists. I see this book as the modern version of “How to Win Friends and Influence people”.
Salutations,
Fred
Josh
July 18, 2005 — 10:33 pm
I think the self-review component can really help with determining what your top priorities are for you next implementation.