Tag Archives: planning system

Covey/Hobbs Vs GTD – a War not Worth Waging.

18 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by in General, Time Management

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Some of you will have no idea what that title means, so that’s as good a reason as any to READ THIS BLOG, is it not? 😊

The title refers to what may, on first glance, be conflicting time management methodologies. GTD is ‘Getting Things Done’, explained in the excellent book of the same name by David Allen. (Make sure you buy the 21st Century update.)

GTD is a list-based system. (Now it gets complicated.) The idea is to collect all your unfinished business, including ‘projects’ which Allen defines as anything that requires more than one step to complete. Having done that, you go through the list and complete all 2-minute jobs. Then you are left with a list of things which you can (usually) only do in a certain place, at a certain time, with a certain person, etc. For example, some of the things may be tasks you can only do ‘At Computer’ so they would then be listed on a list entitled ‘At Computer’. Or ‘At Shops’ for shopping, or ‘In London’, and so on. Time- and day-specific tasks – and ONLY those – go on a calendar (diary page). The lists should have on them only ‘next actions’, the things you have to do next to get the projects done.

That really is an idiot’s guide, and Allen’s system has a lot of thought/psychology and method behind it which this little blog can’t cover.

The Covey/Hobbs system is values/mission-based, and further sub-categorised into Roles. Your mission dictates your activities, which are carried out through the roles you perform in life. For example, I am a trainer, investigator, driving coach, speakers club president, company director unconnected to those other roles, and family bod. You create your goals in role-context, then plan execution of bits of your goals into your planner as priorities. (I’ve explained this before and it’s explained fully in my FREE BOOK.)

Zealots in either case would argue for their preferred option. GTD-philes would argue that lists equate to freedom while Covey/Hobbs is restrictive. Covey/Hobbs would argue their way supports a sense of meaning and peace, while GTD is ‘just’ about productivity, and productivity is not as important as meaning. Deeper analysis would identify further objections to the opposing philosophy, and more supporting evidence for the preferred way. Who has time?

I have a different outlook. I think the GTD Way of collecting all your incompletes, doing the resulting 2-minute jobs and planning the others is an excellent way to get control, while the Covey/Hobbs method is an excellent way of keeping control once you have got it.

My evidence?

People have asked me how I manage so many responsibilities (job, home, family, IAM, IPI, Cardiff Speakers Club,) and my answer is that I can do this because of my mastery of the Covey/Hobbs method, but if I was to take on those responsibilities all at once I would start with GTD until I got things compartmentalised.

I feel this way because both GTD and Covey/Hobbs promote

  • planning at the start of a week,
  • scheduling the things that can or could be done at a particular time (your priorities, which can include your personal priorities),
  • then making lists of the things that need to be done but which have no appointed time.

Both require knowing the end result in advance and deciding what to do about it next. Overthinking it may identify one as requiring ‘task-to-objective’ thinking while the other would be seen as having an ‘objective-to-task’ perspective but in all practicality, they end up being the same process, which is asking “What I gotta do to get what I wanna get?” and then planning to do that action, somewhere.

GTD would have you put them on separate lists, whereas Covey/Hobbs would have you actually plan them into a day. Both philosophies advocate carrying the system with you. GTD would say separate lists obviate re-writing that which is not done, while the alternative is to rewrite unfinished tasks in the next day’s list. (Which takes seconds, or even less if you’re a digi-planner. Oh, the time saved……)

And that, lorries and gelatines, is the only difference. Which is hardly a difference over which one should declare war.

As always, my advice would be to master your preferred method and leave the other well alone, because there is a tendency to try and do both at the same time and when you do that your head gets cluttered – which defeats the objective of either style.

Pick one. Master it. And reap the rewards.

 

Oh, and unlike all those GTD examples of people who get an e-mail a minute (and I have never, ever met one), I get about 10 a day. Makes life a tad easier.

The Importance of LIVING Your Personal Mission Statement (PMS)

28 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by in Character and Competence, Discipline, General, Purpose and Service

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As the weeks have passed on my efforts to be more compliant with the Three Resolutions I have become more and more convinced of the power of the PMS, and therefore the importance of the PMS.

Some sceptics would argued that a PMS isn’t necessary. Many of those who so argue miss the point. They may be successful; they may produce results at a high level of excellence; and they may have great relationships. I know people who fit those descriptions, at least as far as I can tell, and no, they don’t to the best of my knowledge ‘have’ a PMS. They don’t seem to have a written down constitution and set of value statements. (Or they won’t admit to having one because that’s seen to reveal a character flaw in this world of self-standard judging.)

What these nice, pleasant, successful and productive people have is an unwritten PMS and/or set of unwritten value statements. They know what they want and how they’re going to get it in a principled fashion, and they set about doing that. Good on them, and may that continue.

Some of us, though, like the idea of having these things written down as (a) a reminder of what we are doing, why and how we will do it and (b) as a public declaration of those things so that we can be held to account when we wander off course.

In the context of (a) we recognise that there will be occasions when, through fatigue, overwhelm, stress or even danger we might not quite act in accordance with our values and we want to remind ourselves that those are the very times when we MUST so act. In the case of (b) we recognise that sometimes we are not strong enough in ourselves to act in accordance with our PMS and it would be nice if, just IF, our friends, family, colleagues and others would support us in getting us back on track instead of either pulling us off track or taking the mick because we have ‘failed’.

The public declaration of my PMS on this website, on my t-shirts (5, not 4 as I said a while ago) and all the other visible ‘declarations’ in terms of the edited highlights (7H-3R) have those motives. Some people who I respect, like and even love think it’s fun to take the p**s. So be it. It gives me a chance to exercise its stated intent on character to an even higher level. (But look to yourselves for your own intent and see if you want your actions to reflect your character.)

But even the simple act of putting my PMS on my laptop as the main screen wallpaper has caused me to execute in its regard. I’ll be surfing away or working on something routine when I see the PMS glaring at me, and despite my fatigue and (slowly wavering!) dislike for running I will change and go out there and do what I have declared I will do, because it addresses all Three Resolutions – Discipline (Resolution1), Character (Resolution 2) and Service (I’m preparing for a sponsored event and to support a team effort). The same applied to the hours I’ve put in the last two weeks on the Professional Investigator’s Manual and a colleague’s PowerPoint presentation – it’s about the Mission, and the Mission serves me and makes me better, while also serving others.

Eventually the PMS will be emotionally tattooed on my sub-conscious but for now, and even after that happens, the words I wrote – no-one wrote them for me, they are my words, my intent and my focus – will remain where I place them. In public, both pictorially and (I intend) visually in what I do and how I do it.

Now go and write yours. Then live it!

Weekly Challenge

I just told you! Go and write yours. You have 7 days, and I’d love to see them in the Comments section when you’ve finished. If you’re stuck, try http://www.franklincovey.com/msb .

Blog Part

Hit the wall on a run this week but ran through it. I say run, more of a struggle. My weight loss was only half a pound but the (ahem) waste disposal system is a bit slow and I expect next week’s results will compensate. I mean the weight, not the other thing. I am but 5lbs behind schedule, now.

But I was so productive and positive it hurt, so the concepts of Discipline-Character-Competence really are working for me.

I’m also developing next year’s A4 (letter sized) personal planning system, creating DIY forms and all the paper I’ll need to manage myself for the 12 months after my current Daytimer expires. (Dear FranklinCovey/Daytimer/Filofax – you need to go A4, 2 pages to a day with a 4 ring binder for us Brits.) I’ve prepared my planning diaries up to 2017 so I’ll not be buying an industry-designed planner until at least then. Unless their pretty catalogues start tempting me as they tend to do whenever they plop on the hallway mat…….

My 2015 Planning System, courtesy of do-it-yourself forms, a Dymo printer and a Filofax leather binder that cost £2 in a charity shop. You’ll note my PMS behind the plastic divider…..

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