Hello world!

Okay, I finally decided to bite the bullet and take a crack at this blogging thing.  So, I guess I should tell you what this blog is about.  This site is dedicated to the written word.  It’s what I’m currently reading, reviews of what I have read, and what I want to read.  You are welcome to give recommendations and comments, sort of like an on-line book club.  Look out Oprah Winfrey!  I usually have more than one book that I am working on at a time, but miraculously, this time, I only have one.  It is one my husband actually recommended called Getting Things Done by David Allen.  (Now, what is he trying to tell me?)  I was actually relating this story to a friend, when a woman I didn’t know, overhearing our conversation, puts her hand on my shoulder and says, “Did you tell him that you could get more done if he wasn’t having you read this book?”  Chuckle.  Honestly, I have seen the effect this book has had on my formerly “disorganized” husband.  I mean, not only is he getting his regular (necessary) work done, it has spilled over into the “projects” list and he is getting things done (I know this phrase is going to be redundant) that I have been asking him to do for two years or more.  I finally have doorstops behind my doors now.  I mean, after almost five years of dents in my walls where the door handles have (through no fault of their own) continually made contact (usually at high velocity), they now have a necessary impediment.  Thus, I finally grabbed that book and decided to give it a look.  I knew at the outset it was the book for me, because it not only promises to deal with all of the paperwork that goes through your hands day after day, it teaches you how to deal with a cluttered mind.  That is what I need.  There is not a moment of the day when I am not occupied with thoughts of necessary, unnecessary, urgent, someday/maybe’s and “to do’s”.  Today I read that “For most people the magic of workflow management is realized in the consistent use of the review phase.”  Then I learned the basics of what to review and when.  There is a “Projects” list, a calendar, “Next Actions” list, and a “Waiting For” list (these are things you’ve delegated to other people).  The reason minds continue to be cluttered and occupied is that “most people don’t have a really complete system (for organization), and they get no real payoff from reviewing things for just that reason:  their overview isn’t total.  They still have a vague sense that something may be missing.  That’s why the rewards to be gained from implementing this whole process are at least geometric:  the more complete the system is, the more you’ll trust it.”  That is the crux of the whole book–you’ve got to trust your system.  If you don’t have a trusted place to put all your thought’s ideas, to do’s, long term goals, etc.; and if it is not consistently reviewed, you are going to waste a lot of energy thinking about it.  It’s just like this blog, in the last 24 hours, I have thought of at least 10 books that I want to write about, and I know that I have had some thoughts more than once.  Oh I wish I was a speed reader, so I would know how to implement this system–now!