Productivity: Eliminate Before You Optimize

I've long been a fan of Tim Ferriss and his best-selling book The Four Hour Work Week.  The book describes several methods to minimize and optimize life activities in order to create free time, although sometimes you have to deal with some ego-centric stories to get at the meat.  I've implemented some of his ideas to outsource small projects, refrain from checking email constantly, and live simply... and his concept works.  At least for me.

Today Tim had a fascinating post on his blog comparing his book with David Allen's Getting Things Done.  GTD has become wildly popular in corporate circles as it presumes to improve productivity through better organization, such as with emails.  Although Tim supports many concepts of the rival GTD system, he makes the following comment on GTD's overall philosophy:

Though David refers to desk-based inboxes, tickler files, etc. in certain parts of GTD, the broader concepts are frameworks for proper filtering of inputs (“open loops”) and definition of outputs (“next actions”), regardless of technologies used.

GTD is, however, a bottom-up approach to time management that — used in isolation — can lead to becoming very efficient (doing things well) but decreasingly effective (not doing the right things). Readers on this blog have suggested reading 4HWW [Four Hour Work Week] and 7 Habits prior to implementing GTD. The results and approaches are complementary rather than conflicting, but order is important.

He goes on to reiterate how the fundamental premise of The Four Hour Work Week is to reduce wasteful activities in order free up valuable time.  His final statement is what hit me:

Eliminate before you optimize.

The Four Hour Work Week eliminates wasteful activities.  Getting Things Done optimizes activities.  Sound familiar?

This is analogous to the conflict between lean manufacturing and six sigma.  Actually it's not a conflict; they are complementary philosophies just as Tim claims GTD is complementary to his 4HWW.  But the order of implementation is critical.

Six sigma does a phenomenal job of optimizing processes.  All processes.  If it is implemented prior to lean, there's a good chance that a lot of time will be spent optimizing... wasteful processes.  Which is why lean should be implemented prior to six sigma in order to identify and eliminate wasteful processes.  Then use six sigma to optimize what remains with lean providing oversight to ensure changes add value from the perspective of the customer.

Eliminate before you optimize.  On the factory floor and in your office.

Comments

[Drew]

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
--Peter Drucker

[Bill Reising]

Having read both books, with great emphasis on GTD and the related support materials, Ferriss' understanding of GTD is very weak. Elimination of the useless and wasteful is essential to Black-Belt GTD. The entire purpose of GTD is to give you confidence that what you choose to do is the "right" thing to do, not just to do wasteful things better.

Much like Lean, if you only have a superficial understanding of what GTD is and how it works, you will fail to use if effectively if at all.

[Stacy C]

I disagree with Bill above but perhaps it is a matter of perspective. If you are focused purely on business activities then GTD might work for a select segment but I found 4HWW to be much more life-centered and balanced. Eliminating wasteful activities goes far beyond work. GTD also appeals to the OCD-type person while many of us thrive on some level of chaos. This is why many companies see adverse results when trying to jam GTD down the throats of employees. A similar phenomenom happened a decade ago when hoards of people were subjected to 7-Habits training.

[Ken]

I was a proponent of GTD for a couple years until I simplified to the point it wasn't necessary. 4HWW was a completely different type of book for me so I didn't even make a comparison until now. 4HWW showed me a future or almost an alternate reality that was very appealing. Lately I've noticed that GTD seems more focused on selling GTD tools which is really a turnoff.

[T Galt]

GTD is probably great for someone who is just starting a career. If this was my first job out of college, GTD and How to Win Friends and Influence People are great starter books for a new career. For anyone with more than a few years experience as a manager, it's not enlightening at all. Most of the concepts are attempts at redefining the way we view problems of time management and project management and in no way offer useful solutions. "You can't do projects, you can only do tasks associated with a projects" is one of the many examples of the complete BS Double-speak this book is full of. Calling folders in my mailbox "Buckets" instead of folders doesn't help manage anything. I'll take the whole life approach of 4HWW over GTD any day.