Ep. 74: Two-Minute Tip — Renegotiate Your Commitments

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen
Renegotiate Your Commitments

See a lot of what the Getting Things Done methodology is about has been about inventorying what your commitments are. What have you agreed with yourself you need, would, could, should, ought to be doing, handling or whatever. And so managing those commitments is a whole lot of what the methodology is about to keep yourself clear, so that you don't feel like you're constantly having to do all of those.

There's an inherent renegotiation process that needs to happen. Once you've externalized these commitments out of your head You write it down, I need dog food, I need to hire a vice president, I need to figure out where to send my kid to school next year, etc. And those commitments, as you may know, that's very important to make sure get that inventory nice and clear, about what those are.

But now in turbulent times, that becomes extra important, to make sure you're looking forward at all those commitments you've got. All those things on your lists. All those appointments that you thought you had. All those relationships that you thought you needed to do something about. How many of those need to be renegotiated right now? And if they're not renegotiated, they will keep spinning on some subliminal level. That's going to undermine your energy, it's going to take wind out of your sails.

So it's a real good idea to make sure that you sit down, maybe in a week to review. As we coach in Getting Things Done, at least once a week, step back, take a look across the whole broad spectrum, of your life and work, look at all the commitments you've got, the meetings you've got, the projects you've committed to, and say wait a minute, that goes on someday maybe, or that has to wait until after this situation has been cleared up and changed, or whatever.

So, a real good idea to make sure you bring yourself current, bring up the rear guard, with those commitments, and sometimes they're pretty subtle.