Here is sample advice from Jeff’s book, Smart Guide to Getting Things Done. These can be discussion points or made into questions:

• Unrelenting information and communication impedes everyone’s progress.
• Both work distractions and productivity are on the rise.
• Getting things done means becoming organized, managing your time better, improving efficiency, and increasing effectiveness.

• Top-achieving individuals have the requisite energy, resilience, and personal passions to succeed.
• The way you manage yourself and your energy level significantly impacts how productive you will be with your time.
• Organization yields benefits to every individual, including taking command of your desk or work space, the area surrounding it, and the office and room in which you work.

• Even with the huge popularity of the Internet and email, when it comes to information deluge, paper is the largest culprit.
• Basic actions you can take when new information arrives: act on it, file it, recycle or toss it, or delegate it.
• If you don’t let email dictate your day, email is indeed a wonderful tool for getting things done.

• The human brain, the wonderful contraption that it is, has trouble retaining lists, specific sequences, and minute detail, so the to-do list is not going to go away any time soon.
• Maintaining a realistic notion of what it will take to accomplish a task helps you achieve completion in a shorter time period.
• For longer-term tasks you wish to accomplish, leadership and management tools can help guide you every step of the way.

• The more you seek to accomplish, the more important it is to intermittently monitor your progress.
• Avoid the false promise and dangers of multi-tasking while alleviating techno-stress.
• Completion thinking is one of the most basic ways to continually get things done, despite distractions and other obstacles.

Everyone wants to get things done, while striving to stay informed. They wire themselves to stay connected. They multi-task to be more efficient and concurrently they shortchange vital functions such as sleeping, resting, pausing, and reflecting.

Jeff’s book, The Smart Guide to Getting Things Done, illuminates why information and communication overload does not lead to greater clarity, understanding, depth, or focus. Moreover, multi-tasking is not all it’s cracked up to be, hardly yields the intended benefits, and comes at too high of a mental, emotional, and physical cost.

This book offers insights, laced with common sense, on top of proven techniques, adorned with fresh perspectives, with a touch of humor.