Canter Bridge

This helpful book cannot be adequately summarized except by comparison and contrast with David Allen’s Getting Things Done. This is so for two reasons. First, McGhee claims in her acknowledgements to have co-developed the system that Allen has gone on to disseminate with extraordinary results. Second, the family resemblance between the two authors’ work is obvious and suggests shared genetics, even down to the marginal quotations that are meant to inspire but which I found irksomely cliché?.

Yet for all their similarities, McGhee and Allen have written two very different books. Allen is the poet, painting a verbal canvas in compelling tones and persuading his readers that there is a better life to be had if only one courageously confronts the changes that beckon. McGhee is the schoolteacher, detailing the nuts and bolts that take her readers to a pragmatic depth at least one level below the altitude where Allen is at his best.

If your goal is to effect real change in how you manage your life, I recommend reading both books. Start with Allen for inspiration and theory. Then move on to McGhee for the tips and how to’s. There’s a reason, after all, why there’s room in the world for both poets and schoolteachers.

McGhee gives us ten chapters of nicely formatted prose, broken down into four sections that demonstrate her indebtedness to the bottom-up approach championed by Allen: `Laying the Foundation’ (pp. 2-45), `The Collecting Phase’ (pp. 48-95), `The Processing and Organizing Phase’ (pp. 97-218), and `The Prioritizing and Planning Phase (pp. 220-248).

The author starts us off with ten common claims of the busy hordes for why they are victims rather than participants in their own information-inundated demise (chapter one, `Change Your Approach, Change Your Results’, pp. 2-17). She dismisses each one of them, but not without warning that her readers will need to be ready to change if they want to achieve the better outcomes that await them.

In her second chapter (`What is Personal Productivity’, pp. 18?-34), McGhee introduces `meaningful objectives’ and `strategic next actions’. These correspond to Allen’s `projects’ and `next actions’. In McGhee’s scheme, `meaningful objectives’ are one’s North Star. She will insist throughout the book that they should be limited in number and that all activity that is worthwhile will be linked to a meaningful objective. This emphasis makes McGhee’s book a welcome addition to the kinds of life management moments of crisis and opportunity that, for example, Stephen Covey, has helpfully mapped out. My own experience of mid-life re-prioritization has been aided by McGhee’s tenacity on this point. However, `meaningful objectives’ are not things you do; `strategic next objectives’ are, and they must be actionable, that is to say free of dependencies. McGhee’s SNA is a thing you can sit down and do now if this is the right time to do it. By this point in the book, McGhee is already introducing Microsoft Outlook as her tool of choice for tracking these items. What else would you expect from a Microsoft Press publication? I say this without sarcasm, for if there is such a thing as a justified monopoly, the Bully of Redmond-as some would have it-has pulled one off. Outlook is indeed hard to beat. Unlike Allen and Covey, McGhee has not yet sold us a proprietary design for an Outlook add-in. Perhaps that would be to insinuate Outlook’s inadequacy. Stay tuned.

When it comes to `The Three Phases for Creating an Integrated Management System’ (chapter three, pp. 36-45), McGhee is positively Allen-esque. But this emphasis of limited `collection points’ and getting things out of your brain so you can think is the spinal chord of the Allen and McGhee systems and the secret of their effectiveness. McGhee is more eager than Allen for a paper-less life and a little more belligerent about taming one’s colleagues (chapter four, `Setting Up Your Approved Collection Points’, pp. 48-75). Other than that, their systems are overlapping and will make you wonder how you’ve survived your stumbling through life up to this point without thinking of doing things this way. Chapter five drives home the result we’re chasing after (`Clearing the Mind’, pp. 76-95). I find McGhee’s slightly more disciplinarian approach refreshing over against Allen’s occasionally New-Agey rhetoric. One can almost hear the schoolteacher asking over her glasses, `Do you really want to do this?’

In her chapter six, McGhee gets down to brass tacks, including software-manual-esque numbered points to set up Outlook her way (`Introducing the Planning and Action Categories’, pp. 98-109). She’s not kidding around. Did you know Outlook has a `Master Category’ task list? Well, it does, and Ms. Sally has a plan for it. And for you.

Next McGhee goes much deeper than Allen into the detail she calls `Processing and Organizing Your Task List’ (chapter seven, pp. 110-154). This chapter is golden. But like gold, you’re going to have to get your hands dirty or your feet wet to get it into your possession. Probably you’ll want to return multiple times to this part until-if you decide to travel with Sally down to this level-the level of planning it requires becomes second nature to you.

If you’ve stuck with this review up to this point, you may have the impression that I prefer McGhee’s approach to Allen’s. If so, I’ve given you the wrong impression. The results I’ve achieved with Allen’s Getting Things Done have made me a raving fan. If I had to choose one over the other, it’d be Allen and GTD. Happily, that’s not a choice that’s forced upon us unless budgetary considerations do so. I just like the way McGhee offers you more grit and grime if that’s what you want in matters that Allen leaves for you to work out on your own. Chapter eight (pp. 156-179, `Setting Up Your Reference System’) is a good example. I’m writing this review on a plane to Hong Kong, but I can hardly wait to land and set up my folders Sally’s way. It’s so obviously superior to my own that-again-I wonder how I’ve managed without it. The real strength of her approach is that her folders are all linked to a `meaningful objective’, which looks like adding tremendous motivation to get rid of a lot of email I’d otherwise save and also to align one more work area with the personal vision and mission statements and the objectives I’ve recently worked out in the process to which I alluded just a few paragraphs ago.

Chapter nine (`Processing and Organizing Your E-Mail’, pp. 180-218) is full of tips and protocols for restoring civility and effectiveness to the tempestuous chaos that is E-Mail. I’ll implement some of them now and return for more after I dry my face from the fire hose. But I still haven’t found a best practice for handling `sent mail’. Come on, Sally, we were counting on you …

The fact that McGhee saves `Planning and Prioritizing’ until the end (chapter ten, pp. 219-248) is a reflection of her conviction-shared with Allen-that we do our best work after we’ve cleared up the unfulfilled promises and open loops (Allen’s term) from our desks and our lives. Conceptually, planning and prioritizing come first. But in practice, we do best with them when our inbox is empty and our mind uncluttered.

Microsoft Press and the author have given us a handy orientation to a great tool without messianic trumpeting of how life depends upon a piece of software. Both deserve thanks.