A small while ago, i had to take a breather because for the first time in my life, i felt a job was getting the better of me, stress-wise. How sad is that – having reached your competence threshold at 31.

Then i realized two things: I needed a new method to manage the constantly changing environment, and two, stress is contagious. The second problem can only be helped by breathing deeply a few times after a conversation with one of the human spark plugs at the office.

For the first problem, i read Getting Things Done. I recommend it.

The principle is to write everything down. Everything. David Allen’s theory is that any open issues that are not recorded will stay in your RAM, and cause clutter and stress.

The second thing is to organize all this. Define ‘next actions’ for every open loop, store reference material, trash the rest. Sort it all in a way that makes sense, and allows you to retrieve what you need immediately.

The book goes into great detail, such as how you should organize your files, your mail, what kind of office equipment you need to implement it. It’s all very common sense.

There’s the obligatory “i showed my system to executive X and it changed his life” story. But all in all, the BS is at a minimum, the way i like it.

Well, i’ve started using this system – i have to admit that it helps. You have a sense of control. You may not be able to do every single thing, but at least you’re aware of it, and you don’t forget anything.

Of course there’s no free lunch: his system does demand some discipline. This is liable to go when everything goes haywire. But so far, so good.

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