Do you need to accept excess stress as the nature of the twenty-first century beast? Or is it possible that there might be a comprehensive organizational system that can handle the demands of the Information Age while also making you more productive, creative, and stress-free? Knowledge workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your stress!

The times have changed. The twenty-first century has ushered in an era of improved quality of life, but mounting stress in life and work has accompanied that improvement. There are several factors at play that explain the growing stress.

One is the dearth of clearly delineated responsibilities regarding work. In the industrial world, work was simple: you were part of an assembly line and you knew exactly what was required of you to move the product toward completion. In the twenty-first century, however, “knowledge work,” as Peter Drucker calls it, has become far more crucial to getting things done. But with knowledge work, the tasks aren’t neatly defined. Projects are not as concrete as corn in the silos or completely assembled vehicles. There are always more angles from which to view a project, more relevant data to apply to it, and ways it could be restructured. There are judgment calls on how to use time that aren’t going to come in the form of minute, detailed directives from a supervisor. This ambiguity can lead to massive amounts of anxiety.

Another factor contributing to growing stress levels is the changing nature of work. Nowadays, roles, goals, and projects are in a constant state of flux for many organizations. People are continually adapting to shifting customer preferences and markets. Very rarely does an employee end up doing only what the job description stipulates. With a steady stream of communication and influx of new information, we end up making all sorts of external and internal commitments. We are aware of some of these, while others are buried in the subconscious, but still drive us (and stress us out!).

Yet another element that compounds the stress is the inadequacy of previous organization methods. Agenda books, Microsoft Outlook, and personal digital assistants are all attempts to keep things manageable, but most people find these apps and devices incapable of keeping up with the speed at which priorities shift and new demands arise. Time management tactics were fine for their time. Into the 1980s, a pocket daily and hourly planner was the paragon of organization. They had an A-B-C or color-coded priority system. But now all it takes is one text message or email to throw a wrench into your day’s or week’s plans.

You don’t need to accept the high-stress situations as part-and-parcel of the new millennium. There is a comprehensive organizational system that can handle the demands inherent in the Information Age while also making you more productive, creative, and stress-free.

Is it possible to enjoy a sustained state of relaxed clarity and productive action? Phrases like being “on a roll” or “in the zone” are colloquial depictions of that enviable yet elusive state of mind where thinking is clear and decisive, and you feel a sense of control. Another interesting image that gets at the same ideal comes from the martial arts. Many schools of martial arts uphold a “mind like water” as the ideal posture to take towards combat in particular and life in general. It’s the posture of perfect readiness.

What happens to water when a pebble is tossed into a pond? There is a small splash, ripples emanate from the point of contact, and then the water returns to its glassy equilibrium. The same thing happens when a boulder drops into the water: a (much larger) splash, waves that ripple out, and then a gradual smoothing of the water’s surface. The water’s response is perfectly proportionate to the size and force of the object it encounters.

Unlike water, most people underreact or overreact to challenges that come their way. They’re unable to properly weigh the impact of events and demands. In karate, the emphasis is not on sheer brawn, but on appropriately harnessed energy for a punch. This is why a small person can break planks and bricks and take down far larger opponents. But this requires a state of relaxation and poise. A tense muscle is weak and injury-prone.

We’ve all shown flashes of brilliance at times, where the mind is clear and the work is productive. We stop stalling and watching the clock, and we become completely absorbed in tasks that contribute meaningfully to our larger projects. This “mind like water” mentality that enables you to be maximally productive is an attainable end.

After several decades of coaching in the field of organizational management, it has become painfully obvious that most people are stressed not because they have so much to do, but because they don’t effectively manage their duties and responsibilities. Whether stress manifests as a subconscious disquiet or as a shriek urging you to finish that project, closing the “open loops” in your life will radically reduce stress.

Open loops are those commitments, either consciously or unconsciously made, that we feel compelled to honor. They can be as macro as ending child slavery or micro as watering the ferns. These open loops are unfinished tasks that pull your attention away from the tasks to which you should be giving your attention. These to-do items are probably more numerous than you’d think, and they will gnaw at your sanity unless you develop a system for identifying, collecting, and organizing your commitments in a way that you can best access and handle them.

Remember, a mind like water, poised and relaxed is the ideal state. If you have these little duties creeping into consciousness and nagging at you, you miss that clarity. You need some sort of responsibilities receptacle to capture and sort your commitments as they pop into your head. To do this, it is important to clarify exactly what these responsibilities are.

As an experiment, think of a problem or goal that’s eating at you right now. It can be an urgent annoyance that you’ve been putting off or a project that’s of interest, but feels overwhelmingly ambitious. Once you’ve identified that commitment, write it down. Sum up in one sentence what needs to be done for that item to be completed. Once you’ve done this, write down the next step that will move you closer to accomplishing that goal. You will probably find that the next step is often a small, immediately doable task. It could be sending that colleague an email or going to the store to buy a screwdriver.

The majority of people who have participated in this little experiment have found themselves regaining a sense of control, optimism, and serenity. This sense of control could be multiplied exponentially. So many people don’t do anything about a project because they don’t believe there is a concrete step they can take. Often this is because people don’t take the time to think through what needs to be done. It makes people anxious and overwhelmed.

The truth about knowledge work is that, while some thought is required to organize the free-floating “stuff,” the barrier that separates people from clarification of responsibilities and steps isn’t as thick as most people suppose. It is not the reality but the mere impression of formidability that keeps people stymied.  

Your mind doesn’t do you any favors when it brings up tasks and responsibilities at times when you can’t do anything about them except stress out. It would be far more helpful if the mind timed its reminders to coincide with your ability to attend to them. Ideally, you want be able to have a thought once and then immediately transfer it out of your mind to be dealt with later. To replay it over and over or worry about the reminders that you’ve forgotten is a waste of time and energy better spent on more important projects. Your mental committee is incapable to keeping everything straight.

Without a well-organized system outside your mind, your mind will feel cluttered. The reason most people’s systems implode is that they haven’t managed to refashion the nebulous “stuff” into realizable steps. As long as it’s nebulous, there’s no control and a great deal of stress. The key to dealing with the “stuff” is to manage your actions. A free-floating project can’t be completed. You don’t really “do” a project so much as you take small steps that will culminate in the completion of a project. Most actions require only a few minutes. Despite what most people think, the issue is not a lack of time, but a failure to define action steps on the front end. Front-end decisions are proactive rather than reactive. They forge a path rather than doing damage control.

So where do we start with managing action? It is best to start from the bottom with the most typical daily activities. You might be tempted to assume that it’s best to start broad, with big-picture values and mission statements for a business or personal life. But this rarely holds up against the slew of daily commitments that can pile up. Building a best practice into your daily rhythms will set you up to see the horizons because your view will not be cluttered by “stuff.” With the mundane tasks accounted for by an organizing tool, you will be find more energy and confidence to tackle tasks.

The heart of the workflow management process involves five steps: collect, process, organize, review, and do. Collect all open loops that tug at your attention, process them to figure out what they mean and how to handle them, organize the crop of collected and processed items, review the items to decide what the best option to pursue at a given moment is, and then do it. Each of these steps is critical. This flow will only be as strong as the weakest point in the process.

The first step is to collect. Sit for a moment and think about all the things clamoring for your attention. Write them all out in one place. Not most of the things, but everything. This is what makes this approach to organization different that all other systems: you corral every last one of the incompletes, those things that you think “ought” to be different than how they are right now, from fixing that broken gadget to planning your year-end trip. As soon as you think of something in terms of “have to” or “need to,” it’s become an incomplete.

To collect these items, you need a centralized inbox to catch everything. The more high-tech routes to setting this up include voice-recording devices, electronic note-taking devices, or email. For the old-schoolers out there, a physical inbox, a legal pad, or binder are fine options. The main thing is that you get it all out of your head and into a place that you can readily and frequently access. Your best ideas will often be when you’re off the clock. Have as few of these buckets as you can to keep operations as streamlined as possible.

The second step is processing. The collection buckets are not storage bins. Some people are good at collecting things, but rarely work through them. These buckets need to be sorted and emptied on a regular basis.

To process the contents of your buckets, it’s helpful to begin with the question, “What is it?” This isn’t an embarrassing question. It’s one that people don’t ask enough. As a result, a lot of the incompletes remain hazy and ill-defined, which means that they consistently fall through the cracks.

Once you’ve figured out what the “stuff” is, the next question is, “Do I actually need to do anything about it?” There are two possible answers here, so don’t complicate things. If the answer is “no,” then you either trash it, hold onto it for reference as a resource to be utilized later, or postpone acting on it.

If the answer is “yes,” that there are items that can be acted upon, you need to determine two things: the nature of the project or goal and what the next step you need to take would be. The next action should be framed as a tangible step that can be taken in the real world. Once you’ve decided what the next step would be for each of these projects, you can either do it, delegate it, or defer it.

The third step is organizing. You need to be able to organize your project lists, create files for those project plans and related materials, a calendar, and catalogues of reminders for next actions and for items you’re waiting on. Think of your projects list as a collection of finish lines. Keep these constantly in front of you to keep you oriented. The list of action steps for each of the open loops is also critical. Any action that takes less than two minutes to do doesn’t need to be recorded, but those actions that need to be completed by a certain date or time should be recorded in your calendar.

The fourth step is to review. It is important to keep the big picture at the fore of consciousness and evaluate progress that you are making toward those big picture ends. This workflow really starts to become useful (and even enjoyable) as people master the habit of the Weekly Review. Frequent reviews of what’s on your plate are important, because they ensure that those items stay contained in the workflow system and out of your head. Your project list, live project plans, your next action lists, calendar dates, and your delegated and deferred lists all need to be looked over.

This not only avoids mental clutter. It gathers the loose ends, helps you evaluate next steps, and positions you for control and success. Even after only a few days of working toward goals, things can start to feel a bit out of control. Obviously, you can go overboard with trying to keep all the lists pristine, but a regular cleanup at weekly intervals helps keep you on track.

When people feel like the reviews don’t help, it’s usually because their lists aren’t complete. They have a list on paper and another similar list still in their head. The more comprehensive your system is, the more you will trust it; the more you trust it, the more determined you will be to maintain it. It will also mean you’ll be more relaxed and less paranoid that you’re forgetting something.

The fifth step is simple enough: do. The workflow organization tool proposed here aims at setting you up to make smart, intuitive judgments about what action to take at any point. Being confident about your choices instead of just hoping that things work out cannot be underestimated. Choosing which action is appropriate at a given moment depends on context, time and energy at your disposal, and your priorities.

This five-step process takes time and practice, but it’s a small price to pay for peace of mind. It doesn’t begin with overarching values that fail to connect to the minutiae of daily decision-making in a meaningful, integrated way; rather, it is practical process that immediately connects with the projects at hand. If you get this process right, you will free up your mind, increase your productivity, restore your sanity, and relieve yourself of needless stress.