At the end of each day, I tally up what needs to be done the next morning. It frees up my mind and even helps me sleep better.

So earlier this month as I prepared to interview Allen, I already felt we had lots in common. Although I haven't yet read his best-selling book Getting Things Done, I thought I was on the same page. Turns out, I'm more than a few chapters out of his league.

I hadn't heard about Allen until a friend e-mailed me recently about the cult-like devotion of his fans. For those who haven't heard of Allen, he's a rock star in the time management field. (When I first googled "David Allen and Getting Things Done," there were 12 million hits.)

His philosophy - and this is an oversimplification - is that most of us try to store all the things we need to do in our heads, which does nothing but create stress and cloud our thinking. Instead, we should write each task down, determine if we need to take action on it and do so when appropriate.

Photo courtesy of David Allen
David Allen has developed a model of personal productivity that employs listing and prioritizing projects.

"The idea is to keep everything out of your head," Allen told me. "Your head is for having ideas, not holding them. Once you understand how your head works and how it doesn't, you understand that holding stuff in it is a stupid thing to do."

The fact is that most people have no clue about the number of projects that they have at any given time.

In his system, a project is something that requires more than one step to complete, everything from getting new car tires to financing a business venture, or researching issues about elder care. Each of those projects requires some sort of action, he says, like going online and searching out potential senior living centres for mom and dad.

"If people sat down, they'd realize that they have 30 to 100 projects and 150 to 200 next actions," he says.

The point is (and it's one of my failings), very few people on the planet could show a list for all those actions. Instead, we might have an idea of a potential project but just tuck it away in our brain.

People will address a project, but it's usually on deadline or when a crisis hits, which creates unnecessary stress and reduces our efficiency in dealing with the task at hand.

The "big shift" in personal thinking, says Allen, is to address the issue when it presents itself.

Take elder care, a looming issue for many of us. Allen says that you may decide that you want to do some research for your parents. That's the project: Do research and give them the information.

Here's how Allen would handle the task.

What action needs to be done? He needs to search the web. Can it be done in two minutes? No. In that case, Allen puts the project on his "computer list" with a note to surf the web "Re: Elder Care for Parents.”

When he has the necessary time and Internet access, he'll do the research.

"I've collected it, processed it, organized it and put it into a trusted place until it gets done. That's the requirement to get stuff off your mind."

Similarly, he has lists for other projects whether they're for family matters, errands, business or whatever requires an action step.

To illustrate, he has a list of phone calls that he can make. If it's a priority call that needs to be made that day, it's put on his calendar. Otherwise, he can pick and choose the type of call he can make when free time pops up.

"If I've got five minutes, I might check the list and call the Marriott and change a reservation. If I have a free hour I might make a call that potentially will turn into something that I might want to give more time to.

"I also check my energy. If my brain's toast, it's not the time to call a client. That's the time to call American Airlines and get put on hold forever, and clean up my e-mail while I wait for them to get back to me."

The end game for Allen and his devotees is to constantly be on top of that in-basket, trying to reduce it to zero, whether it's e-mail, voicemail, paperwork, etc.

Lists put everything at your fingertips. So when you are suddenly presented with a new project, you can quickly determine where it sits on a list of priorities and what action can be taken.

"You can only hold a certain amount in there before you start to blow fuses," Allen says. "So most people are walking around with this gnawing sense of what they should be doing.

"The problem is they don't know the price they are paying (in anxiety, stress, etc.) of not managing that. It's not self-evident, only once you clean it up."

Once emptied, the mind is free to think, be creative and focused, he explains. Interestingly, he discovered what a clear head was like while training in the martial arts and earning a black belt in the early 1970s.

"I discovered sort of the clear-space space. It's a nice place to operate from because there are no distractions in your head. It's a lot easier to focus, a lot easier to deal with surprise."

Later, as he became busier in business, he found it was easy to become distracted by the same demands on which he now counsels global business leaders and his followers.

He began researching best practices and techniques, and developed a model he believes has a tremendous impact when put into daily use.

The real trick is to commit to the technique. It's much like watching a martial arts move. "It feels totally awkward until you learn it," Allen says. "Then you realize it's the easiest way to move."

Time management is similar. It may feel awkward to write everything down, to take time to structure this information in some external way. But once you do it, you see how much more "freeing" it is to the psyche.

"Most people have no idea what it's like to having nothing on their mind," Allen says. "It's a very unusual place for people to be, but you can get there."

It all starts with making those to-do lists.

Web Watch: www.davidco.com

(Mike Dempster can be reached at miked@businessedge.ca)