I’ve been listening today to David Allen’s interview of Dean Acheson, the man who discovered and trained David in two of GTD’s core principles about 25 years ago. (The interview is available within GTD Connect.) Dean had discovered, in coaching executives, that many of them had allowed their projects to bottleneck because they had not thought through the next action for each of them. He said that simply asking them “What is the next action for this” freed them, and got their systems to working again.
Dean went on to mention that we, in general, often have the answers we need, but do not realize it, because we haven’t asked ourselves the right question(s).
I have certainly found that to be the case in my own life. Many times I have found that I knew the answer to something I had “been searching for” but had never really asked the right question, until it suddenly dawned on me.
I cannot tell you what questions you need to ask yourself (although I have recommended a sort of minimal set you should ask periodically). Nor do I believe the mystical mumbo-jumbo that we have all the answers we need.
No, this is just a reminder to you, and me, that we can benefit from asking ourselves probing questions.
[Photo credit: Liudmila Gridina]