Presidential Productivity Tips: GTD for the GDP

One doesn’t run the most powerful country on the planet with a few apps and an Average Joe’s GTD routine. It takes precise management of a staff of elite practitioners, well versed in social, political, procedural and economic affairs. It is a job, that by virtue of definition is wrought with innate chaos, partisanism, extreme pressures and high intensity globally impacting decision-making. In its easiest state, the duties of the President of the United States is challenging and ridden with one obstacle after the next. So most of us should keep a rational perspective on how we handle and view our non life threatening, non nuclear, non social policy influencing tribulations.

99U has compiled a short list of tips on running things used by President Obama as well as Presidents past. The first tip I do already. I was fortunate enough to learn in High School how important it is to do as much of the mornings work the night before. The habit has grown to this day where I now call Sunday nights, Pre-Monday.

1. Get a head start on your day the night before.
“In a funny way,” writes Michael Lewis, “the president’s day actually starts the night before. When he awakens at seven, he already has a jump on things.”

After his family retires to bed, Obama often stays up working on odds and ends left over from the day. Chief among his nightly responsibilities is leafing through the binder of documents that his staff has asked him to review.

For example, after he won the Nobel Peace Prize, his staff submitted several acceptance speeches that Obama deemed unusable. Instead of cramming the speech writing process into tiny windows throughout the next day, the president utilized his night to get a head start. First, he copied the staff-written speech by hand to “organize his thoughts” and then he used the exercise to write his own speech, an approach would have been impossible during his traditional day.

I am also a firm believer in tip #5. Personal time needs to be protected. Once people see there are no boundaries to your time there is the potential for abuse. It’s ok to be available for emergencies, but to maintain a healthy balance and lessen the effects of anxiety, it is mandatory to have set blocks of time to spend outside of the Situation Room.

5. Your personal time is sacred.
The president has three moments in his schedule that are unquestionably his: the morning workout, his dinner with his daughters, and the nighttime after his family falls asleep. Each block of time serves a different role for Obama: the gym keeps his body in good health, the late night helps him catch up on work, and the dinner is especially sacred time, with the added benefit of giving the president a bit of perspective outside his hectic workday.”[His children are] not really that interested in his day, because they’re kids,” Senior Advisor Valeria Jarrett told Vanity Fair. “They want him to focus on their day.”

For the rest of the tips, please check out the full article: How Barack Obama Gets Things Done :: Tips :: 99U