Black Belt Productivity

My son just turned 4 this past week. All of you who are parents of small children know this means a birthday party must be thrown. You invite all of the friends…have cake and ice cream…you know the drill.

In our house, event planning is my wife’s department (Hey, I know my place in this marriage). I am always available to be a “go-fer” whenever needed. But if momma is not happy with the party, no one is happy with the party.

My wife is very good at planning things when she sets her mind to it. However, she is not typically organized. She is the spontaneous type, which creates a lot of fun in our marriage, but it can also be a point of frustration for me. I do not take well to surprises.

She can focus on something, and not let it go until she has it all laid out like she wants it. Our March trip to Disney World is testimony to that. We had an awesome time with the kids with little or no stress. So it is in her, it just does not come out very often.

She has not become the GTD disciple that I have. Sometimes this brings some stressful but funny situations where I end up looking at her and saying, “Just read the book…please”. When I say that, she know exactly what I mean.

One evening last week I walked through our den to find a yellow sticky note (post-it note) stuck to the edge of the printer shelf on our corner unit desk. Upon further examination, I saw a list of next actions with contexts and due dates. All related to the unnamed project, Dawson’s birthday party.

So maybe she is getting it after all. She wrote down all the things she needed to do to make the party happen. She got it out of her head. I was quite impressed. I know she has not read the book yet. But it appears that it is rubbing off on her.

By the way, after a little scare with the weather (it was a back yard party, and it rained for around an hour right up until the start time for the party…could you imagine 16 kids running all over the house?), the party went off without a hitch. My job during the party was to watch the clock. She had this thing scheduled to the minute.

Cake and ice cream @ 5pm
Gifts @ 5:15
Candy filled piñata @ 5:30

I was really proud of her.

Now if I can just get her to start a project called “Read David Allen’s Getting Things Done“…

- Jason