Most of my adult life I have suffered from an over-active mind and the inability to focus on one project at a time. Last year I think I had over 40 websites that I was running, 4-6 micro businesses, lots of writing and networking., and a full time job. That's when I realised that I had a problem and was just taking on too much and not focusing on one thing at a time. I sold all my micro businesses and concentrated on the blog and my writing, and whilst the income has dropped because of this I feel much more focused and able to deal with any issues that come up.
My productivity has increased dramatically since last year and I have a good writing schedule, a good social media schedule, and a good networking schedule (still tweaking this). Someone who has helped me with this is Dragos Roua who has a knack for all things related to natural productivity.
Four Books in Three Months
Dragos and I had a little competition last year, which saw us writing 4 books in the space of a few months, Dragos finished first (swine that he is :)).
It was last year I first read about his productivity framework Assess-Decide-Do , which sounds a bit simplistic, but like all things, it's the simple solution that usually wins out.
Assess-Decide-Do
In this framework Dragos sets out a 3 step plan for helping us get on top of the things we want to achieve in life by Assessing, deciding and doing, which is his Life Management Framework. This framework applies to everything we do in life from getting up in the morning to designing websites.
I had the good fortune to read his Life Management Framework and have to say that whilst it's a simple solution to help with all the decisions and choices we make in life, it is extremely powerful.
The Sections of the guide
This guide is split up into three main parts:
The theoretical part of the framework
The practical part of the framework
The iAdd for the iPhone and iPad
The theoretical
The main crux of the framework is to be able to hang all your decisions about anything in life on three working principles:
- Assess: your current situation, your options, your goals
- Decide: establish if you're doing or not what you assessed, chose an option, chose a path
- Do: walk your path, enjoy it, be there, be in the moment, in the present, in the now and here
I love how Dragos has laid out each section in this guide and I have to say the most powerful part, for me, is the 'decide' part of this.
I am of the strong belief that life begins and ends with a decision, if we can't decide what to do in life we will stagnate. However the beauty in the guide is that it gives you the steps before and after the decision, which makes the decision and after effects of the decision so much easier.
There's two other aspects that Dragos goes on to talk about in this framework and it's about Focusand Flow.I found myself nodding my head as I was reading these sections and just saying to myself 'that's great' 'perfect' or 'I never thought about it that way before'.
The guide also covers the imbalances of each part of the framework, which again I found myself nodding enthusiastically about – things like: Analysis Paralysis – Too much assessing.
I thought the theoretical side of the guide covered a lot of ground and gives a detailed description of a great framework in which to live our lives.
The practical
The practical side covers how we can apply the theory to our lives in general and again this was comprehensive and very enlightening.
Topics covered are: Asess-Decide-Do (ADD) for relationships, ADD for Personal Crisis Management (this was a great section), Add and Inbox Zero (this section made me rethink a lot of things about getting things done).
One of the best sections, for me, in the guide was when Dragos spoke about Deadlines:
Have you ever really thought what is the meaning of the word "deadline"? It has the word "death" in it. Never wondered why? Because a deadline is a line of death. Once you meet that line, you kill the task. You take its life away. You conquered it. You extended your presence onto its territory, occupied it and now you have the right to eliminate it from your system. That's a highly motivating psychology. Also, it's a very disempowering one.
This for me was a bit of a revelation. Dragos goes on to speak about a great concept he terms as having 'Livelines' instead of deadlines.
The practical side of the guide has so much more in it including natural Productivity, sorry Dragos I am trying not give away too much but there's so much good stuff I don't want to leave out.
The iAdd
If you're an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad user this sections will be for you.
Dragos has created an app for the ADD framework (coded it himself as well, smart arse 🙂 )
he gives a comprehensive overview on exactly how to use the iAdd app, but I am not going to review that here as, being honest, I was not interested in this section as I don't own any of the above. However my sons does and I bought the app for him and he thinks it's a 'great little app'.
In conclusion
There have been many life management tools out there and many I have read, but Dragos' ADD framework is by far the easiest and most powerful one I have started incorporating into my life.
If you want to learn more about the ADD framework you can download the Assess-Decide-Do framework guide here (affiliate link)
If you decide to buy this guide I will make a commission, however I would never review a product if I thought it was not going to benefit you.
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