The Total Capture Productivity Letters: Key Elements of a Total Capture System

Welcome to the March issue of the Total Capture Productivity Letter.

If you are a new reader, you can read prior issues here: 

https://www.drpetergallant.com/

A personal productivity system based on the idea of “total capture” of every commitment - big and small - at every level and across the entirety of our personal and professional lives is an ambitious goal!

While many thought leaders in the “productivity space” recommend total capture, I believe that it’s actually quite rare to encounter someone who has fully and totally implemented total capture and could produce a complete, up-to-date, externally-stored list or repository of every commitment that they have on their plate.

Are the benefits of developing and implementing a total capture productivity system worth the complexity?  Having implemented this type of system myself, and maintaining and evolving my systems and approach to managing my own productivity over the past two decades, I firmly believe that it is!

Over the next several issues of this newsletter, we will explore how to design and implement a Total Capture Productivity system - beginning with an overview of the major elements that any total capture-based system needs to have in place, with the explicit understanding that no two individuals or their systems will be implemented in exactly the same way.  

By applying some broad principles of productivity system design, we can all design and implement systems that work best for us.

Key Elements of Total Capture Productivity System Design

At the highest level, an effective total capture system needs 5 elements to be defined and implemented:

1. Form of Commitments: The basic “atomic unit” that is managed is a commitment - any and all commitments that we have made to ourselves or to others, including both explicit commitments and commitments arising from our various roles and responsibilities, both personal and professional.  I tend to imagine commitments as box-like objects: the intended outcome is the content of the box, the box can be moved around and stored in a warehouse, and we can mark the outside of the box with a variety of labels and tags to remind us what is in the box, and other descriptive information.  Our system will need to manage a large volume of these objects!

2. Repository: the place where we receive and store commitments - a “warehouse” of sorts for our commitments!  This can be as simple as physical pen and paper to record commitments, or a simple electronic note or document on a smartphone, computer or tablet, or the repository could be one of the myriad of apps that provide the ability to track items electronically and to tag each entry with one or more descriptive tags to allow simple sorting and access later.  

3. Inflow Processes: a collection of habits and systems that “fill up” our commitment Repository warehouse.  Ideally, we develop processes that we use automatically and consistently to allow us to rapidly identify every potential commitment as it appears and to capture each commitment into our Repository.  By capturing every commitment as soon as it appears, we keep them out of our heads or our short-term memory - keeping our minds clear to focus, think clearly, and engage with the world.  Capturing commitments properly also allows us to explicitly decide whether to accept a commitment in the first place, or to provide a quick, upfront “No” instead.

4. Outflow Processes: another collection of habits and systems that allow us to empty our commitment Repository by selecting which commitments to work on and complete (or at least to advance toward completion) throughout our day.  We can choose which commitment to focus on based on a number of criteria such as our available physical and cognitive energy and time available and our physical location.  We can also select groups of commitments that require similar levels of thought or effort, which enables more effective completion.

5. Review Processes: we can develop processes that enable us to review our existing inventory of commitments in the Repository to ensure that they remain current, relevant and meaningful to us.  We can also analyze the commitments we have made in order to give us insight into how best to fully engage with our commitments to move them forward toward completion, identify where we may need to develop new skills and capabilities to accomplish this, and to celebrate as we move forward on personal and professional work and objectives that are meaningful to us.

Your Commitments Are Never “Done”

It is important to note that the goal of your system should not be “Repository zero”, as you will never be able to complete every commitment without taking on new ones.  You will always have lots of commitments to manage and “more to do than you can do”.  The goal is to keep our commitments outside our memory, to keep our minds clear to focus on engaging with the world and to bring the very best of ourselves to completing the commitments we do have, without the constant feeling of overwhelm.

Simple to Describe, Challenging to Implement

So there it is in a nutshell - the basic structure of a productivity system based on the idea of total capture of commitments boils down to just 5 key elements: how we define commitments in a workable way, how we store our inventory of commitments, processes to capture new commitments and to select commitments to complete, and processes to review our inventory of commitments to ensure that they remain current and meaningful.

While a total capture productivity system appears relatively simple in concept and design, the real challenge lies in actually implementing and maintaining your system.  

It is very rare to encounter someone who has truly implemented a total capture system to the point where they can open a notebook (or an app) and show you a complete, totally up-to-date inventory - both personal and professional, at every level and time horizon, and can describe the habits and systems they have to maintain their system.    

I’m willing to bet that if you encountered someone who has truly mastered and implemented a total capture system, they would be one of the happiest, most clear-headed, relaxed, busy-yet-engaged people you would know!

Because implementation can be such a challenge, the focus of the next few issues of this newsletter will be on the specific habits and systems needed to successfully implement and maintain every one of the key elements of a Total Capture Productivity system.

Stay tuned!