In this quest, she’s part of a growing band of efficiency gurus. The movement’s godfather is David Allen, who’s been giving seminars outlining his time-management philosophy since the 1980s. His 2001 book “Getting Things Done” has sold more than a half-million copies, and today thousands of adherents use his system of file folders, label makers, e-mail subfolders and specially formatted to-do lists to close the “open loops” that he believes cause stress. Allen’s message seems to be catching on due to a variety of reasons. Downsizing has heaped more work on fewer people. Flattened org charts, telecommuting and flextime have put more workers in charge of their own time, with less supervision. “In knowledge work, you have to [figure out] what to do during the day,” Allen says. “We’re all executives now.”
In theory, technology–from Black-Berries to Google–should help us. But many workers have only a cursory understanding of how their tech tools really work–or they allow the constant beeps, blinks and buzzes to become so distracting that their tools actually reduce efficiency. Trapani, who’s also a computer programmer, along with the geeks who create sites like 43folders.com, aim to help workers harness technology to do a better job of implementing Allen’s teachings. It requires more than just learning keyboard shortcuts. “Culturally, organizations can encourage workers to step back from their day and think about what they spend most of their time doing, and how to streamline it,” Trapani says. For James Mitchell, a Boston-based leveraged-buyout specialist, David Allen’s system has changed his life, and he intends to give Trapani’s tips a try, as well. “I’ve put it on my to-do list,” he says. For this crowd, that’s money in the bank.
