Jason Spencer – GPS For Success

David Allen opens Chapter 6 of Making It All Work with an introductory quote from blogger Steve Pavlina on the power of clarity, “If you aren’t yet at the point of clarity, then make that your first goal.” The quote is from Pavlina’s Do It Now post part of his series on time management in which Pavlina portrays himself as a productivity expert and maverick challenging traditional life management systems. In his article Time Management, Pavlina writes that he has read all the books on the subject and that if there were such a thing as a “Ph. D in time management,” Pavlina claims “to have gone over the curriculum many times over.”    Of course Pavlina gushes over Getting Things Done (GTD), writing “I love the standard GTD system” which brings us back to the concept of clarity. Interestingly, helping people gain clarity at the higher levels is something GTD completely lacks, Pavlina argues in the Essential Missing Half of GTD. What is the quintessential Pavlina productivity paradigm and where does it veer off from GTD and the traditional top down systems he abhors?  Where do they connect?

Pavlina believes that GTD will make you more efficient but not more effective.  GTD is for Pavlina primarily a low-level system “that will help you do things right…but it does not help you figure out what those right things are. ” To reinforce his point, Pavlina uses the Covey metaphor of having your ladder up against the wrong wall. Or in nautical terms, he argues that those who practice GTD are like a well managed ship that keeps sailing in circles never reaching port. This lack of top level direction or focus in Allen’s second book Ready for Anything, leads Pavlina to taunt, “Ready for What?”   Whatever your boss assigns you?  For with GTD, you are clearly, “doomed to spend your life working on other people’s goals and losing yourself in the process,” he further argues. People need something more than GTD which he sees as just a “personal management system”, Pavlina says, they need a “personal leadership system”.  Pavlina’s Coveyesque philosophy foreshadows Leo Babauta’s interview with Covey earlier this year on the Zen Habits blog. Covey doesn’t find much value in Getting Things Done and The Secret,” I have read these books and have enjoyed them and believe they contain elements of wisdom and practical suggestions. But for me and my world they are too simplistic and superficial.”  Pavlina’s rhetorical glowing praise of the GTD model  and subsequent criticisms contradicts itself and superficially glosses over the system; missing the true flexibility and power of GTD as an air tight and comprehensive  planning and life management system which we will explore in more detail in upcoming articles.  He never even considers the 6 Horizons of Focus first introduced in David Allen’s Getting Things Done and repeated again in Ready for Anything.  Furthermore, David Allen’s Road Map Seminar and his new book Making It All Work even more clearly delineates and expands upon the 6 Horizons of Focus as preexisting planning models that Allen first introduced back in 2001.   It also makes you wonder what tools and time management paradigms, Pavlina embraces.

Franklin Covey? In his article More On Planning, Pavlina calls the Franklin Covey digital and paper planner systems an inflexible “piece of crap” that forces people to subscribe to an often lousy planning model.  Does he use Microsoft Outlook?  Nope. “Piece of crap,” Pavlina writes.   Anthony Robbins Rapid Planning Method (RPM) paper and digital planning systems? “Utter crap,” Pavlina mocks.  How about a Palm PDA? Pavlina thinks that they are “inflexible and puny” junk too, for his Palm is collecting dust in the closet. (Note David Allen swears by his Palm Treo 755P) Pavlina clearly disdains certain GTD tools and conventional time management planners as too overly complicated and too inflexible forcing you to use a particular planning paradigm.

After criticizing the entire time management establishment Pavlina offers his own take on effectiveness. Pavlina prefers to use a pen and paper and outlining software. Using a digital outlining tool for project planning is also mentioned in David Allen’s first book Getting Things Done as a suggested best practice.   A closer analysis of Pavlina’s system suggests that he actually implements very few of the key GTD principles and suggested best practices. These conclusions can be drawn from viewing Pavlina’s own essays.  It’s not to say that the Pavlina productivity paradigm is not without its merits-it clearly is air tight if properly implemented. Anybody following it could easily experience significant improvement in accomplishing their goals. Needless to say its brilliance lies in its simplicity and mainly its roots.   The Pavlina productivity paradigm is nothing more than a traditional best practices  top down life management system that models all the paradigms that Pavlina ridicules making it a hybrid rather than an original methodology, at best evolutionary rather than revolutionary. In fact, anybody familiar with Brian Tracy’s time management books Eat that Frog, Focal Point, Time Power, and Goals would see an obvious uncanny resemblance between Pavlina’s planning methodologies and Brian Tracy’s own recommended best practices as well as those of Anthony Robbins and Franklin Covey.  Brian Tracy sums it up best in Time Power,”What I have discovered is that it doesn’t matter what time management system or planner you decide to use.  They are all good …the most important part of any time planning system is that you use it regularly until it becomes a habit, like breathing in and out. ”    Another interesting distinction between Brian Tracy and Steve Pavlina is that rather than criticizing his predecessors and influences from who he borrows best practices, Brian Tracy often cites where he takes his methodologies from. Tracy for example even offers readers a suggested reading list at the end of his book Focal Point.  What does not work for Pavlina may work for others which Pavlina even admits to in his articles with a few qualifiers. However, the tone of Pavlina’s mocking attack shows no such restraint or respect for his predecessors nor does his humorous pejoratives.  Could Pavlina learn something from this?  Which raises the question – why does the Pavlina productivity paradigm condemn and criticize all the other time management tools and systems from which it borrows its influences, its methodologies and its best practices?

Despite several attempts at reaching Steve Pavlina with our questions via email and phone calls to his home in Nevada – Steve Pavlina could not be reached for comment. Our conclusions were drawn from his published works.

Brian Tracy is the most listened to audio author on personal and business success in the world today.  His fast-moving talks and seminars on leadership, sales, managerial effectiveness and business strategy are loaded with powerful, proven ideas and strategies that people can immediately apply to get better results in every area.  For more information, please go to www.briantracy.com