


protected material and content, sufficient capital, and the ability to execute your plans. Most VCs have to trust you have three things – intellectual safety, i.e. “Execution is the hottest button out there right now, especially for startups. In the process, some things inevitably fall away, clearing room for others. It’s also a valuable mechanism for transferring all of those little notes gathered over the previous week, physical and the mental ones, to a master list. That regrouping, allows for shifting focus, and ensuring tasks are aligned with priorities, especially since the real world changes faster than our to-do lists. Honing the ability to instantly assess a situation and move on is not only practical, but crucial to starting a business. Determining rapidly whether we can accomplish something in under two minutes forces us to make a call. The other benefit, Allen says, is sharpening decision-making skills. Setting it aside demands looking at it again, reviewing, re-thinking, assigning a time to get it done all of a sudden a short task takes on far more time and importance than it’s worth. The idea is simple: dealing with it right away clears the decks quickly. If not, file it according to context, and priority level. GTD is best known for the Two-Minute Rule: if a task crosses your desk that can be completed in two minutes – do it immediately. They need room to think.”Īllen creates that space through techniques designed to simplify, rather than over-complicate. They need room to talk to the right people about the right things. Entrepreneurs need space to stay focused. “A lot of the reframe of this is that you don’t need time, you need space.
