Kevin Duncan 
Tick Achieve [PDF ebook] 
How to Get Stuff Done

1. Business Intelligence? 1

“I’m too busy, I’m in a meeting.” 2

Business intelligence? 2

Tick Achieve: what does it mean? 3

What does Tick Achieve not mean? 3

What is a tick? 4

What does achieve mean? 5

Achievement is not an endgame 6

Professional time wasting 6
Most businesspeople want to waste time 7

Seeing through the red mist 9

Addicted to work 9

The modern curse of WIP 10

Yes, but have you actually done it? 11

How to think more and worry less 11

How being organized lets you take it easy 11

Outcome not output 12

Action not activity 13

Cause and effect: first principles 13

“If I do x, then y will happen…” 14

Most of what people do has nothing to do with the main point 14

What’s on your list? 15

How to Tick Achieve 15

What’s to come? 17

2. Talking Straight 19

People who are incapable of coming to the point are literally pointless 20

The new world of waffle 20

You can’t think straight if you can’t talk straight 21

The curse of internal waffle 22

Duckspeak and Birtspeak 22

There’s waffle and there’s strategic waffle 24

A strategy is simply when you have decided what to do 26

The rise of Offlish 26

Mission Incomprehensible 27

The fine art of business fiction 30

Spotting waffle 32

Understand how language works 33

Pleonasms and circumlocution 35

Permission to talk straight 36

If you must use jargon at work, do not use it at home 37

The mate, mum or grandmother test 37

How to talk straight 38

3. Leave It Out 39

Brevity equals intelligence 40

Less really is more 40

The Laws of Simplicity 41

How eliminating issues gets to faster answers 43

Does this need to be done at all? 44

Extraneous extraction 44

How leaving it out forces the issue 45

Reductionism: think harder and simplify everything 46

Boxy minds and why they help 46

Anti lists 48

Tasks do not improve in quality if they are delayed 49

Do less and get more done 49

Towards a manifesto for Tick Achieve 49

Say no more often 50

Debate hard and early 52

Have a system 53

Once you have written a task down you can forget about it 54

Trust your Depth Mind 54

Kick bad habits 55

Killer Questions 56

How to leave it out 57

4. One IN A ROW 59

Achievement does not have to be a relentless series of successes 60

The sublime accountant 60

Breaking big problems down 61

How to eat an elephant 62

Introducing mini steps 62

Rapid Sequential Tasking 63

The one-touch approach 65

Never touch a piece of paper or email more than once 65

An untidy desk used to betray disorganization – now technology hides it 67

Think, do 67

Possible meanings of think 67

Possible meanings of do 68

Improving your time management 69

The curse of modern technology 71

Managing machines 72

Most of the people on any given street are moving without paying attention 72

Attention deficit syndrome 72

If you want to get something done, turn off your mobile or hand-held device 74

Hello Personal Organizer, goodbye Personal Assistant 74

The overnight test 75

Haste and regret 75

Emailed does not mean the job is done 76

Compress, excess and success 77

How to practice one in a row 77

5. Tick Achieve 79

To tick off is to move on 80

The need for structure 81

Boxy minds and phrenologists 82

The art of great list writing 83

The PERFECT system 83

Personal priority 85

Emotional importance 86

Reason for doing 86

Financial value to you 87

Everyone else’s priorities 87

Chronological sift 88

Time shifts 88

VPNs 89

The Priority Matrix 90

Bad lists and how to spot them 91

Don’t talk about it: do it 92

Talk can be the enemy of action 92

The power of instinct 93

Views of the experts 94

Tick Achieve as a way of life 95

Just because a task is started, it doesn’t mean it is finished 96

A task is only finished when it is finished 96

How to Tick Achieve 96

6. Look Lively 99

Liveliness of the mind is more effective than any physical activity 100

The rigour of vigour 100

The more you do, the more you will get done 101

Energy and the art of effective activity 102

Getting your attitude right 103

Walk TALL 104

Conquering the quotidian 105

Liberate more time for the things that you find enjoyable 106

The joys of experimentation 107

Laziness vs. liveliness 108

When to do nothing 111

The value of self-editing 111

Quantity is no substitute for clarity 112

How to look lively 112

7. Outthink Yourself 115

Knowing what you are unlikely to do can increase your likelihood of doing it 116

The art of anticipation 116

The excuse culture 117

Glossing, glazing and glozing 120

If you want to get something done, stick to the facts 120

Facing up to your failings 120

Being aware of your failings allows you to get more done 121

The art of outthinking yourself 121

Your locus of control 122

Prearranging tripwires and fail-safes 123

Lateness 123

Disorganization 123

Everything last minute 124

Forget things completely 124

Can’t remember names 124

Pretend the job is finished 125

Winning sportspeople have already pictured themselves winning 126

It’s urgent – pretend it’s not 126

It’s not urgent – pretend it is 126

Recommending ratiocination 127

The one thing intelligent people know 128

How to outthink yourself 129

8. Progress Not Perfection 131

The fact that nothing is perfect needn’t stop you making progress 132

Quantitative and qualitative perfection 133

Just doing it or doing it well? 134

Progress not perfection 135

Apogees and brobdingnagian achievements 136

Moments of greatness 138

Gaining control of yourself 140

What’s happening? 143

Liminal limits 144

Dyspeptic diversions 145

How to make progress without perfection 146

9. Making Business Tick 149

Tick Achieve for businesses 150

Most organizations are not well organized 151

Panjandrums and pirates 151

The year that never is 154

No company workforce ever works effectively for twelve months of the year 154

A new manifesto for business 156

Smaller chunks 157

Long-term fiction 157

Decision windows 157

Are you deciding or just talking? 158

Crisis Bombs and how to predict them 158

Simplify everything 159

Monkey-free leisure time 159

Useless brainstorms 160

Meetings: who needs them? 161

The cult of the manager 163

How to make business tick 163

10. Make Yourself Tick 165

The complete Tick Achieve method 166

What makes you tick? 171

It is your responsibility to get things done – not someone else’s 172

Monkey on your shoulder? 172

Efficiency is a sophisticated form of laziness 173

In search of unworried Completer Finishers 174

How many hours in your life? 174

The one-page personal plan 175

Planning your year 176

Improve your ticker 177

Three final critical questions 177

How to make yourself tick 178

Bibliography 181

Appendix 183

Index 219

Kevin Duncan is a business adviser, marketing expert and author. He was educated at Oxford and has worked in communications for 25 years, advising companies such as British Airways, Carlsberg-Tetley, Diageo, Heineken, Lloyds TSB, Marks & Spencer, Norwich Union, Reuters, Scottish Courage, Sony, and Virgin.
He has hands-on knowledge of how to run most types of business, and has worked with over 200 clients in almost every category (except tobacco, which he won’t work on). He has deployed £600m of funds on more than 200 brands, overseen over 1, 000 projects, and won 35 awards for creativity and effectiveness.
Kevin is the author of Running Your Own Business, Growing Your Business, So What? and Start. He teaches at Canterbury University and for the last eight years he has been an independent troubleshooter, advising companies how to run their businesses.
www.expertadviceonline.com