About PEP

Introduction to Kerry Gleeson's talk at the National Convention Centre
Sydney Australia12 April 2002, by Allan Hawke, Secretary of Defence

“Kerry Gleeson is probably the international expert on a subject very close to my heart - that's how to make the best use of your time. As you may know, Kerry is the author of the internationally best-selling books:

The Personal Efficiency Program - How to Get Organized to Do More Work in Less Time; and The High-Tech Personal Efficiency Program - Organizing Your Electronic Resources to Maximize Your Time and Efficiency.

Both of these books have taken up residence on Amazon's Business Best Sellers lists, with the PEP book selling over 300,000 copies last year in Japan alone - only the Harry Potter books sold better, although my daughter would find that hard to believe!

The ideas elaborated in these books lie behind the Personal Efficiency Program, which some of you may have already undertaken.

For those that haven't, I suggest you consider doing so and hope that what Kerry has to tell us in a moment will encourage you to get PEP 'd. I did, and found it made a very big difference to my personal efficiency. By comparison, all the other time management workshops I attended, were a complete waste
of time.

Over the past twenty years, Kerry Gleeson has worked extensively with senior executives of many of the world's top companies on workload management, information overload, and efficiency and productivity issues. In Australia alone, his company's client list includes most of our best-respected companies, from the ANZ bank, through BHP Biliton and Qantas to Lion and Westpac.

In Canberra, PEP is already used extensively in Defence, DoTRS, AFFA, FACS, Workplace Relations, Health, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and ATSIC.

Kerry will speak about "Getting Things Done". He'll give us some tips about
how we get our priorities done, even in the face of conflicting demands, the growth of technology, and the dramatic increase in the amount of the information which flows across your desks - or maybe it's only me that suffers from that problem. Once you're born, the clock starts ticking - and you get only so many ticks during your life. To make the most, and get the most, out of the time we're given in this mortal coil should drive us all. That's just one set of reasons why I'm such a big fan of Kerry's work. Time wasted on unimportant things is time taken away from doing things that matter, things that make a difference - both at work and at home.

No one on their death bed ever wished they had spent more time at
work. An even more heretical thought is that it's us - as individuals - who determine how much time we spend at work! Work/life balance is very
much a personal decision.

Maximising or optimising our efficiency gives us discretionary time. Time
where we can decide what to do with it - whether that involves reading, reflecting, thinking or writing about the things we want to do ourselves - the things that matter most to us. For my part, it's that discretionary time that allows me to indulge one of the lessons of life - that's "The best minute I spend (or in my
case 15 minute blocks) is the minute I invest in people!" The problem is no-one ever teaches us how to do our work. The result is that most managers are managers in name only - they're so busy doing things, being super desk
officers - they don't have any time to manage anything or anyone.

Many thousands of executives have learnt from Kerry's books and approach
the principles of efficiency and effectiveness, and more importantly, they've
learnt how to actually apply and use them in their workplaces. Wherever I've gone since discovering this gem of a book I've taken it and the approach with
me and endeavoured to instil it in the minds and work practices of my executives …Without further ado, let me introduce Kerry Gleeson........”

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