David Allen's Blog, page 41

Episode #40: Best Practices of Email Communication

In this podcast, Coach Kelly Forrister focuses on the best practices of email communications with others, including appropriate use, writing effective subject lines, creating agreed upon response times, reply to all and more.

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Why Getting Organized Usually Hasn’t Worked

I had another BFO the other day (that’s a Blinding Flash of the Obvious): one of the reasons most people are to some degree allergic to “getting organized” is the consistent lack of success they have experienced over the years with how they’ve approached the whole process of to-do lists.

The reason those lists have not worked is because they were an attempt to compress very different and relatively sophisticated and discrete functions into one event and context. If you try to make something too simple, it will make it seem even more complex and difficult. Yes, we’ve all been up against the wall from time to time of too many things screaming at us in our head, and we got temporary relief from “making a list.” But we’re in a very different and more multifaceted world than that band-aid can manage as an on-going procedure.

When most people sit down to write one of those lists, they are actually trying to combine at one time all five of the phases we have defined for mastering workflow: collect, process, organize, review, and do. They are simultaneously attempting to grab things out of their mind, decide what they mean, arrange them in some logical or meaningful fashion, jumping immediately to an evaluation of each against each other and deciding what they need to do “most importantly.” One is usually rewarded with a short-term payoff of the crisis of confusion relieved, but left with still a vague sense of gnawing vulnerability to what’s uncaptured, unprocessed, unorganized, unseen, and underestimated.

We have discovered over many years of research and coaching that these phased aspects of workflow management are optimally done as separate activities. You need to collect everything on your mind first, little or big. Then you need to assess each individual particle of that inventory: is it actionable? If so,what’s the outcome? What’s the next action? You then need to organize all the results of that thinking into appropriate categories. At that point you can clearly review all your options of what to do, and make the best choices, given all the criteria for making those decisions (time, energy, context, priorities, etc.) Managing yourself is simple, but it is not simplistic.

–David Allen

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GTD and stress

How do you unhook from the pulls and pressures of your world? It would be nice if you could just shut your door, or go into the garden, and the harpies in your mind—all the niggling things to do and deal with—just went away. Or, if you could just finally get it all done, so there was nothing left to contend with. Neither is likely to happen.

Your freedom will not come from trying to ignore all the “stuff” or by trying to complete everything—it requires truly detaching from it. But how do you do that? By getting it all out of your head, and reflecting on it all, appropriately.

–David Allen

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How things get done

It’s all connected. You can’t really define the right action until you know the outcome you’re after, and your outcome is disconnected from reality if you’re not clear about what you need to do physically to make it happen. You can get at it from either direction, and you must, to get things done.

–David Allen

 

 

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The Power of Imagery

Imagery is powerful. Consciously exercising the direction of your imagery is a hallmark of mastery—in sports, business, or frankly any aspect of your life. Mental pictures, combined with rich emotional texture, have proven to be highly effective tools for enhancing perception and performance, whether on the track, in the boardroom, in relationships, or simply your general well-being.

We are always imaging to ourselves. Research has shown that we talk to ourselves on an average of 300 to a thousand words per minute. It has also shown that for the typical adult over 75% of that self-talk is negative. We are also always going towards something. Our very nature is goal-seeking and directional. We are constantly being pulled toward whatever we focus on, whether we like it or not.

Controlling that inner dialogue (and the automatic vectors it creates) to produce more positive experiences, more consistently, is the purpose of image management.

Numerous techniques are available for assisting directed focus, and they all essentially do the same thing: hold your mind steady on a specific picture instead of something else. Different formats may be more or less comfortable for you to use in certain situations about certain things. “A comfortable living environment that supports my work, health, and creativity” may seem more appropriate as an ideal scene than a goal. “Launch the new marketing program” might be more of an objective for you than an intention. But they all perform the same function of re-grooving your neural patterns.

Consistent engagement with the desired pictures is a big key. One affirmation of being at your perfect weight may not perceptibly alter your self-image. Repetition, especially when coupled with dynamic emotional content, seems to be critical if you want to effect a change in your internal set points.

It’s challenging to be consistent with a focus on still unfamiliar images and experiences, however. Often we get inspirations in flash moments or while we are in a particularly good mood, and those don’t last. So, to be really clever, when you are feeling particularly intelligent and inspired, grab that idea, picture, or intention—express it and park it somewhere that you’ll revisit almost in spite of yourself. One of the great challenges of life is that when we most need our own inspirations, we don’t feel like it! When we’re down, happy thoughts can be irritating! But if you’re smart enough to realize that, you will build in your own triggers for bootstrapping yourself back toward where you really want to go.

When I’ve been diligent enough to keep track of my visions, my goals, my affirmations, and my hunches, and clever enough to revisit them later on, it has provided a powerful motivation to do more of that kind of structured thinking about what I want. Invariably what I envisioned, though somewhat of a fantasy at the time, came to pass, and often in quite extraordinary ways. What a great reminder—to keep stretching into unknown territory, and to be willing to see myself having, doing, and being things, without the foggiest notion about how to get there.

And, because of how our brains work, if you don’t see yourself doing it, you’ll never see how to do it. So take the plunge—imagine your future before you know the path to get there.

–David Allen

If you want a way cool way to create more of what you want through your imagery, check out the Intention Journal we built in to GTD Connect.®

This essay appeared in David Allen’s Productive Living Newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

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Episode #39: GTD® and Holacracy®

In this podcast we hear a wide-ranging conversation between David Allen and the founder of HolacracyOne, Brian Robertson. Just as GTD is a systematic approach to maintaining perspective and control in your life, Holacracy is a systematic approach for running an organization. You’ll hear a lot of interesting similarities between the two models, as well as their shared history and purpose.

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GTD Stories: Enyo

Your name:

Betty Enyonam Kumahor, but most people just call me Enyo.

What do you do for work?

I find this question harder and harder to answer! My background is in management and technology consulting. I started my own consulting firm about 2 years ago and we have about 25 people in 3 countries doing mostly technology consulting but a fair bit of management and design-thinking consulting as well. I also spend a fair amount of time speaking and in governance as I hold a number of board and advisory positions.

Where do you live?

My home countries are the United States (Atlanta) and Ghana (Accra) though work puts me in Ghana fairly often.

How did you hear about GTD?

It was fairly early in my career and I was literally failing at my job at the time. Seriously! I thought I was going to get fired. I was on a business trip walking through I believe Dulles airport and stopped in a bookstore. I noticed the title Getting Things Done and thought “that is definitely what I need!” So I didn’t “hear” about GTD so much as saw a book surrounded by sparkling lights and I hopped and skipped towards it!

How long have you been practicing GTD?

I saw the book in 2002 maybe and started reading it right after that. I attempted my first full implementation about 5-6 months later. It’s a good thing you say practicing because I had to repeat that for about 4 more years! So I have been practicing GTD for 15 years at least.

How has GTD made a difference in your work and life?

It’s completely transformed it! How do I count the ways?

It has certainly made me more efficient. I was able to get an incredible amount of work done in less time and that helped me both professionally and personally.
When that happened I realized I wasn’t focused on the right things in my life and I wanted to change the balance. GTD helps me make that pivot fairly easily by just starting with my higher horizons view and trickling that new view into a different set of projects and actions.
GTD has also helped me significantly reduce my guilt. Guilt over what I didn’t do, who I didn’t help, what I said no to, or didn’t say no too. It helped me get a handle on my commitments and gave me the justification (aka excuses) to say yes to only the projects and actions that most aligned with my higher horizons.

I credit GTD as being the stepping stone for all my professional achievements and some of my personal ones.

What areas of GTD are you doing really well (or at least better than you used to)?

Renegotiating my commitments has been the most challenging aspect for me to get down in recent years. I simply hate saying no, and this was compounded because many of my professional achievements came because I was the one who would say yes and work the difficult problem as long as it took to get solved. It took a while for me to first get the Three-fold Nature of Work, then real prioritization across all horizons of focus, and then renegotiating my commitments.

What areas of GTD would you like to get even better at doing?

In terms of practice, I am quite solid at the moment. Of course every time I have said that I then realize there is some aspect that can indeed be improved and that ‘Oh, GTD has an answer for that too!” But for now, I would be chuffed to have a simplified cohesive coordinated set of tools for my GTD ecosystem so I can reduce the administration that happens with having as many tools as we sometimes need.

What is one piece of advice you would give to someone just starting out with GTD?

Keep at it! GTD is large toolkit of practices, techniques and habits and it can get difficult at times when you’re just starting. Nowadays there is such great information on GTD Connect, Productive Living and all the GTD training. Don’t hesitate to leverage on all that fantastic experience of others who have made the journey. GTD Connect is such a generous community so do get and try the advice. Make time in your schedule to learn GTD. Some of it will pay off immediately, but some later. But most importantly, keep at it—it’s SO worth it.

 

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Priorities and GTD

A GTD Connect member asked:

I have at least 100 projects, from LARGE to little. Now you break that down those projects to single actions which at least triples your actions. So I might have about 300 single actions to be done.

Wouldn’t the first thing to do be according to priority? The LARGEST and Loudest? The one that is going to give you the largest return, like not get fired on the job?

I’m still working on perspective, cause I know that has a lot to do with it. but just wanted a little help on the day to day, minute by minute tactical level.

GTD Coach Kelly Forrister responded:

1/ Context is first since it will always be required to do what you want to do. For example, if your computer is required to write an email, but you don’t have it with you, then you can’t take that action. If being @Home is required to mow your lawn, but you’re not home, you can’t take that action.

2/ Time available is also a limitation in that if you don’t have the time to take an action, it won’t matter if it’s high priority or not. If you only have 10 minutes, but you need an hour to take an action, that will eliminate some choices.

3/ Resources will make a difference in terms of what you have the energy and resources to do. If you are brain toast, good chance you won’t want to do that high priority thing anyway, since you won’t have the mental horsepower for it. Ever have that feeling that your brain works better/worse at different times of the day? That’s resources. You will naturally make different choices.

4/ When the first 3 limitations have narrowed down your choices, then it’s time for strategic thinking: priority. What will give you the biggest payoff to do in this moment? Maybe in one moment that’s won’t get you fired and another what will make you the most money. And the next day it might be what will make your boss happy and the next what will make your spouse or partner happy. Two questions that can help clarify what to choose are:

What’s the value in getting this done?
What’s the risk if I don’t?

If you aren’t crystal clear on your priorities, I would climb up the Horizons of Focus, especially to Areas of Focus to know what you are actually responsible for personally and professionally. Many times people will do that and realize they have things on their projects + actions that are not really their job. If you are not sure what your areas are (most people have 5-7 personally and 5-7 professionally) then maybe it’s time for some updates on that with people you think can help you get clear on that.

And, don’t under estimate what full capture, clarify and organize will do. Only when those are really complete will you fully trust your intuitive choices about what to do. Otherwise, you’ll have that nagging sense you’re missing something that might be more important.

 

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Where to find GTD training

GTD public courses and coaching services are offered in more countries than ever before, through our extensive network of Global Partners. Here’s the dashboard to find GTD training near you: https://gettingthingsdone.com/global-partners

 

 

 

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Behind the scenes with David Allen

David Allen welcomed Blinkist into his apartment in Amsterdam for a casual conversation about GTD, writing the book, and his love for clear space.

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