David Allen's Blog, page 45
July 13, 2017
Episode #31 – David Allen talks with Dr. Theo Compernolle
David talks with Dr. Theo Compernolle, a doctor with a 35-year background in medicine, psychiatry, teaching, and research. His most recent book is Brain Chains. You’ll find this interview to be educational, and perhaps challenging, as you learn that we may be using technology in counter-productive ways.
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July 5, 2017
GTD Webinars
There are two great live video webinars being offered this month on GTD Connect, David Allen’s online learning center.
1. GTD & Outlook—July 20, 2017
This webinar is packed with practical tips and tricks to get you up and running with a trusted GTD system in Outlook for Windows. Learn how to best structure the Tasks section to track your projects and next actions, effectively manage your email and calendar, use the Notes section for storing reference, and more.
2. Guided GTD Weekly Review—July 27, 2017
Experience what David Allen calls the “critical success factor” with GTD, by going through a complete GTD Weekly Review. You’ll get a taste of all 11 steps of the process, with helpful coaching along the way.
GTD Connect also offers a ton of other GTD content you won’t find anywhere else, including over 100 recorded webinars with the GTD coaches, audio and video library, What’s New with David Allen blog, educational articles, Intention Journal, member forums, and more.
June 30, 2017
Getting (back?) on the wagon with GTD
It all makes sense. You want to do it. And yet, you aren’t doing it. 
If this sounds familiar in relation to your GTD practice, know that you are not alone. The methodology is incredibly powerful, but only to the extent that one actually uses it. Perhaps because of this disparity, I sometimes see clients berate themselves, asking frustratedly why, if they know GTD works so well, they aren’t doing it more.
The good news is that a few simple steps can help you start to make the behaviour changes necessary to get back on the Path of GTD Mastery. Furthermore, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel or take drastic measures to get going. Here are five steps I have seen work time and again.
1. Connect with the inspirational purpose
My colleague Ed Lamont speaks about this very well in his article “Goodbye Discipline, Hello Motivation“. Simply put, carrots work better than sticks (and are much more tasty).
So, why are you doing this GTD thing in the first place? For more time with the family? To impress the boss and get that promotion? So you can feel more relaxed and in control? Take the time you need to really connect with that inspirational purpose, and to reconnect with it as you go along. The real reason you’re doing GTD, by the way, stated as though it is already true, can make a great title for the project in your system about getting back on your GTD game. Be sure to get that written down on your project list straight away. It’s a way of telling yourself that you are serious.
2. Ask yourself: What’s worked before?
You are an adult. You have had to change your behaviour many times in the past to get what you want, and to get where you are now. How did you do it?
One client reflected on training for marathons, and how the new habit of morning runs initially felt awful, but by doing it anyway they soon became enjoyable, even irresistible to him. For me, the approach of making very small inroads works to gradually stretch out my comfort zone. For example, when the dentist told me I needed to start flossing, I started out by flossing just one tooth at night. Eventually the habit of getting out the floss became second nature, and I decided that while I was there and ready, I might as well do my whole mouth. (For more on the power of small steps, see “Why Tortoise Really Won“)
These same principles — starting small, acknowledging it will “feel wrong” at first, doing it anyway — are all transferrable to establishing (or re-establishing) your GTD practice. The more important question is: what has worked for you in the past? Now apply those same techniques to upping your GTD game.
3. Replace old rewards with new
Many habits get established as part of a reward cycle. For example, the habit of spending most of one’s day in the email inbox probably has something to do with the feeling of accomplishment when you complete everything there is to do about an email, and can get rid of it. However, it’s not the best way to get an overview of all your options to be nose-down in email all day.
Instead, see if you can replace the sense of accomplishment about “doing an email” with the sense of accomplishment that comes from clarifying and organising all of your emails into projects and actions, getting the inbox to zero. Likewise, see if you can replace feeling important because you are just so busy with feeling on top of everything because you have done your Weekly Review.
You aren’t giving up the rewards of accomplishment — you are upgrading them, and upgrading your definition of accomplishment in doing so.
4. Debrief the present from the future
This one may sound a little odd, but it can be profoundly useful when you are feeling stuck about how to proceed. First, get in touch with that inspirational purpose from step one. Then, embody it. Imagine yourself fully living within that new paradigm of stress-free success. Then ask yourself: how did I get here?
Just as identifying a clear outcome can often help with the next step, so this kind of “flash forward” exercise can often give you clues as to what has to happen — both in terms of what you are willing to do differently, and perhaps what you may need to be willing to give up — to get you to there from here.
In addition to creating a project in your system about getting back on your GTD game, be sure to add as much of this rich detail as possible as “project support” material to review and reflect upon as you go along.
Your imaginary internal GTD master may also have more practical tips for you along the way, so feel free to “flash forward” and ask questions as often as is useful. You may be surprised at how much you already know.
5. Commit to a new habit
Finally, commit to something new. All this connecting with purpose, rewiring definitions of accomplishment, and strategising with the end in mind still won’t get you back on your GTD game unless you actually do some things differently.
The two most common habits I see people take on that help them get going are the daily review and the Weekly Review. For so many people the siren’s call of email is a great temptation. One simple way to beat it is to review your action lists first before you ever open your email. This simple daily habit, like flossing a tooth, will at least remind you that your lists are there, waiting both to receive new clarified input from email and to be worked from as a better approach than just swimming through email all day.
The second habit that really works to both establish and reboot one’s practice is the Weekly Review. In some sense, in the early days, you are falling off the wagon a little bit each week. It’s the Weekly Review that puts you back on, by re-establishing familiarity and trust with your system, and getting you into a virtuous cycle of more relaxed focus leading to more motivation to keep practicing the GTD principles that create the relaxed focus in the first place. Whenever someone is off their game, we usually start with the Weekly Review.
So, there you have it. In a nutshell: get inspired, get practical, rewire what “winning” means, consult your future self a bit, and then take the plunge and commit to actually doing something different.
There is a much smarter way to work and live. You may not have been doing it yet, but you also may already have many of the answers about what needs to change, why, and how to get yourself back on track. Ask yourself a few good questions, listen to the answers, and then get going.
Good luck, and happy wagonning.
–Robert Peake, Certified GTD Coach & Trainer, Next Actions Associates
This article was originally published on the Next Action Associates blog.
June 23, 2017
The workforce for the next century
The assumption that everyone can and should do everything they have been given to do is an old industrial paradigm that does not hold water for “knowledge workers” who all have tons of projects that could be done infinitely better.
Renegotiating agreements and standards with ourselves and our world is an unfamiliar but required skill set for the majority of the workforce for the next century. –David Allen
June 19, 2017
June 5, 2017
The dark side of collaborative cultures
yours?” is unfortunately not in the common vocabulary of many such organizations. There is a sense that that would be impolite. “We’re all in this together” is a worthy sentiment, but seldom a reality in the hard-nosed, day-to-day world of work. Too many meetings end with a vague feeling among the players that something ought to happen, and hope that it’s not their personal job to make it so.The way I see it, what’s truly impolite is allowing people to walk away from discussions unclear. Real togetherness of a group is reflected by the responsibility that all take for defining real things to do and the specific people assigned to do them, so everyone is freed of the angst of still-undecided actions.
–David Allen, Getting Things Done, pages 262-263.
Here’s your challenge GTD practitioners: At the end of your next meeting, be the one to hold the group accountable for asking, “What are the next actions from this meeting and who is going to own them?”
June 1, 2017
Speeding up by slowing down…
I want to talk about one of the more mysterious best practices in the GTD®methodology: the art of speeding up by slowing down.
I am making the assumption that all of you reading this are on some track of improvement and growth to begin with. I mean, why speed up, instead of slow down, as an end-result? If we were here to merely fulfill entropy, the thicker, duller, slower, and generally more unconscious we became, the more on track we would experience ourselves. I have to admit I do have some component inside of me that seems to align with that—my comedy team of Sloth and Indolence, with their cute little assistant, Gravity. Pretty seductive, especially as I move into my later years, to give in to that siren’s call.
There is a more dynamic and more “real” part of me, though. It is naturally buoyant, has direction, is continually expansive and is in upward movement. The trick is how to maximize my alignment with that. If someone asked me whether I would consider expressing that with more effort instead of less, I would say, no, I’m not interested. (For me, increasing productivity means getting a result with as little effort as possible.) But if what we’re getting to here is how to truly access more and more of that refreshing, rewarding, and fulfilling aspect of ourselves, is “working harder” required to get there…? No.
One of the subtlest ways that positive energy retreats from us is in our busy-ness. Losing perspective in trying to control everything, finish it all, fix it all—all at once. It shows up in ways like practicing Getting Things Done® out of frustration instead of inspiration, or helping yourself and others out of compulsion, not compassion.
One of the greatest lessons I have learned and continually must practice is that in order to really be in control, I must surrender. In the martial arts things must be held lightly. Grabbing too tight, whether it’s my muscles, my ego, my trowel, or my lists of projects and actions, can be dangerous and ultimately ineffective. I must at a moment’s notice be ready to let go, walk away from it all, and do nothing. Nothing at all. As a matter of fact, your ability to do nothing—to be idle, to daydream, to nap peacefully, to give yourself permission for 100% zoning out—is a hallmark of GTD maturity. And if you don’t believe me, just read the plethora of new data from the cognitive scientists about the need for the brain to rest—daily. That’s a bit tough to do, though, unless you’re REALLY onto the GTD game.
This essay appeared in David Allen’s Productive Living Newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
May 26, 2017
Managing projects with GTD
Having a complete and current projects list is one of the cornerstones to GTD mastery. To support you in getting there, here are 
10 keys to defining and managing projects:
1. Projects are defined as outcomes that will require more than one action step to complete and that you can mark off as finished in the next 12 months.
2. Think of your Projects list as a current table of contents of the current outcomes on your plate.
3. Most people have 10-100 current projects, personally and professionally.
4. Current projects have at least one next action, waiting for, or calendar action, in order to be considered current.
5. Projects that have no current next action, waiting for, or calendar action are either no longer projects for you, or should be incubated to Someday/Maybe.
6. Future actions (i.e., actions that are dependent on something else happening first) do not go on the Next Actions lists until you can take action on them. They get stored with project plans.
7. The Projects list and project plans are typically reviewed in your GTD Weekly Review, ensuring each project has at least one current next action, waiting for, or calendar item.
8. It’s fine to have multiple next actions on any given project, as long as they are parallel and not sequential actions (e.g., “Buy stamps” and “Mail invitations” would not both be on Next Actions lists for the “Put on Party for David” project given that you need to buy the stamps before you can mail the invitations).
9. Projects are listed by the outcome you will achieve when you can mark it as done (what will be true?).
10. Effective project names motivate you toward the outcome you wish to achieve, and give you clear direction about what you are trying to accomplish.
How well are you doing on these? Where do you have any gaps? What is going well for you?
May 24, 2017
GTD Setup Guides
Our GTD Setup Guides give you step-by-step coaching on applying GTD to some of the best software tools out there. We currently have Guides for:
Wunderlist
OmniFocus
Outlook for Windows
Outlook for Mac
iPhone/iPad
OneNote for Windows
Evernote for Windows
Evernote for Mac
Lotus Notes
Google Apps
You can get them and see samples here.
What are we missing? What Guide should we write next? (No promises, as every tool has to pass our rigorous vetting process, but we’re always open to suggestions!)
May 23, 2017
Episode #30 – David Allen GTD® Keynote in Milan – Part Two
In this conclusion of a two-part episode, David Allen shares an in-depth, sweeping overview of GTD® to an audience in Milan, Italy. Learn best practices, as well as what you can expect to have happen in your life once you start applying them.
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