David Allen's Blog, page 51
August 11, 2016
Let’s hear it for lazy!
I am the laziest person I’ve ever met.
I often admit to that in my courses, and lots of people think that’s the silliest thing they’ve ever heard—they see me as highly focused and productive. But to me “lazy” just means making something happen with as little effort as possible. Perhaps it is equally true that I’m the most efficient person I’ve ever met. I seem to have made it part of my life’s work to find out with how little activity I can get a result.
When I’m processing my email inbox, I know the shortcut keys to get the action tracked and the email organized with as few keystrokes as possible. When I leave for the airport, I rush to leave the house by a certain time, so that I don’t have to rush later on the freeway or at the airport, when there’s much more pressure.
So, this is not unusual for most of us, and I’m sure we’ve all created our own shortcuts in life, especially for repetitive tasks. What might be a new frontier for most people to be conscious of is getting lazy/efficient about thinking. My organization system is set up to prevent ever having a thought twice! I capture thoughts when I have them, so I don’t have to have them again. I only put things on my calendar that have to get done that day, so I don’t have to keep rethinking what’s on the page when I look at it. I have an “at computer online” list of actions, separate from my “at computer” list, so when I’m working on my laptop on a plane or train that doesn’t have WiFi, I don’t have to keep rethinking which items on the list I can do, and which I can’t. I decide the next action step on my projects and keep those current, so I don’t have to keep thinking, “What should I be doing to make this happen?” I review the projects and areas of interest and focus of my life once a week, so that I don’t have to keep thinking that I should be thinking about them.
I was not born very organized, and it’s not something I do for its own sake. I have just worked pretty hard at not having to work hard. There are better things to do.
–David Allen
August 9, 2016
The power of the Weekly Review
We saw this post on Facebook by Matt Rapport, a full-time musician
from Michigan. We love hearing how GTD is working for people and he was happy to let us share his post with our readers:
I continue to be amazed at the power of Getting Things Done’s Weekly Review. I woke up this morning with my head spinning. With my Weekly Review done, my inbox (email and physical) are at zero, my calendar is scheduled with important priorities, and my next actions lists are updated. Most importantly, my head is clear and I feel energized headed into the weekend and next week!
August 3, 2016
Quieting the Noise of Your Life
Over the years many people have reported “transformational” experiences in working with the Getting Things Done® methodology. I have seen people lose pounds in just a few days, their faces brighten, their countenance and attitude swing way to the positive, and even make tremendous shifts in how they think and work for the rest of their lives.
That is certainly rewarding feedback and testimony to the validity of the methodology. Many people consequently tend to think that there is something mystical and even “spiritual” about it. Here’s my perspective: there is something mystical and spiritual about people, not the process.
Learning to unhook our energies from the past and from incomplete cycles, and then to take charge responsibly about where we put our attention and focus, is about as basic an empowerment process as one could engage in. Of course it can seem transformational, because we move over (or up) into the driver’s seat of our own consciousness when we do those things. Fully integrating GTD will quiet the noise and let you feel in control of the reins of your life in a way you may not have for a long while.
If that intimidates you, I invite you to take a look at what’s holding you back. If that inspires you, what’s your next action?
–David Allen
This article appeared in David’s monthly newsletter, Productive Living. Subscribe for free.
July 20, 2016
Episode #19 – GTD and Global Sustainability
Listen as David Allen talks with Gillian Martin Mehers, who has dedicated her career to helping people doing good work in organizations focusing on global sustainability. As a highly enthusiastic GTDer and experienced professional in training and development, she shares many of her own successful techniques for spreading those best practices to others.
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July 15, 2016
David Allen on 5 Reasons for a Meeting
Ever find yourself wondering why you’re in a meeting or what the meeting is trying to accomplish? Here is a classic article from David Allen on 5 Reasons for a Meeting. Enjoy!
There are five reasons to have a meeting. Each may be a perfectly fine reason. Make sure everyone at your meeting knows and agrees with which of these you are there to accomplish.
1. GIVE INFORMATION
“Hello everyone. I’ve brought you all together today to let you know what’s been going on about the pending lawsuit. I’d like you to leave here today understanding what’s going on, and with as much background as you need to be able to answer questions that may arise from our customers.”
2. GET INFORMATION
“Thanks for coming. We’ve invited you all here to find out from everyone what we should be aware of that’s going on in your division relative to the new product roll-out. We want to know what’s happening at all levels in the organization about this, so we can make some adjustments in our plans accordingly.”
3. DEVELOP OPTIONS
“We’d like to spend this afternoon surfacing, formulating, and exploring as many possible ways to deal with the problem we’ve just uncovered in the new system implementation. We want to make sure we’ve got everyone’s perspectives and all the possible
alternatives formulated.”
4. MAKE DECISIONS
“We’ve brought you all together this morning to present to you the three proposed approaches to launching our new product, and get a consensus decision on which one to pursue.”
5. WARM MAGICAL HUMAN CONTACT
“There are three agenda items we would like to cover today. And though we could have done this by email, we wanted to have an opportunity to bring the new team together in one place, and get some time to get to know each other between the lines…”
You may often have more than one of these agendas—sometimes even all five. “Today I’m going to share some information with you, and get some information from you as well. We’re then going to explore some possible approaches to the situation, and then decide our best course of action. Meanwhile it will give us a chance to get to know each other a little more as real people…”
Pretty common sense stuff. Right. But, ever sat in a room with someone trying to make a decision, someone else just wanting to do some brainstorming about some possibilities, some people just wanting to get to know who they’re working with, and someone else just wanting to get some information about the situation? And they all wind up wanting to kill each other?
It’s very valuable to get clarification and agreement on the front end, as to which of the five reasons for a meeting you have going on.
–David Allen
June 29, 2016
Take a GTD Challenge Around Your “Stuff”
Things do not get rid of themselves. There seems to be a universal law of physics that goes like this: things that exist want to keep existing, even if there’s no good reason. And I think they have strange, secret, invisible agents that lurk in our psyche, planting little numbing seeds like “it’s there, so there must be a good reason it’s there.”
And stuff changes. What’s useful today may not be so useful tomorrow and by next week may be irrelevant and by next month may be seriously in the way of us getting things done. In addition to inconveniently taking up physical space, it consumes psychic space, of which we can all use as much as we can get.
When was the last time you did an inventory of what you really don’t need anymore?
-in your center drawer
-in your briefcase
-in your closet
-in your garage
-in your bathroom cabinets
-in the trunk (boot) of your car
-on your bookshelves
-on your staff
-on your calendar
-on your computer
-in your product line
-in your relationships
-in your habits
-in your mind
Many of the things you will find have probably at some point become “someday/maybe” kinds of things, and perhaps there’s a decent reason to keep them around, just to keep the option open – “But what if I might need it?” At least consider migrating those to a deeper storage area, and limit that space, so as you add things to it, it forces you to move even older nostalgia out into the dumpster.
–David Allen
June 24, 2016
Episode #18 – Sharing GTD with Kids & Teens
Coaches Meg Edwards and Mike Williams share strategies, techniques, and insights for engaging kids and teens in GTD. They’ll weave in personal stories from their own experience as parents, and give practical exercises for bringing the power of GTD to young people in your life.
Listen Now
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June 21, 2016
The 5 Stages of GTD®
Where are you in the 5 I’s? David Allen explains the 5 stages you can expect with GTD:
If you’re not at “Integration” yet, here are some ideas to continue on the Path of GTD Mastery:
Read (or reread!) the Getting Things Done book. David Allen has often said it is “the” manual for learning this methodology and will give you the big picture as well as tactical tips and tricks.
Get coached virtually or in-person by a Certified GTD Coach
Take a GTD Fundamentals course, offered around the world.
Join GTDConnect.com where you can learn GTD at your own pace, through webinars and a huge multimedia library.
Wherever you are in the 5 I’s, we hope GTD is bringing you value!
June 19, 2016
The GTD Workflow Map
The GTD® Workflow Map is now available as a PDF download. This Map is a beautiful visual learning tool for understanding how David Allen’s models for control & perspective come together.
We also offer the Map as a printed poster.
June 14, 2016
Who are the biggest procrastinators?
The biggest procrastinators are usually the most sophisticated, sensitive, creative, and intelligent people.
Nailed you, did I? Well, I assume you’re in the sophisticated, creative, and intelligent category. That probably means you have large numbers of things stuck in your mind, in your briefcase, and on your desk about which things are not moving forward quite as consistently as they could be.
Major reason: the precise next physical visible activity (next action) has probably not been decided on the to-do’s. The bright people usually have some sort of reminders about their projects and things to do on lists, in piles, or lying around, so they won’t forget to think about their commitments. Bully. But every time they catch the briefest glimpse of any of them, they instantly race forward in their mind, rapidly and intelligently creating images of all the possible pieces that have to fit together and all the things that might have to be involved in getting them to happen and all the possible negative consequences if any one of them slips (and all the things that they might be forgetting in all this). Whew! Freaked themselves right out. I’d quit, too.
Three solutions: (1) frontal lobotomy, (2) bottle-in-front-of-me, or (3) figure out the very next action required to move each of those projects forward. Each will take some of the pressure off, but I recommend option #3 for the most permanent and elegant fix.
I was recently reminded about this again graphically, coaching several executives on Wall Street one-on-one. You couldn’t find many savvier, more creative, industrious, successful folks, yet each had varying degrees of “stuckness” about many important projects and issues. They simply hadn’t thought these things quite through enough to get to the very next action step. When I got them to make that decision, tons of things uncorked and their own peace of mind went up dramatically. What amazed them the most was that it only took a few seconds to decide the next step, and that they didn’t have to have the project totally figured out to get moving on it. Big surprise.
Don’t just decide that you need to set a meeting—decide whether that’s an email to send or a phone call to make, and to whom. Watch things move…and how much more deserving of the “sophisticated, sensitive, creative, and intelligent” label you’ll feel!
–David Allen
This article appeared in David’s monthly newsletter, Productive Living. Subscribe for free.
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