Comments on: GTD at Home

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:05:26 +0000

Great overview! The inboxes are pivotal to success. A tool to use as you set up inboxes is 5S. 5S will help bring stability and organization to breed more success with GTD. Check out more at homegtd.blogspot.com.

By: Around the House: Take Your Project from Start to Finish

Around the House: Take Your Project from Start to Finish — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:55:28 +0000

[...] GTD at Home: Your Family Can Get Things Done [...]

By: Michael Gorsline

Michael Gorsline — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:05:16 +0000

As a parent coach and family therapist, these are ideas that I both need to share with clients and road test myself at home. My work life is pretty well GTD’d, and my own projects at home as well, but we could use the additional structure around the house in a host of other ways. Thanks for the ideas.

By: Margaret

Margaret — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:42:27 +0000

My kids love to do things that only take 2 minutes. To make jobs like picking up toys, folding laundry, and emptying the dishwasher fun, I find a upbeat song that’s close to 2 minutes long and they do their task while the song blars! It helps them move faster and enjoy the task! Thanks for the encouragement to try the 2 minute drill to more tasks. Great stuff!

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:30:53 +0000

I will start using it at home. I am the only person I have to convince to use GTD. So its up to me to make it happen.

By: Wayne Pepper

Wayne Pepper — Thu, 22 May 2008 10:43:07 +0000

To answer Scott Stephen’s question, we got our kids to think at 50K by inviting them to participate in the creation of family guiding principles. Ours look like this:

Pepper Family Guiding Principles

We treat each other with loving, caring and respect.

We play as a team, supporting each other’s growth and expansion.

We take care of ourselves, so that we can take care of each other.

We have fun together.

We are devoted to God, and to the Loving.

We communicate honestly with one another.

We easily and gracefully create great abundance, and creatively give back of our overflow.

Even when we are not in close physical proximity to one another, our loving keeps us together.

By: Aditya Gholap

Aditya Gholap — Sun, 18 May 2008 06:49:56 +0000

Wow Michael – great tips. I like your idea of the Family being a ‘team’. I’ll check out your web application. Im currently using Deskaway and i am now already using it as a project management tool to communicate with my family for simple tasks (the great thing about PM tools is that it allows you to control different relationships with different people!) – with better analytics people can actually track the consistency of family communication and the roadmap of the family. Coupled with tools – care, nurture, and communication are of supreme importance. Tools should just remain tools to help us do the good things in life better!

By: Trish

Trish — Sat, 17 May 2008 03:37:26 +0000

you have inpsired me to start GTD and get almost 15yr moving in 2min segments.He always says in a min … now my reply is you can have 2 mins and I will time you how long it takes.
I need the inspiration too.
I am starting early on my twin toddlers …they might not understand time yet but they will soon.
Brilliant site.

By: Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:04:30 +0000

Thanks for the comments guys! Getting the family to work with you on this is very challenging and as I wrote – it’s a constant work-in-progress thing…

My wife loves our list of 2-minute rules and we keep reminding each other about it – when we know something takes two minutes – there’s no excuse anymore!

As to the inboxes – it’s a challenge to convert it into a “processing” place rather than a “storage” place… but don’t give up!

By: tb

tb — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:16:33 +0000

I never realised that this takes less than two minutes:
‚Ä¢ Grab a beer from the fridge (*)

I will be heqvily applying the two minute rule this weekend!

(*) and when it takes more than two minutes, it is time to stop drinking…

By: Scott STEPHEN

Scott STEPHEN — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:13:24 +0000

Great article Michael.
I have one question. How do you get kids to think at the 50K level?

By: TesTeq

TesTeq — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:45:53 +0000

Great idea! Nozbe “family plan” seems to be the first GTD software system for family!

By: Lori Reed

Lori Reed — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:23:38 +0000

Thank you! I can’t wait to share this with my husband. We went from a family of 2 to 4 over the past few years and as our kids get older we are going to need a better system for our family!

By: TonyP

TonyP — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:53:21 +0000

Great post, Michael. You inspired me to get back to ideas about this in my own blog. One of the things I’m interested in is how to leverage different developmental themes in children’s lives to promote next-action thinking in different ways at different times. I’ve included a map about that in the post I wrote after reading yours: http://tinyurl.com/5baxc2

Thanks again for a stimulating post!

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:48:53 +0000

All good tips Michael. I have not made a big deal about GTD at home but have slowly introduced concepts to my family by stealth! The kids know if there’s something they want me to see and action they need to put in my inbox. School notes, party invitations, birthday wishlists, mail etc. My wife has an Inbox which has become a storage place rather than a collection and processing point. Have also tried to use next action thinking with the kids as far as homework goes. I just wrote yesterday about our central calendar of commitments and events as well as the daily and weekly reviewing we do at
http://freeflowlife.net/2008/05/08/family-and-communication/

Simon