The Examiner.com has a post called “The Thirty Day File” that reads as follows:

Ok, You have started using GTD. You  have 43 Folders in the desk drawer file cabinet. You are still inundated by requests for your time - all of which are urgent. Try the 30 day file approach. It could be a bit dangerous - but that’s up to you.

• Step 1 - When you get a request for some activity or task, date it and file it in your 30 day file.
• Step 2 - If at the end of 30 days no one has gotten back to you on this item - trash it.
• Step 3 - If your boss asks you how it’s coming - say “Great”, pull it out of the file and move it to your active stack.

Try it. It works!

Since the author opens by stating that “you are using GTD and the 43 Folders approach towards productivity” it makes sense to assume that this author is also using GTD to some degree.

Given that I have to ask how this “Thirty Day File” approach towards prioritizing what needs to be done aligns with GTD in any way shape or form?

From my perspective this seems like abrogating control to whomever in your life asks you for things the most frequently and it appears to have nothing whatsoever to do with the Natural Planning Model.  In fact it seems more like the evil opposite of GTD a demon we call “Latest and Loudest”.

Even if you ignore the obvious question “Yes, but what if I’m my own boss and only I schedule what I need to do and when I need to do it?” this approach appears to be fraught with potential disasters from almost every angle imaginable.

What’s ironic about this is that the advice comes from what appears to be a highly authoritative source. Howard Flomberg has some impressive credentials and would appear to be someone that should understand GTD and be able to apply its concepts correctly both to his own life and by extension to the lives of people that take his advice.

Now I’m not claiming to be the definitive source on GTD - as those of you that have been reading GTDtimes from day one are aware, I am a relative new-comer to this practice.  That said, if it is obvious to me that this approach is pretty much the antithesis of GTD than it must seem even more agregious to those of you that have been practicing GTD for years.

On the other hand, perhaps I am misunderstanding something fundamental either about this method of prioritization or about GTD.  Thus what I’d like to do is ask your opinion:  is this GTD or is this GTD’s arch nemesis disguised as GTD by a well meaning expert on workplace productivity who doesn’t quite grasp the nuances of GTD as David Allen conceives it?

I trust that you’ll let me know what you think in the comments.  And, if you happen to be Mr. Flomberg I would welcome your comments and critical analysis as well.

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By Steve Borsch

In a time when uncertainty is accelerating, budgets have been cut and revenues downtrending, threats from terrorism and epidemics (e.g., avian flu) are increasingly driving companies and individuals to better anticipate and manage risk, we all need better tools. The embrace of the Getting Things Done system by an ever increasing number of individuals and organizations — and those of us who recognize that collaboration is more critical than ever before — continue to seek tools that are easy to use, fast, intuitive while helping us to be more productive, creative and efficient, especially as we’re increasingly mobile.

The mobile reality is that more of us are accelerating our mobile and multiple internet-connected device usage (e.g., laptops or smartphones accessing over wifi or wireless cellular networks) — while still desiring the use of data that originates on our desktop machines or that which resides online in the ‘cloud’ — and you have the key motivators that were behind the creation of a new, collaborative application with a GTD twist.

A successful entrepreneur and chief technologist (he was formerly CTO of HighJump Software), CEO Steve Kickert’s Riverock Technologies recently launched OnePlace, an online collaboration and GTD tool that has a good shot at being a hub positioned directly in the sweet spot of what’s needed today.

[Read more →]

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Mac Alert: This setup would work for Mac users only.

David Allen recommends that you always have Material that you want to read separately stacked or filed in a “To Read” shelf or a “To Read” tray or “To Read” folder. Well, what about the material to which you would like to listen or watch? During the many hours that you spend traveling from home to office or the many business trips that you might be taking, if you are in the mood to listen to or watch something, what do you do? Do you force feed yourself the material that’s lying around in the plane or just randomly play something in your iPod? Well here’s a step by step guide to always having just the stuff you would like “to hear” or “to watch” in your iPod.

[Read more →]

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“Work and play are words used for the same thing under differing conditions” —Mark Twain
All good things come in three’s—just like the steps of the weekly review:

1. Get Clear
2. Get Current
3. Get Creative

Getting work done

First get clear. Collect everything in one place—the loose bits of paper, assignments, toys, (school) books and randomly ordered thoughts. Put it all in one place, like the IN basket. Then work it down until you get it is empty.

Doing this for myself regularly keeps me in control. Similarly with my children, the effects are most obvious when I am not asked where the clean socks or trousers are—the wash-IN basket is empty.

Or where that missing library book is to be found. And when my daughter has the conversation with me about doing less English at school so that she can concentrate more on her Russian. (We speak German together at home).

The balance between work and play

Then get current. Connecting with everything and identifying what to do with or about it, is a balancing act.

This is most obvious to me in the moment of now. In reviewing everything, I know how and when to keep in balance. That careful balancing act between work and play.

“The richest and fullest lives attempt to achieve inner balance between 3 realms: work, love and play. That to pursue one realm to the disregard of the other is to open oneself to ultimate sadness in older age. Whereas to pursue all 3 with equal dedication, is to make possible a life not only with achievement but with serenity.” —Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Doris Kearns Goodwin on learning from past presidents | Video on TED.com

How often do you get to play?

Get creative. Creative ideas seem easy for kids. Wild outrageous and seriously fun things are so easy for kids because it’s most like play.

Sometimes it is also important to do just nothing. Sit out in the garden and enjoy the view of how the seasons change. Or enjoy a coffee in your favorite café—doing nothing. Not even with your notebook. Just doing nothing can be the most productive time of the day. Kids do it (almost) all the time.

“Hey what are you doing?” — “Oh? Nothing!”

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The Getting Things Done in Academia blog has a great post up right now featuring a fascinating segment of a conversation between Obama and Torry Tory leader David Cameron of the UK.

Seeing as how we are mere days away from deciding whether this man becomes our next president or not I thought it was particularly interesting to get a glimpse of what he thinks is important and especially exciting to see how what he said aligns with the philosophy of GTD.

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