Both David and longtime friend to the David Allen Company and developer of eProductivity for Lotus Notes, Eric Mack will be presenting at Lotusphere.  Their session, called IBM Lotus Notes and Me:  Maximizing Personal Productivity with Lotus Notes is on Monday, January 9th at 5PM with a booksigning at 6:30PM.  If you’re attending Lotusphere you should be sure not to miss this session which is part of Track 4.

Here’s the abstract for the session:

Session abstract People often talk about Lotus Notes being an “organizational” productivity tool; that’s the way Lotus Notes is marketed and it’s often the way organizations deploy it – as a top down solution. Seldom do you hear about Lotus Notes being used for “personal” productivity or knowledge management. As a consequence many users see Notes as a “company” tool and not “their” tool. When tools become “personal,” productivity increases and when personal productivity increases so does the productivity of the workgroup and the organization. This session will show both expert and novice Notes users how they can use Notes coupled with proven best practices to make them immediately more productive.

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On December 13th the David Allen Company is presenting a special FREE event, Q&A, and book signing with David Allen at UCLA. You’re invited!

Registration begins at 9AM and the event runs from 9:30 to 12:30.  Here is your chance to get a preview of David’s new “Making It All Work” seminar, the next generation of his popular RoadMap training.

If you want some keys for staying in the driver’s seat in the unfamiliar territory of this economy,  need to get a better handle on everything or just wish to ensure you begin the coming year with a fresh start, then this event is for you.

This special program is also the kick off for David’s new marketing campaign for 2009. Our goal for this campaign is be to reach a broader audience with the GTD message, and we are hope you will help spread the word..

In preparation for the campaign, we will be filming this event so that we can capture testimonials and some really great visual footage.  Please come dressed in business casual attire.

Registration is free: simply click here!

Seats are limited, so be sure to  sign up now to guarantee yourself a spot.

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Will Traveler make getting things done with Notes easy?
I have a long-standing interest in devices and applications that increase mobile knowledge worker productivity, particularly those that support the GTD methodology and can sync with Lotus Notes. The problem is that most of the devices that I have used to date fail in one or both categories. For this reason, I have continued use and recommend the Treo 755p for power GTD users that want a powerful mobile list manager that seamelessly integrates with Lotus Notes. It’s not that the Treo is the best mobile platform out there. It isn’t. It simply has the best native list manager for managing projects and actions using the GTD methodology.

Since I know that someone will object to my statement, let me explain what I want in a mobile list manager: I want to click one button and see my list of projects and actions, sorted by context. I do not want to have to click Start, Run, and then click a bunch of options to find my tasks. I also want these views and the way I set them up to be persistent, which rules out two of the most popular device families on the market today.  I don’t mind using third party solutions to accomplish this, but for some devices, like the Nokia Series, they simply do not exist. I find it amazing that devices marketed to the business professional and equipped with so many productivity features would be so lacking in this vital component of productivity: list management.

For years, David Allen and I have discussed this: why do manufacturers make great hardware and then drop the ball when it comes to the suitability of their list management and task integration? (David uses a 755p, also.) I think it must be that manufacturers are expecting people to purchase based on the shiny features and not on what they can accomplish with the device. Earlier this year, a client generously gave me a shiny new Nokia E90 Communicator  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_E90> as a thank you gift. The E90 is a truly amazing mobile productivity device. Except, it has two problems: No task management. Zip. Zilch. Nada. (Unless you count their lame recording of a task as a note in a calendar event) and no reliable over-the-air sync of tasks to Lotus Notes. David and I played with this device this summer and agreed that while it sported an impressive list of hardware features it was essentially useless for us as a mobile GTD support tool. So, into pile of “really cool devices that I cannot use” it went. I hoped that someday, I might find a solution that would allow me to test this device as a list manager with Notes.

As much as I like the device from a productivity perspective, the Palm OS-based Treo is rapidly being eclipsed by BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices with some competition from iPhone. (I say “some” as I have yet to find a suitable on-device sync and device management solution for iPhone, which means I won’t recommend it for use with Notes and GTD.) I recently surveyed our customers that use eProductivity for Lotus Notes and found that well over 50% are using BlackBerry. In the U.S. the remaining 50% is made up of a large number of WM devices and then a variety of other devices. In Europe, the Nokia S60 platform is more common with WM coming in second.)  (Before I go further, I do plan to purchase a BlackBerry Bold to evaluate as my next productivity platform, but that’s a post for another day.)

Enter Lotus Traveler

Last week, Nokia and IBM announced support for a number of Nokia’s S60-based mobile phones, extending the reach of Lotus Notes to millions of users of Nokia devices that use the Nokia S60 3rd Edition platform. According to the announcements and blog posts including yesterday’s on GTDtimes, in excess of 80 million people – the number of Nokia S60 3rd Edition devices shipped globally – will soon be able to connect to corporate email accounts on a Lotus Domino Server. The glue that makes this possible is Traveler, a product that launched earlier this year. The Lotus Traveler software provides real time access to email, calendar, address book, journal and to-dos and the newly added support for the Nokia S60 platform is coming next month.

I think IBM is making a smart move to extend the reach of Lotus Notes to a variety of platforms. For years, I’ve used and recommended CommonTime mNotes and Sybase iAnywhere. If you have a Windows Mobile or Palm device, CommonTime simply works. Sybase has extensive device support, however, my experience is that they are making it increasingly costly for clients to buy their products. (I guess they are doing really well and do not want my client’s business.) So, I welcome the announcement of Traveler. I think it’s great to have a native Notes solution to recommend as well.

How well will Lotus Traveler handle Task Management?

I have no doubt that the Lotus team will do a good job with sync to the Nokia platform, and I have read enthusiastic reviews from users who are using Traveler on their Windows Mobile devices. What remains to be seen, is how well Traveler handles task management. This is something that Lotus and other vendors historically haven’t done very well. The IBM Web site for Traveler shows a thumbnail for a task list but there are no screen shots of any task lists so I cannot tell how well they have been implemented. Since I have yet to install Traveler, myself, I cannot comment on how well  Traveler handles task management, either on Windows Mobile or on the Nokia Platform. If you are using Traveler for task management on either of these platforms, I’d like to hear from you with your thoughts.

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Community Contribution from Yolanda Otero, an HR Compliance Coordinator from AmerisourceBergen in Orlando Florida

I been doing the GTD for the last 6 months and this has changed my day completely in a way that I’m more proactive, organized, and I have full control of work time due to the way that I manage my time through the GTD process.

This is an idea that I want to share with you all.  I do a lot of projects and it was not easy to keep track of every step that a project has as a different task.  What I do now is to write down all the steps in the body of the task and as I go to each task I mark the preceeding one “DONE”.   I change the subject, I type the new step # and change the due date and or category. Any thing new I’ll add it to the body and that way I keep track of the complete project in one task.

I shared this with the management team GTD meeting in our Division in Orlando and they like it. Hope you like it too, thanks.

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Left to my own devices, I have a terrible time maintaining focus when I need to write, do web design, work on spreadsheets or databases, or do intensive analytical reading. While I refuse to go to the doctor to get a formal diagnosis, I pretty much know that I have ADD (I score between 75-85% of the indicators for it on the tests I’ve taken myself). I was fortunate to be raised in an environment that allowed me to develop coping mechanisms and become very high-functioning, and I’ve since learned that there is a high correlation between AD/HD symptoms and entrepreneurial traits.

So, where was I? 

Oh yeah… I was talking about maintaining focus when writing and doing other production work. I find that my brain is constantly throwing completely irrelevant ideas into my conscious awareness.

As a coping mechanism, as a student back in high school and college, I frequently used to study to music, and found that it usually helped my concentration.As an adult, I started slipping into the habit of media multi-tasking — trying to watch TV, IM/Twitter and read/write at the same time. NOT effective!

So as an experiment, I’ve reverted back to my school-age practice of using music to try to help me focus. The difference is that now I’ve approached it more scientifically, testing and comparing my ability to maintain sustained, focus effort with different kinds of music. Now, I’m not claiming that I’ve been rigorous — I won’t be publishing this in any medical journals — but I’ve definitely found what does and what doesn’t work for me.

Here’s what doesn’t seem to work for me:

• Lyrics – If there are vocals, it seems to activate the language center of my brain and distracts from writing or reading effectively.
• Too mellow – If it’s too relaxed, it puts me to sleep.
• Too simple – Apparently my subconscious mind requires a certain degree of complexity to keep its attention on the music. Ambient music allows my mind to wander still.
• Too complex – Polyrhythms, complex chord changes, etc., become an intellectual exercise of their own.
• Multiple instruments – Another form of complexity, multiple instruments demand more conscious attention. A simple rhythmic accompaniment is usually OK, but large ensembles don’t seem to work well.
• Too familiar – If the songs I hear are too familiar, my mind wanders to memories associated with the songs.

So that was my challenge: to find music that is energetic, moderately complex, performed on a single instrument (or small ensemble) and not overly familiar.

Enter the marvelous world of social music. Sites like Pandora and Last.fm allow you to create “stations” that play music of a particular style. You can “seed” the stations with particular artists or songs, then vote “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” on the songs as they’re played. Over time, you can create stations that are tightly formatted to the specific musical characteristics you’re looking for, but provide you new and unfamiliar music so you get plenty of variety.

I’ve been working on this for months, experimenting with the various musical formats. I’ve created/found a few stations at Pandora that perfectly suit my requirements for “music to work by”. I invite you to have a listen and see what you think. And if you don’t like them, you can modify them or create new ones for your own tastes:

• Modern Fingerstyle Guitar
• Flamenco Guitar
• Contemporary Solo Piano
• Impressionist / Modernist Solo Piano

How about you? What music helps you get things done?

Image by Jesse Therrien via sxc.hu

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A Community Contribution by Erik Hanberg.  Please note, this is Erik’s personal opinion. Things is not affiliated with or endorsed by David Allen Company. But we’re happy to pass along an objective review from a community member!

Too Much to Do

In April of this year, I left my full time job to “go freelance.” My schedule has been all over the place as a result. Between writing and doing web development for my fiancé’s graphic design firm,  managing my coworking office space in downtown Tacoma, operating my small theater production company, presiding over my condo association,  trying to get a novel published, and last – but most certainly not least  – getting married at the end of the year; you could say I’m a pretty busy guy.  While no single one of these activities takes up a full work week, the number and variety of things I needed to do made me feel like I was dropping the ball on all of them.

[Read more →]

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For those of you that love the tried and true tools of pen and paper, the David Allen Company has just launched a couple of new products that you’re sure to love. Two sizes of personal coordinators; jr. size and letter size as well as a letter size calendar.

Made by Mead, the same folks that make the At-a-Glance products, these new additions to the David Allen Company Store were designed specifically for those of us that practice GTD.

Both coordinators feature helpful tabbed sections that can have a profound effect on your productivity and peace of mind. Each section is prefaced with an educational piece with examples to show the user best GTD practices in that area of the coordinator. The action tab for instance, has eight pages of text to accompany that area, included in the reference tabbed section are the GTD Templates in paper form! There is an intelligent ‘flow” in how the sections function and work together.

The coordinator includes the following tabbed sections:
• Notes/In
• Calendar
• Action Lists
• Agendas
• Projects/Goals
• Project Plans/Notes
• Reference/Misc.
• Contacts

The 2009 GTD® Calendar is part of a full array of GTD tools®. Based on the revolutionary principles from “Getting Things Done” the calendar comes with a full page of written instructions as well as a blank Notes/In pad, useful as a capture tool and a cornerstone of David Allen’s methodology.

This calendar is best used for these three things:
1. Appointments
2. Day-specific actions
3. Information for and about that day

The calendar has the following features:
• January- December 2009
• Monthly tabbed overviews
• Weekly calendar
• 8 ½ by 11 inch page size
• Note/In Pad included
• Refillable/reusable faux leather cover
• Wire binding

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GTD Connect is David Allen’s subscription product for people that are serious about GTD. Not only are there original articles from David and other David Allen Company GTD Trainers that you can’t find anywhere else, there are also videos, audios and even forum discussions.

An annual subscription to this amazing service runs $40 per month but right now you can try it for fourteen days absolutely free. I don’t know how long this free offer will last so if you haven’t already become a subscriber you probably want to head over to the trial registration page and sign up before it’s too late!

Here’s an example of the sort of material that GTD Connect members can access any time day or night, 365 days a year. You simply won’t find material or information like this anywhere else.

From GTD Connect’s exclusive library:

The Simpsons Interview:
What happens when you cross GTD with the world’s most successful TV comedy show? You’ll find out in this high-energy and humorous dialog between David and three of the writers of The Simpsons. Listen as Dan Greaney, Rob LeZebnik, and Danny Chun share how they’ve implemented GTD principles, each in his own way, and how they get things done in a unique professional environment. The way they produce creative comedy by committee may have some lessons for all of us!

Here’s a link to a sample of the interview. If you want to hear the entire thing use the link below but be warned that you do have to register to access that material (registration is free).

Link to full interview on GTD Connect:*

Ismael Ghalimi Interview:

Ismael Ghalimi is the epitome of the new global and virtual professional. He runs a successful high-tech software company in Silicon Valley. He’s also the creator and driving force behind the annual Office 2.0 conference. And, as a dedicated GTDer, he manages himself with totally web-based software. Listen as Ismael shares with David his perspectives on getting things done in his highly mobile world.

A link to a sample of the interview is here. Use the link below to listen to the entire program.

Link to full interview on GTD Connect *

Once again you can register for the free trial of GTD Connect here.

*Please note that free registration is required in order to listen to the interviews hosted at GTD Connect’s private site.

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Wow! What an amazing turnout! We’ve finally selected our winner and the runners up in the GTDtimes / David Allen Company Executive Workflow Contest. You guys certainly didn’t make it easy. We were overwhelmed at the number of high quality entries from the GTDtimes readership. .

There are so many people with compelling reasons as to why they needed coaching and interesting jobs that they’re doing that we could easily have awarded ten days of coaching! Well, maybe next time. For now here are your winners and the runners up:

Grand Prize Winner: Jeff Goza – Jeff wins a full day of executive workflow coaching at his home or office as well as the full cost for the coach to travel to his location and any other expenses incurred in the course of providing Jeff with his full day of training.

Upon learning that he’d won, Jeff had the following to say:

“My name is Jeff Goza. I have the pleasure of working at a facility that serves over 500 men & women with Mental Retardation. We provide 24/7 care to those who can’t care for themselves due to various mental & physical issues. As you can imagine, our workload is high and many of the things we do can literally be life & death issues for those we serve.”

“My experience with GTD has been very helpful since I read “THE BOOK” and started implementing many of the GTD principles. Like others, I have fallen off the wagon numerous time but with the help of the GTD Community and rereading various chapters I have been able to come back into the fold. I have struggled with various parts of the system as I try to fit into my day-to-day work but I have found GTD to be flexible enough that it can be done.”

“I am very grateful to the David Allen Company and GTDtimes for making the opportunity for Executive Coaching available. I will look forward to writing a full accounting of my day in the near future.”

First Runners Up: The below-named runners up will each receive free registration for a regularly scheduled David Allen Company public seminar to be used before the end of 2009.

Ran Barton
William Brown
Mike McCollum

Second Runners Up: The below-named individuals will each receive a copy of David Allen’s recent GTD Live Ten CD Set from the David Allen GTD Online Store.

Congratulations to all our winners! Well Done!

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Editor’s Note:  This is the second part of a two part series on Action Support Folders and Tickler Lists.  The first part can be found here.

In the prior post I wrote a little about a recent coaching call I had with DAC Certified Coach, Julie Ireland and shared how she recommended that I set up my Tickler List and how I connect those items in it to my calendar where such items have a hard landscape deadline of some sort.

A number of readers chimed in with interesting comments and additional good suggestions – be sure to read the comments from the prior post to see some other excellent ways in which people are making sure that their reminders are doing their job.

Today I wanted to talk a little bit about the other rarely mentioned folder – the Action Support folder and how Julie recommends that it should be used as well as to briefly touch upon another folder that Julie suggested I incorporate into my system the “In Progress” folder.

In Julie’s system Action Support is a highly specific and constrained folder that contains only items for actions that are going to be undertaken in the very near future.  She was careful to distinguish between items in an Action Support folder and items in a Project Folder.  The former, she says should generally contain items specific to individual actions – a shopping list for the next trip to the grocery store for example versus, say a spreadsheet with statistics that is being used as research for a white paper that you are writing.  The latter of course should be placed in a Project Folder specific to that white paper – one among the likely many resources that are being used for that particular complex project.

An estimate for an auto repair would also go in the action support folder provided that this was a one-off occurrence and not a restoration project for instance.

My problem is that I have certain things that I’m doing that require more than say a single document in support of a single task, but perhaps multiple documents in support of a single task.  Let me give you an example:

Right now I’m disputing a bill with my insurance company.  I’m reluctant to call this a project (in spite of the fact that my insurance company is determined to turn it into one!) for two reasons, first because it is just a single situation that should be possible to resolve with a single thirty minute period @phone – however it does require supporting documentation, to wit a bunch of insurance documents that I already have in my (making me) Blue (and) Cross folder.

I’ve already gone to the trouble to pull the documents that I needed out in preparation for the call.  The issue is that every time I sit down at the phone determined to get this solved I dial the number and get a message that it will be thirty minutes before someone can take my call.  I don’t have thirty minutes to sit around on hold during the day – does anyone?

So now I’ve got the paperwork out and ready to go but the call may not be happening for another day or two.  I don’t really want to put the documents back into my BlueX folder only to have to go get them again in a day but I don’t really want to leave them stacked on my desk either (which is what I had been doing anyway prior to my call with Julie).

The In Progress folder is her solution to a situation like this.  I can simply put the documents into this folder (which should never have more than a couple items in it or there’s some other problem that requires more coaching then I am capable of providing) and they’ll be ready to go when I find either that I have thirty minutes during which I suddenly crave an elevator muzak concerto or when I win the game of cell-phone roulette and actually get a real person instead of a machine when I call my delightful insurers.

Julie recommends that the In Progress Folder be located in your in box or somewhere that’s within easy reach so that you can access it at a moment’s notice when your context is appropriate for tackling some task for which you’ve already prepared thanks to this convenient strategy.  It’s a lot better than having a bunch of documents that are too active to put away but not quite ready to be in use that moment.

I’m sure that some of you have other strategies that allow you to deal with similar situations in an equally efficient manner.  Perhaps a few of you would be kind enough to share your methods with other GTDtimes readers?  Let us know in the comments.  Thanks.

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