David Allen is now a regular columnist for the newly-launched UK version of Wired magazine. Check out his current column.

In his regular column on GTD Connect, David shared about how this came to be:

“The associate editor, Ben Hammersley, became a big GTD fan when he wrote about it for The Guardian; and he now wanted to include my thinking in with the new publication’s intended focus on “life going forward.” Ben’s enthusiasm to make it “the best combination of New Yorker, the Atlantic, and the Economist, with an edge” was infectious, and I think a perfect venue for a more sophisticated spin of GTD-ness. Having scanned the first two issues, I’d say Ben’s on track.”

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“Time is money.”

We’ve all heard the infamous quote from Benjamin Franklin. He’s one of history’s most revered individuals.  We’ve even found a way to make his stance on his “13 Virtues” into a means of feeling a sense of accomplishment in our daily lives. He was smart, articulate and an innovator.

But I’m sorry, Ben. Your quote no longer applies.

Now, I’m not saying that aspects of it don’t apply – there is a certain basic need to ensure time is not wasted or it will cost money. There’s no argument there. The truth is that time that isn’t well spent can also cost you money – sometimes even more so – because there’s going to be something lacking.

Focus.

Without focus, thoughts and ideas are scattered. Actions remain incomplete. Projects wither and die. I’ve had it happen to me on several occasions in the past; I’ve had so much on the go and no sense on where I’m going that I end up either lost or nowhere at all. And that’s nowhere to be.

I’ve also heard arguments that the only way one can achieve focus is to avoid multitasking. This is a bit of a fallacy. The truth is, you need to be able to show that you can handle many tasks – and yet can focus on one task at a time. This allows you to remain both viable and reliable, which are two very valuable qualities to have in your arsenal.

The only way anyone can achieve this on a consistent basis is by putting a system in place that allows both to occur. GTD does this admirably well, provided that you “get clear” when adopting it. Taking the right amount of time – focused time – to fully and properly put the system in place will get you on the road to being more productive.

If nothing else from this sinks in (which means you REALLY need to focus), remember the following quote, courtesy of yours truly:

“With consistent focus, you can start bringing in consistent “benjamins.”

Now I’ve got your attention…

Mike Vardy is a regular contributor to GTD Times. With his great sense of humor and self-professed productivity expert credentials, we hope you enjoy his perspectives on GTD!

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In case this is useful for others out there, wondering where to start with GTD, here is a letter we received from a new GTD’er in Australia today.

Sean writes, “I have just been recommended to use Omni [Focus] project management software to assist me in managing my ever complex working and private life.  I have looked at the software and I have found that they follow your principles.  My question is How do I start?  Do I buy the book, or buy the software or begin on some your other programs.  Please advise me.”

This is probably one of the most common questions we get at the David Allen Company.  A good way to think of GTD is that it is a systematic approach, not a system.  If you understand the approach first, then applying that to the system tools (like OmniFocus, the Outlook Add-in by Netcentrics, or any of the nearly 150+ GTD-centric software programs out there), will make more a whole lot more sense.

Here are 10 ways to learn the GTD approach:

1.  Read or listen to the Getting Things Done book. It is THE ultimate manual for GTD. Part One gives a great overview. Part Two walks you through coaching yourself through the process.

2.  Go through the Getting Started Series on GTD Connect.  If you’re not a member, try the free 2-week trial.  You can access everything as a trial-member except download content.  There is also a great video in the  Connect GTD Cafe called, “I read the book, now what?”

3.  Go to a public GTD seminar.

4.  Get coached in person or by phone.

5.  Find a friend or coworker who already does GTD and have them show you their setup and how they work it.

6.  Read the What is GTD? overview from David Allen.

7.  Listen to David do a full two-day GTD seminar on CD.

8.  Grab this free article to learn the 5 phases of Mastering Workflow. Then apply that consistently to one area of your workflow, such as your email inbox.  When that’s mastered, move on to the next area.

9.  Read the DavidCo staff blogs on getting started, like this series from Kelly.

10.  Listen to some of the free podcasts with the DavidCo coaches on the GTD best practices.

Obviously, these approaches range widely in time commitment, content and budget, but hopefully there’s something in there to kick start things for you!

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A GTD Times community contribution by Arif and Ali Vakil

What made Einstein an Einstein or Newton a Newton? It was their amazing capability to look at what everybody was looking at, but see something different. The world sees an apple falling from a tree, but Newton notices there’s something greater at work here–it’s gravity. The world sees sunrise, sunset and umpteen other relationships with time and light throughout the day. Einstein looks and realizes that it’s not time that’s a constant, but it’s the speed of light. Similarly the whole world is involved getting stuff done, but David Allen sees through the clutter and comes up with best-practices, called “GTD”.

We’ve made a list of some amazing observations we feel give GTD its ‘chutzpah’. The brilliant thing about all these observations is that every one of us is coming across these at least several times every single day of our lives and any one of us could have figured it out. Be it psychologists with PhD degrees or masters in other fields, nobody captured it like David Allen. Gosh how life changing these practices have been.

The Next Action:
What a remarkable observation. That to move forward on any item, all you need is a Next Action. That’s it. One can only do a Next Action. We make calls (@Calls), complete errands (@Errands), speak to people (@Agenda) and do stuff on our computer (@Computer). All through our lives we’ve always been doing Next Actions, but perhaps never figured out to think in terms of Next Actions.

David takes his observation further. The fact that Next Actions can most be categorized in approximately 5 categories or so, is an amazing piece of insight. And, top it all off to notice also that there are so many Next Actions that don’t take longer 2 minutes, is pure genius.

(Note: David has often given the credit of the Next Action thinking to Dean Acheson.)

There is potential stress as soon as we receive something:
You can’t see it–it’s so very subtle–but it’s there. As soon as an email, voicemail or a piece of paper (even if it’s a cute little greeting card) enters my life, so does potential stress. And I never consciously noticed it. Ever. It’s when I began practicing GTD and began either completing or renegotiating my commitments that I realized oh the burden I was under. I always had it. Hey, c’mon, we all always had it. But we never noticed it. But thank God David did, and man life has been rosier since.

Writing down stuff, gives instant relief:
So how do you get rid of stress in life by the various commitments? Is it by doing them? Not necessarily. Why take all that trouble? Just write it down. That’s it. Imagine that. Just by writing down you begin to feel so much better. Once again throughout lives we have at some point or the other have written stuff down and immediately felt that instant relief, but never questioned why that happened. David did, and realized that stress comes because of our agreements we break with ourselves (another brilliant observation) and the simple act of writing it down we’re actually clarifying the agreement with ourselves and that’s the key to eliminating stress from our lives.

Priorities are at six different levels, Three-fold Nature of Work and the Limiting Criteria:
Since we were born we have been prioritizing.  We all had to choose whether it’s sleep we want now or milk.  Of course, our needs got more complex, but unfortunately our prioritizing system may never have been upgraded to keep pace. We simply gave one task more priority over another in a simple list kind of way. But that’s not the way the world works, that’s not how we are. Sometimes we’ve got a client screaming their head off on the phone, automatically that becomes a priority, that’s where David’s “Three-Fold nature of Work“  comes in place. Other times, although it’s priority to finish a report, you just had 3 conference calls back to back and just don’t have the energy to do so. That’s when you can use David’s Limiting Criteria model and make ‘having a Latte at a Cafe’ a priority and not feel lousy about it. But all that’s fine only when you are moving towards your long term goals while fulfilling your vision and your purpose as human spirit on the planet, i.e. you’d be using David Allen’s “Horizons of Focus model” here.

Now, anyone of us could have figured that out. Hey, it’s really not rocket science. That’s exactly how we’ve been making priority decisions anyway. But we didn’t, yet David did so, and now it’s really so much easier to decide what’s important to do right now and what’s not.

There are probably more gems in GTD that we’ve missed. Have you noticed something in GTD that is so simple and obvious that anyone could have figured out, but hasn’t yet David Allen has. Do mention it in comments below.

Arif and Mohammed Ali Vakil are brothers and Directors at Vakil Housing, large real-estate development company based in Bangalore, India.  Both Arif and Ali have been studying GTD for the past several years and have implemented GTD as a standard within their company–the first company in India to do so.  Both are qualified chartered certified accountants and passionate bloggers.  They are also certified graduates of the GTD Train-the-Trainer program.

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Anyone using BumpTop for your GTD workflow?

Perhaps it’s a way to do on-the-fly mindsweep captures?  Assist with the collection phase? Wrangle your open loops?  If any GTD’ers out there are using it, we’d love to hear how you’ve made it a part of your GTD system.

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Any GTD’ers out there have this same challenge & setup and want to tackle this one?  Patrick is looking for some advice on managing GTD systems across two systems.

I wonder if there is any conventional wisdom/tools/tips/tricks for implementing GTD (I am using the Outlook plugin) when I have to navigate TWO Exchange profiles and  a personal email address, too.

My gut reaction is that I want to have a single place to implement my GTD methodology – and it worked fine when it was just a work exchange address and a personal one – Outlook could easily handle the Exchange account and the personal profile.

Now, I have a 2nd Exhange address (everyone at my new agency does – we’re also a vendor for a software company). So we have our @ourcompany email address AND we have the @their company email address, too.

So – some of my co workers use one or the other, some try to use Outlook Web Access to keep an eye on both and so on. I’m wondering if anyone else has had to solve this challenge?

-Patrick

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GTD Secrets: True Confessions of a GTD Coach – Episode 2

In this great 5 minute podcast, David Allen Company coach Meg Edwards shares her journey with setting up her GTD lists.  If you’ve ever wondered if you have this “list thing” down, listen to Meg’s coaching on:

- Do you need to setup the lists exactly like David does?
- How many lists do you need?
- How do you know if a list is working for you or not?

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We always love hearing how people are applying GTD in their lives.  This heartfelt story came in to David from Peggy in Massachusetts, who shared her experience asking the simple GTD question: “What’s the next action?”

Asking myself “What’s the next action?” recently resulted in a wonderfully positive experience in my life. In 1970, I was a passenger on a Eastern Airlines flight that was hijacked. During that hijacking the co-pilot was killed and the pilot was shot in both arms yet he landed the plane miraculously in Boston. I was 19 at the time. The recent Miracle on the Hudson got me thinking how miraculous my own experience was but I had never thanked the pilot or crew who flew the flight.

Asking what the next action was prompted the answer, “Sit down at  the computer.” I did, googled retired eastern airlines pilots, and with the hour had his name and address. In addition, thanks to another interested retired pilot, I learned much more about the flight and the courageous actions of all involved especially the co-pilot who died. I have finally been able to send my thanks to the man who saved my life and the life of many others that day.

Thank you David Allen for helping me move forward and finally make this important connection.

Peggy McLoughlin

David shared with her that it seemed like “there are principles here bigger than the story itself…”  Peggy was sweet enough to update us on the final outcome:

In a subsequent “next action”, I received a call from the pilot now 75 years old and living in Florida. When he received my letter he said his wife told him he should sit down and write a nice return letter. But he decided instead to call and make the connection right away. Was it an example of the ingrained habit of clear thinking and decisive action that also contributed to his skillful landing of the plane at only 35 years old? In any case, it was the first time in 39 years I had ever spoken to someone who shared the experience of that flight. I was able to fill him in on what was happening in the cabin and he told me more about the gunfight  in the cockpit. Most of our conversation however involved him asking about my life and my children. He was clearly in forward thinking mode. The 39th anniversary of the flight was yesterday.

I had been reading Making It All Work when I decided to take the next action on contacting the pilot. Letting you know how grateful I am to you for helping me make this important connection seemed the absolute right next action.  Thank you very much for all the ways your work has encouraged and inspired me.

If you have a GTD story to share, please let us know!

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My income mostly comes from two areas: writing and web development.

Doing both, I’ve discovered certain similarities of work between writing and coding. Each has certain activities that can take a really long time. And in both, it’s often important to attack those activities in large chunks of time. I’ve come back to a writing project after a break feeling like I’ve lost my understanding of the structure of the piece. The same is true in web development, where I can keep track of div tags and CSS classes easily when I’m working, but find it difficult to sink back in after a day or two away.

Knowing that a single task–like “Finish Chapter 10″ or “Validate Test Site” may take many hours of my time–changes how I use GTD.

Most effective, and most obvious, has been using my next action list to write notes on new problems that occur to me while in the middle of those big tasks. I’ll see an error, maybe, realize it’s repeated around the site, and rather than fix it then, make a note and stick with the task I’m working on. I’ve done this with writing too. If, while writing Chapter 6, I realize that I missed something in Chapter 4, I’ll make a note and go back and fix it later.

I’ll also try to do a mini-review after finishing a long task. If I’m writing fiction (which, alas, I’ve yet to publish), this has given me some interesting next actions–one still on my list reads “Henry asks Arthur to find the blackmailer.” (Hmm, with plots like that, maybe there’s a reason I haven’t published.) But it’s specific enough that I remember what’s supposed to come next.

Using GTD while writing and coding has had some difficulties, though.

One is that having really long tasks on my list is that those tasks can seem daunting. I know they’re going to take a long time, but the task can’t effectively be broken up into smaller chunks. In that case, I’ll create an action item that says something like, “Continue work on About template.” When I’ve finished for the day, I’ll mark it as done and then create a new item that says the same thing. It’s a little redundant, but sometimes just being able to mark something as done can feel really good.

Probably the hardest part of having such long tasks on my list is the backlog it creates. I normally have 160 or so next action items, but recently it’s been more like 200. It’s been making me feel behind, which I’m not used to. How odd that even though I have a complete picture of the tasks I need to do, I’m still conscious of how many are pending, something that wasn’t true 40 action items ago.

But maybe those difficulties just come with the territory. Could I have written 37,000 words in the last 6 weeks without GTD? Complaining about the tasks that piled up in the meantime doesn’t make sense, since they wouldn’t have piled up if I hadn’t been so productive.

In other words, it wasn’t my GTD system that swelled my next action list, it was the hours and hours I spent writing. GTD just lets me keep track of it all.

Eric Hanberg is a regular community contributor to GTD Times.  You can also follow his personal blog, with musings on the arts, technology and politics.

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GTD Secrets: True Confessions of a GTD Coach – Episode 1

We are thrilled to have Meg Edwards, one of the masters of GTD at the David Allen Company, providing her perspective, humor and wisdom on the world of GTD.   She will be doing a new series for GTD Times called “GTD Secrets: True Confessions of a GTD Coach”. With over a decade of working with people, helping them to implement and master GTD, many of you have likely experienced Meg through her telecoaching and individual coaching work. She also adds great content to our Coaches’ Connection feature on GTD Connect.

As a working mom, Meg is a wonderful example of getting things done–when it often feels like you have more to do than you can do–with grace, humor and balance.

Meg recorded a new podcast on “What is GTD?” How would you respond if an old friend you met on the street asked you about GTD?  Listen as Meg shares what GTD means to her as she practices it in her work and personal life.

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