The better you are at using a tool, and the more you love the tools you use, the more effective they will be for your GTD system.  David Allen has said time and time again, learn at least the basic speed keys for the tools you use the most, so the tool is not slowing you down.

For those of you on Gmail, here’s a handy guide from Google for getting the most out of Gmail.  A few years ago, (before Tasks was added to Gmail), our coaches were working quite a bit with a client on Gmail and wrote this free article on using Gmail as a list manager.  For all of the GTD Setup Guides, click here.

One of the best tricks for enhancing your personal productivity is having organizing tools that you love to use. – David Allen

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GTD enthusiast Kerry Gallivan has been working with a wonderful project in Maine that is bringing MacBooks,  OmniFocus & GTD to nearly 60,000 students and educators.  It’s an amazing story and congratulations to all involved in making this happen.  Truly a remarkable achievement which will greatly benefit the students, teachers, their families and communities.

As a GTD evangelist myself, last March I was fortunate to attend the GTD Summit in San Francisco. This was a first-ever event hosted by David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, and his company, David Allen Company. It was a networking event which brought together all of the best and brightest GTD practicers from literally around the world. It was at the GTD Summit that I met Ken Case – the President of the Omni Group.  Being a Technology Director at a school district in Maine and a GTD evangelist, I encouraged him to consider donating OmniFocus to the MLTI program as a first step in exposing the educational community within Maine to the benefits of the GTD system.  Read more–>

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Getting Things Done® is an approach applied to managing the commitments we make to ourselves, our colleagues, our family, community and the world.  An assumption many folks make as they inquire about bringing GTD to their organization is that the GTD workshop must be “customized.”  There is a big difference between the art of work (what GTD teaches) versus the work you do (your job).

People will tell us, “You don’t understand, we’re different.”  Well, yes…and maybe not.  We at the David Allen Company define “work” not as that place you walk into carrying your expensive cup of coffee/mocha java late’ (skim).  We define “work” as anything that needs to be different than it is.  So while your jobs may be different, that fact that all folks have things that need be different in their lives is not different. [Read more →]

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In my last post, I challenged you to look at how much you’re choosing to sit in your email inbox versus work from your lists.  That sure seemed to strike a nerve of truth with some of you.  So WHY can lists start to repel us? Here are a few reasons why and some ways to resolve that:

• You know your lists are not current so you dread having to clean up while you scan (Done a Weekly Review lately?)
• You know there are things on there that require more thinking (Ask yourself, “Do I have all of the information I need to do this?” If not, you don’t have the next action. Get more specific.)
• You have things on your lists that you don’t think are your job (Get clear on your Areas of Focus & Responsibilities–what’s your job and what’s not)

[Read more →]

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How do ever expect to get things done on your lists if you never step away from your Email Inbox?  Seriously folks, those lists need care and feeding too.  Just like the Inbox doesn’t get to zero on its own, your lists don’t ever get completion unless you:

1. Do what’s on them
2. Decide not to do what’s on them

You need time for processing and defining your work, just like you need time for doing what you’ve already defined, as well as time you need for choosing to do work as it appears.  So is David Allen suggesting a nice, neat little pie chart of 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 to spend your time?  No.  But everybody needs time for each one of these areas.  And technically, while reading email is part of defining your work, it can quickly teeter into doing work as it appears when you start using it as a distraction or procrastination technique to avoid what’s on your lists.

If you really don’t want to do what’s on your lists, checking email won’t solve that. I’d say you have a bigger issue to look at there called why are your lists repelling you?

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If you received David’s latest Productive Living newsletter, you know the theme for this month is about mind like water and paying attention to what has your attention.  We received this heartfelt letter from Jay, who asked that we share his journey and experience with GTD.

GTD is more than a task management system, it’s an external mind system. Things that are important to me, for whatever reason, good, bad, little or big, are all being captured in a system that will consistently remind me that those things are important to me. My mind and spirit don’t have to hold on to the job. They can relax and hence have more energy to focus greater mental/spiritual power on anything I do focus my energy on because they’re not also expending energy in trying to hold on and remember all the things that are important to me. Its simplicity makes it possible to do it all the time, developing the habit to do so is more of the challenge. Its benefits can be tremendous. [Read more →]

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“The short-term memory part of your mind–the part that tends to hold all of the incomplete, undecided, and unorganized “stuff”–functions much like RAM on a personal computer. Your conscious mind, like the computer screen, is a focusing tool, not a storage place. You can only think about 2 or 3 things at once.”

- David Allen (p.22 of Getting Things Done)

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GTD enthusiast Frode Odegard is hosting a free GTD ‘Tweetup’ in Oslo, Norway next week.  You can also follow the event through live video stream.  Check it out.  Frode said he also plans to host a San Diego one as well this fall.

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