A Community Contribution from Jan Cherlet

Hi fellow GTD’ers,

April 9, 2009 was the morning that changed my life. For the 4th time that week, I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t close another eye because of all the things I had to do (recognise this?). But this time I got up and surfed the web for a solution. Pretty fast I ended up with GTD and David Allen. One year later I’m the biggest GTD-fan in Europe (well, in Belgium anyway). The approach David and his team developed, helped me control and overview all the different responsibilities I’m handling. Being a musician in a lot of totally different kinds of music projects, music teacher, project coordinator, husband and father of two wonderful girls (you know, this takes time). A house, a beautiful garden, 3 chickens and a rabbit to maintain. I want to keep in shape–don’t we all–but I love drinking our famous Belgian beers, so this demands some balancing… [Read more →]

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We know many of you follow David Allen on Twitter (if not and you want to, he’s @GTDGuy).  He was named in the top 140 most popular Tweeters by Huffington Post.

Some of you have asked if DA does his own Tweets. Absolutely!  Every one of them.  You’re getting the man himself.

If you’re not into Twitter, you can also read his feed on GTD Times in the right column.

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Nate Burgos passed along a great interview he did with Digital Media Project Manager Steve Dale about GTD.  It’s always interesting to hear how others have implemented GTD and what their journey has been. Here’s an excerpt:

What’s your advice to people who aspire to get organized and stick to it?
If you’ve ever wanted to have more time to do the things you really care about, whatever that is, then you owe it to yourself to get organised. The idea that creativity and being organised are somehow mutually exclusive is completely false in my opinion. If you stick with it, GTD becomes a set of habits that helps you to spend more time on the things you’re passionate about. If you get too hung up on the method and peripheral issues such as having the right pen, notebook or file labeler, etc., you’ve fundamentally missed the point.

Read the full interview…

If you like learning more from others implementing GTD, our In Conversation and Slice of GTD Life Series on GTD Connect give you a peak inside how other people are making GTD work for them.

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Question: Projects are my stumbling block. In fact, what do you do when everything you pick up seems to be yet another project (a multi-step thing to do)?  The other options are easy to me compared to managing the multi-step things to be done.

David Allen: Big key is simply to keep track of them all. And have a place either digitally or manual, to hold all relevant collateral materials and thinking. At some point you’ll either get used to lots of commitments, or make fewer. Probably both.

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Michael, a GTDer in the community, shared with us about how he used GTD in his job search:

For the longest time, I procrastinated filling out applications. The task just seemed so daunting and hard to manage. By breaking “find a new job” into mini-project, job applications, my whole outlook changed dramatically. All of the sudden, each application I complete is like a personal victory. I move it from @ Apply to @ Waiting For – Jobs, and there is this tremendous sense of accomplishment at seeing how many I’ve completed. At the same time, the master list of jobs has been really helpful, especially during the Weekly Review. Sometimes I review my jobs list and remember that I need to check the status of one of the applications online or need to call to follow-up to see what the status is. There’s this great feeling that nothing is slipping through the cracks.

It really amazed me how well, with a few modifications, the GTD system could handle the job search.

We’ve also heard from people using GTD on their resumes.  Have you?  What would you say about your GTD skills that would stand out to prospective employers?  Leaps long lists in a single bound… Inbox to zero on a regular basis… Will actually capture what you ask me to do…. ?

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On our LinkedIn GTD Group, there’s an interesting discussion going on about how to get started with GTD.  Here’s what member Rosemarie had to say:

I have found that GTD is one of those things where you just need to jump in and try something. I find that my system is just altering a little bit here and there all the time anyway. It’s like gardening, you don’t “finish” as such because there’s always new tips and tricks to try out. But eventually you settle to a basic system that is the basis for your GTD stuff and you work from there.

I would say (and I’m no expert believe me, but this worked for me) just sit down and write out everything you need to do. Make a great big ‘to do’ list (the ‘capture’ part of the system) and then you can start sorting that into things that are actually projects, one-off items, etc. And you probably won’t get everything at that point anyway. But once you have your list and have started organising it and categorising it a bit, you will add things as you go along and you’re away.

Have fun!

Read the whole discussion thread on LinkedIn

You’ll also find great resources on GTD Connect (the 16-part GTD Getting Started series), the GTD System Starter Kit, and the GTD Implementation Guide.  And, as Rosemarie said so well, “jump in and try something!”

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Excerpt from David Allen’s essay in this month’s Productive Living newsletter:

Deciding that you’re not going to do something is a subtle and critical component of Getting Things Done and is one of the most challenging aspects of self-management. Most of us hate to say “no”—to ourselves and to others. But there are practical things we can do to make that process more positive and dynamic.

A key principle in operation here is that if you don’t know exactly what you’ve already said “yes” to, then it’s hard to have the confidence to say “no.” When you do have a complete and trusted inventory of your current commitments   [read more....]

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Dear David Allen: I am looking for a guide/product about using email so that one’s worklife does not become overwhelmed with email.  We are an office of 30 people, and we have gotten in the habit of emailing each other rather than walking down the hall to talk.  We don’t have time to talk since we are too busy doing email!  We would like to adopt best practices about email to reduce the burden.

David’s reply: There are lots of articles and books written about some basic common sense stuff about email, including some of our own resources like our Setup Guides, Webinars on GTD Connect, and a free article I wrote on Getting Email Under Control.

Email is just like the phone or any other medium that takes a while for cultures and individuals to sift out their own best practices for their culture.  If email has value, that’s what it’s for.  If it doesn’t, don’t do it.  Don’t shoot the medium.  It’s just a channel for people communicating.  For me personally, I don’t like interruptions, when it could be in an email that I can deal iwth in my own timing.  If I want a warm fuzzy, email may not be the way to do that. All depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. People can use email to avoid work, just like they can walk down the hall to avoid work. The issue is avoiding work, not whether you’re doing it by email or by walking and talking.

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A Community Contribution from Jason Verly

For anyone who uses a Mac and utilizes the GTD method, you may eventually look into what software you can use to help manage your project and next action lists. Currently on the Mac, the leading apps to help manage your lists are OmniFocus and Things. Each app covers four of the five steps of the GTD workflow: Collect, Process, Organize, and Review. (Sorry, but you still have to do ‘Do’ on you own.)   Here is a comparison of how each application handles these four steps.

Read more from Jason Verly’s article

Editors Note: Many of you know we are partners with OmniGroup. We wanted to provide this article to our GTD Times readers, as Jason has done a great job comparing these two popular applications.  It should give you some great information from a fellow GTDer, when choosing which one is best for you.

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No matter what level or field we find ourselves on, whether it is the corporate/professional aspect or our personal/home life, we set priorities and act on what we think is important. We could call that “simplifying” our lives. And by that we do not mean lowering our standards, but rather focusing on the ones that are most important to us.

This same world view somehow seems to be plagued with jargon about priorities: how to set them, how to classify them, and how to sort them out. It claims to give us a sense that we are somehow in control. Several of my clients are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of the stuff they have to process and even more so as their resources to make the things they need to make happen get reduced, sometimes to the point of scarcity. So their question is “how do I set my priorities in any given day, so I know I am not wasting my time? So I know I am doing the right thing?”  The underlying question may well be, “How do I know that I am in control, so that what I am doing is the most relevant; the one that adds the most value?” [Read more →]

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