Question: Any advice on how to “make myself” (or entice myself to) sit down and do the things that are less easy to do given my bias toward creation v. completion?

David Allen’s answer: Read Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit, about habit change. Build in the simple but potentially keystone habit of doing the hardest/most-resisted thing first, especially early in the day when you still have decision-making muscle. Look forward to the easier and more fun and interesting stuff you’ll do the rest of the day as reward.

Review your higher-level commitments to yourself, and ask yourself if you’re on track with them. If you are, then who cares whether you’re creating or completing.

Build a simple habit of finishing something (anything, little or big) before you do your “create” thing.

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Question: Can I edit the Next Action list contexts you recommend in the Getting Things Done book?

David’s Answer:  There are no hard rules about these context categories. You might have action lists specific to more than one office or home location; or you might want to combine At Computer and At Office; or distinguish between Web-Access Computer vs. Offline Computer.

You have to navigate among: How many different ways do I want to keep all these different segments? How easily do I want to be able to review them? And how confusing is it if I put too many things together in one list? I recommend you just get started, try out the most common ones (Agendas, Anywhere, Calls, Computer, Home, Errands, Office), and give yourself permission to change or enhance your system to fit your world as you move forward.

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Join David Allen and Senior Coach Kelly Forrister as they discuss keys for breaking through procrastination, including:

• Why bright people procrastinate the most
• Dumbing down your brain
• Typical causes and cures
• The bottom line of why we procrastinate

This webinar is free for GTD Connect members.  You can sign up for a free trial membership, and when you log in, you’ll find the webinar information on the home page of GTD Connect.

And coming up in January, GTD Connect members will have another opportunity to participate in the hugely popular 14-day GTD Challenge.  Members who did the recent 14-day GTD Challenge had this to say:

“Great webinar by Meg and Kelly as usual. I liked your advice on picking ‘Wins’ for the 14 days, instead of trying to climb the entire mountain at once.”

“Coaching from the webinar has gotten me more relaxed and re-energized about GTD.”

“The Webinar really motivated me to get back on track. Though I’ve been really busy, I’ve made time to get clear and current again.”

The free trial membership is easy to begin—just first name and email address—with no cost or commitment.

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Most of us have far more reading material than we could ever possibly get to, even with the noblest of intentions. So what’s the best way to deal with this challenge, short of canceling all magazine subscriptions and running the other way when a colleague tries to give us yet another article or book to read?

Coach Julie Ireland weighs in:

One of the solutions I’ve found that often works for people is to divide reading material into 3 buckets. Here they are, along with a brief description of what they entail:

 1. Critical Reading – This is reading that I am responsible for as part of my work; e.g., an article that was hand-delivered to me by my boss, a brief from a client, etc. These go onto my next actions list, and I am committing to reading them.

2. Of-Interest Reading – The “I’m REALLY interested in this, and it would be good for me to read it but I’m not committing to” stuff – a bit like Someday/Maybe for reading. This goes into my “Reading – of interest” bin and periodically, when I’m taking a short break or heading off to the airport, I’ll grab something from this stack. I have a rule that if it goes onto an airplane with me and I don’t read it, it goes into the trash rather than back into the bin. Every so often, I have to bite the bullet and purge. (Am I really going to read the October 2007 issue of The Economist? I don’t think so…)

3. Purely Recreational Reading – This usually lives by my bed, unless it’s a real page turner and I manage to read during the day while my eyes are still open.

 If you’ve been overwhelmed by your reading stack in the past, I hope this will bring some much-needed relief your way. Good luck, and happy reading!

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For those of you who use Microsoft Outlook® for your GTD system, we hope you’ll tune in to our next webinar on GTD Connect.  Senior Coach Kelly Forrister will walk you through the essentials of optimizing your productivity with Outlook.  You’ll see examples of how to set up the Task lists for projects and actions, best practices for the calendar, email, and much more.  Outlook 2007 will be shown, but most of what will be demonstrated will be universal to all Outlook versions, and applicable to all Outlook users.

Join us on Thursday, January 27th from 10am-11am Pacific Time.

Free for all GTD Connect guest pass, monthly and annual members. To register for the webinar, log in to GTD Connect and follow the link on the home page.

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GTD Times reader Heather asked: I’ve been feeling really in the zone with GTD lately. I know what I need to do, the system is working, BUT the “waiting fors” are going to give me a stroke.

I use the Things for Mac application and noticed that consistently about 25-30 percent of my next actions are under the tag “waiting for.” I work on deadlines and am constantly having to call or email others to remind them to get me something. Most often the responses I get is, “Oh, I forgot,” or “Was I supposed to do that?” or “Right! Thanks for the reminder.” But I’m not their secretary or their mother.

How do I remain “in the zone” when so many of my next actions end up being “Remind Joe to do this” and most of my projects I can’t move on because of other people’s lack of organization and clarity? [Read more →]

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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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GTD Secrets: True Confessions of a GTD Coach – Episode 4

One of the things that I have seen over the years is a lot of incomplete Project Lists. And I think some of it is because we have a tendency to have a narrow view about what a project is. Years ago, David said in a seminar, “Hey folks, you don’t have problems; you have projects.” And one of the things that I see is people not necessarily bringing their “problems” into their GTD system. It just doesn’t really occur to them, and it was the same with me. When I’m coaching people now, and they start sharing about their “problems”, I’m like, “Look, it sounds like you’ve got a possible project with some actions.” And they’re like, “Wow, I’ve never thought about it that way.” [Read more →]

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GTD Secrets: True Confessions of a GTD Coach – Episode 3

Have you ever been stumped by the difference between a Project and an Area of Focus?

In this great 5 minute podcast, David Allen Company senior coach Meg Edwards talks about the GTD best practices for creating a Projects list. She gives tips on:

• understanding the difference between a project vs. an area of focus
• getting to a complete projects list vs. one that is “semi-complete”
• why most people have a projects list that doesn’t really work
• when to “bump up” or “bump down” in looking at your Horizons of Focus

In the podcast, she references her own Areas of Focus, which she captured in a mindmap:

Add yourself to the David Allen Company podcast feed.

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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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