Click on the link below to get a free podcast of David Allen’s conversation with Charles Duhigg. Come on in to the mind of an investigative journalist with a GTD spin on it. Duhigg, a multiple award-winning reporter for the New York Times and author of The Power of Habit, talks with David about his career and how he does his work, his dedication to GTD, and the fascinating discoveries he has researched in the arena of habits and how we can change them.
http://www.davidco.com/individuals/podcasts

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Better thinking is within your grasp. Find out more in this excerpt from Todd Brown’s blog post for Next Action Associates.

“Thinking hard?” Hardly.

If you can walk, can you walk faster? Of course. Apply some effort, move those muscles more quickly, and your speed increases.

If you can think, can you think harder? I don’t think so.

In my experience “thinking hard” doesn’t work. I can still hear the voice of Mrs Hamm, my third-grade teacher, “c’mon kids, think hard.” We’re given the sense from an early age that thinking can increase in intensity by applying effort, just like walking.

Applying effort to thinking just seems to get in the way. Telling myself to “think harder” generates resistance and frustration, not better or more effective thinking. But that doesn’t mean I can’t think better, or more effectively.

What does seem to work is removing barriers.

I start by reducing distractions, both internal and external. If I’m feeling diverted by my thoughts, I do a quick “mind sweep.” I write down everything that’s on my mind, big or small, personal or professional. I need to call Ed regarding the contract. I want to talk to Debbie about booking the hotel for our holiday. The client needs the proposal by Friday. Just getting these things out of my head goes a long way toward reducing internal distractions.

I also consider external distractions. I check my surroundings. If I’m feeling distracted by my environment, I see first whether I can minimize or eliminate some sources of that distraction. I close my email client (yes, it can be done). I put my phone on silent. If possible, I get out of a distracting environment altogether. If that’s not possible, I recognize that my ability to get work done that requires deep thinking may be limited. In that case it might be better to focus on quick and easy wins that require less mental resource.

Once potential diversions are eliminated, in my experience thinking is really just about focus. I’m not “thinking hard,” I’m focused on something without distraction. The only “effort” is choosing what to focus on, and then maintaining that focus. Once I’m in that state, I find that effective thinking happens very naturally.

So the key here seems to be to get out of my own way, not about applying effort. It’s as if the secret to running faster were just a matter of reducing drag, not about muscle power. Create the environment to eliminate distractions, choose your focus, and watch the ideas flow.

You can read other blog posts and find out more about Next Action Associates, the only Certified International Partner for GTD in the UK, here.

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GOOD RIDDANCE

It’s time to purge.

The end of a year and start of the new is a great metaphorical event to use to enhance a critical aspect of your constructive creativity—get rid of everything that you can.

Your psyche has a certain quota of open loops and incompletions that it can tolerate, and it will unconsciously block the engagement with new material if it has reached its limit. Release some memory.

Want more business? Get rid of all the old energy in the business you’ve done. Are there any open loops left with any of your clients? Any agreements or disagreements that have not been completed or resolved? Any agendas and communications that need to be expressed? Clean the slate.

Want more clothes? Go through your closets and storage areas and cart to your local donation center everything that you haven’t worn in the last 24 months. And anything that doesn’t feel or look just right when you wear it.

Want to be freer to go where you want to, when you want to, with new transportation? Clean out your glove compartments and trunks of your cars. And for heaven’s sake, get those little things fixed that have been bugging you.

Do you want more wealth? Unhook from the investments and resources that have been nagging at you to change. (And give more than usual do to someone or something that inspires you to do so.)

Do you want to feel more useful? Hand off anything that you are under-utilizing to someone who can employ it better.

Want some new visions for your life and work? Clean up and organize your boxes of old photographs. Want to know what to do with your life when you grow up? Start by cleaning the center drawer of your desk.

You will have to do all this anyway, sometime. Right now don’t worry about the new. It’s coming toward you at lightning speed, no matter what. Just get the decks clear so you’re really ready to rock ‘n’ roll.

—David Allen

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Have you ever wished that you could focus more, to achieve the goals that you’ve defined at your higher levels in the GTD Horizons of Focus? According to neuroscience research, your best leverage may be stress-reduction. Stress hormones tend to shut down the parts of your brain that handle goal-directed behavior.

Help your brain to focus on goals by stressing less. How? Get stuff out of your head into your GTD system. And review your commitments often enough that you can trust your choices in the moment.

Please feel free to post a comment about your experience with stress-reduction and achieving goals.

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Hi Folks,

If all you get from the GTD methodology is to retire your mind from the job of being your list manager, you’d be light years ahead of most people on the planet. It’s one of the easiest principles to implement, and probably one of the most common to disregard in terms of how powerful it can be. Do yourself a favor—get smarter than your mind. It would love to let go of this stuff; it’s simply afraid you don’t have a better servant.

All the best,

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

GET SMARTER THAN YOUR MIND

Your mind doesn’t have one. A mind, that is. If your mind were smart, it would only remind you of something when you could do something about it.

Your mind is an incredible servant but a terrible master. Most people I meet, though, are still letting their mind run the show. You have to get smarter than your mind if you want to reach stress-free productivity.

QUOTABLE

Rule your mind, or it will rule you.—Horace

This excerpt is from a recent issue of David’s “Productive Living” newsletter. It’s free and sent about every 4 weeks. You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

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The GTD Natural Planning Model is a great way to plan any project.  A key step in the model, after deciding on the purpose and sucessful outcome, is to do some brainstorming. Here’s a key for successful brainstorming: Have lots of ideas! How? By encouraging everyone to present their ideas without censoring. Sometimes the apparently bad ideas need to get expressed to clear the way for the obviously good ideas. In the brainstorming phase, do your best to encourage complete expression, be open, non-judgmental, and resist critical analysis. Don’t worry—an idea that really doesn’t fit will get sorted out in the organizing and next action phases. And who knows? The idea that doesn’t fit for this project may be just what is needed for another project.

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Check out this free podcast from David Allen. In just over two minutes, he gives practical tips for getting started with GTD. It’s available for download now on the David Allen Company podcast page.

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This is an excerpt from Todd Brown’s blog post for Next Action Associates, the only Certified International Partner for GTD in the UK.

We’ve learned enough about the brain in the last 60 or so years to know that it is powerful and dependable at some things, and limited and unreliable when it comes to others. Thinking creatively, drawing connections, brainstorming, focused thinking—all great uses for our grey matter. But counting on it to remind me of the fact that I need to buy olive oil? Allowing it to have the thought over and over “I need to email the proposal to the client”? Only half-deciding what to do with several (hundred?) emails and leaving them in the inbox to fester?

That’s brain abuse. Of course if you’re guilty of it, you are also the only one who can put an end to it. A first step would be to consider a spotter’s guide to the forms the abuse might take:

• Re-thinking things
• Leaving thinking half-finished
• Trying to fill your brain beyond capacity
• Counting on your brain to remind you when you want to be reminded

Identify your brain’s strengths and weaknesses, and stop giving it things to do that it doesn’t do very well. Remember, only you can prevent brain abuse.

You can read other blog posts and find out more about Next Action Associates here.

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When you define the successful outcome of a goal or project clearly, your brain starts finding ways to achieve that outcome. Or, as David Allen crisply phrases it in chapter 13 of Getting Things Done:

• Make it up.
• Make it happen.

A recent article entitled Your Brain on Fiction summarizes new research to support this idea. “The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated.” Reading fiction is like having your brain run a computer simulation program.

You might have heard David say in his seminars that the human nervous system doesn’t distinguish between a well-imagined thought and reality. Once you have identified an outcome, your brain’s reticular activating system will start organizing incoming information in ways that help you get the outcome you’ve defined. So go ahead and let your imagination savor the experience while you read your lists of successful outcomes—your projects and goals—as your brain helps you convert what you read into your reality.

Reticular formation of the brain, from Gray's Anatomy

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David Allen says that he “created GTD out of a personal desire to be freer with more space and energy in my life and let go of whatever was holding me back from…whatever. I would bet that for some of you, your resistance to fully embracing GTD is not about GTD or your ability to implement it, but comes from your resistance to letting go of your familiar structures, even if they are constricting you. So, what would it take for you to be free to feel free?”

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

ARE YOU FREE TO FEEL FREE?

If you want to have the feeling of freedom regularly, you’ve got to get used to it. Literally.

What’s the greatest obstacle to living in the relaxed state of mind that is possible with the methods I coach? People simply aren’t used to it. And anything your nervous system experiences as unique or unusual will likely be “rejected” unconsciously in short order, because it is not in the comfort zone.

This excerpt is from a recent issue of David’s Productive Living newsletter. It’s free and sent about every 4 weeks. You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

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