GTD Times reader Jenna contributed her ideas on how to adapt GTD to writing.

A Writer’s GTD Journey

About a year ago I was beginning to feel overwhelmed with my list of unfinished projects. I’m a writer and had about a dozen scripts, stories, and article ideas backlogged on my computer. Not only I was not completing any of the projects, I was adding new ideas every day. Each new idea, rather than filling me with excitement at the prospect of undertaking a new creative project, instead filled me with dread and anxiety because I felt like I was looking at corpses—great concepts that would never be brought to fruition. It was obvious I was falling apart. I needed structure, an actionable plan for organizing my projects. I stumbled across Getting Things Done and this is what I embarked upon:

Collect. Address the items that are concerning you. I made a list of all my unfinished projects. It was like an endless scroll.

Process. Make decisions about the value of these items and what you will add or subtract to them. I looked at each project and decided whether or not this was something I actually had a desire to work on or whether it was something that at some point I had decided would just look good in a portfolio. I trimmed a list of about 20 projects down to five.

Organize. Put your value decisions in places you are likely to return to repeatedly. I made printouts of my notes on the ‘chosen’ projects and pinned them up in sequential order in my office. The ‘dismissed’ projects were filed in a binder that would be taken up in the future, but would not be thought of until then. These projects were essentially on hold. New project ideas were added to this binder, but not elaborated upon in any fashion.

Review. Reevaluate the judgments you’ve made from a new perspective. Now that my to-do list was manageable I was able to look at each project in a new light. Instead of each project anxiously reminding me of an unfinished aspect of another project, I looked at each one as its own island of productivity.

Do. Now get to work! What I used to consider the hard part—actually writing the stories and articles—turned into an enjoyable luxury because I no longer felt weighed down by scattered notions. Each new completed project made room for a dismissed project from the binder to join the wall. It was still an endless cycle, but it had a sustainable structure now.

GTD seems to me a very intuitive way of managing your psychology so that it does not disrupt workflow. In fact, the GTD system seems to help one minimize the emotional and psychological distractions that arise from the stress of living.

I want something more than that, though.

I don’t want to have to “recover” from Christmas. I don’t want to start the new year eight pounds heavier. I don’t want my children focused only on the electronic gadgets they hope Santa brings. But everything I don’t want will probably become my reality–unless I take the initiative to implement what I do want.

David Allen’s Natural Planning Model seriously saves my sanity on everything from birthday party planning to creating new programs for my website, so this year, I decided to use the five steps of the Natural Planning Model to create a Christmas experience that is both magical and meaningful.

Step One: Defining Purpose and Principles

For this part, I sat down with my children and gave them the following prompts:

• What’s the purpose of this season?
• What do you want this Christmas to feel like for our family?
• Please finish this sentence: “I would be happy with any Christmas celebration, as long as . . .”

Then I took good notes, and the beauty of their responses continues to amaze me.

Step Two: Outcome Visioning

We did this part on a separate day with an informal breakfast discussion, which basically took our ideas from Step One to a deeper level.

My 11-year-old was the scribe:

We agreed that we want to be well-rested, reasonably-paced, and organized throughout the holiday, and we’re going to continue exercising and eating well so we’ll be in better health by the time the tree comes down.　

We’re all going to be happy with our Christmas gifts–even if we don’t get the “big” stuff that all the kids at school are talking about. We’ll purchase and wrap our presents by the first week of December, shop together for a beautiful tree that will be trimmed with homemade decorations, and focus the majority of our activities and expenses on making others happy.

Just typing these things out gets me so excited about the holiday season. Certainly, there will be days that won’t go as planned (probably most days), and some of us will be whiny or emotional while others will be frustrated or exhausted, but that’s just life. We can still aim high, can’t we?

On to Step Three: Brainstorming

This step is my favorite because it gives us a place to write all the ideas we’ve been cooking up over the past few months.　

We looked carefully at our notes from the first two steps and then gathered as a family one evening to brainstorm around seven areas of focus. Here they are:

• Activities and Outings
• Helping Others
• Uplifting Media
• Christmas Cards
• Gifts
• Meaningful Traditions
• Healthy Food

Then my daughter added an eighth area called, “Unhealthy food.” (She needed a place to include the gingerbread house.)

Photo courtesy of Shawni Pothier

Seeing our areas of focus as clusters on one page helps us to realize that the “all-consuming” holiday planning really is finite. We can create boundaries around our time, we can control our expenditures, and we can make sure our energy is spent on what’s most important.　

In many areas, there’s a clear overlap. Can’t we create meaningful traditions that help others? Can’t healthy Christmas goodies and beautiful music be part of our Christmas-gift giving? Looking at the big picture clarifies everything.

Step Four: Organizing

This part initially feels hard. How am I going to take all these brainstorms and make them manageable?

Simply jump in.

I wrote out all the components and sub-components on little slips of paper.

Then I moved them around and organized them according to priority and sequence.

Here are my three sub-clusters: things to do this week, things to do before December 1st, and things to do in early December.

I noticed that four of these slips contained two-minute tasks, so I quickly accomplished those and then moved onto the next step.

Step Five: Identifying Next Actions

As I was getting all my ideas out onto Post-it Notes, I realized that some things I wrote down were projects, while others were tasks.　

I created a list of Current Christmas Projects,

and then I created two Next Actions Lists: one for immediate Next Actions–things to accomplish within the next week, and one for important Next Actions–things to accomplish as soon as it’s convenient.

Then I simply put these sheets into my inbox to organize during my next Weekly Review.

I’ll create calendar triggers for the Christmas plans that mean the most to me, and then I’ll just do my best with the rest, knowing that ultimately, spontaneous events might replace those I’ve planned, some of these projects might not seem as important three weeks from now, and what really matters is how this holiday feels.

Your family’s Christmas planning will likely be much different than ours. There’s no one “right” way to do this, but I hope that this exercise using the Natural Planning Model will help you to create a wonderful Christmas for you and the ones you love.

April Perry is the mother of four children and Co-Director of The Power of Moms.

I have recently taken the terrifying step of transferring all of my CRM tasks, previously handled separately by Salesforce, in to my single GTD system. The results are… amazing! I had not appreciated (and probably still do not fully understand) the full power, scope and flexibility of your marvelous, simple, bottom-up, next action approach. I am now tracking, as of this morning, 105 projects and 595 next actions with an ease that I would once have considered impossible. Nothing slips through the net. I have become a powerhouse of productivity.

Do you have a GTD story to share? If so, we’d love to hear from you at editor@gtdtimes.com.

From long To Do lists to overcommitted schedules, we tend to take on too much.  When is the last time you said no to someone when they asked you for something?  It can be hard to do.

Most of us want to help others when they need it.  There are times, however, when we need to say no.  I know I don’t like to say no.  I like to help people.  It feels good when someone wants you to do something for them.

It may help to start weighing that commitment against what you’re trying to accomplish in other facets of your life.

Here are three questions to ask yourself when faced with saying yes or no:

1. Do you have the capacity to say yes? If you have the capacity, great, go for it.  Say yes.  Make sure you can commit 100% though.  Committing and not delivering is much worse than not committing at all.  You’ll know if you have capacity because with GTD, you already have an inventory of your projects and actions, the things you’re already commited to.

2. If you say no, do you know how to do it eloquently? Saying no could seem harsh on the surface, so sometimes you need to explain why.  An example is simply saying, “I have a lot on my plate and I don’t think I can give you 100% of my attention right now.  I’d love to help in the future if you need me.”  There’s not a lot someone can say to that.  You’re being honest.  Most people will respect that.

3. Are you the right person for the job? Just because someone asks you for help doesn’t mean you have the ability to help them.  If you have no idea how to fix your mom’s dishwasher would you commit to fixing it?  I don’t know the first thing about fixing dishwashers. (My expertise pretty much stops at changing light bulbs.)  Telling my mom that I can help would be doing her a disservice.

Same goes for work.  Your boss asks you to compile some information on an upcoming project.  He tells you he needs it by tomorrow morning.  You’ve got three other projects you’re working on that are equally important.  Do you have the courage to tell your boss no?  Again, explaining how you can’t give 100% to it and offering a different solution will help.

Knowing when to say yes or no is a big part of stress-free productivity.

My little GTD baby is celebrating its first birthday and it is time to look at the giant leaps and small steps taken towards a “mind like water”.

Even though I bought the book in 2007 I just implemented parts of GTD. I fell of the wagon a lot during these first years and had a major crisis in 2009 when my whole digital GTD system crashed together with the hard drive (no backup). It took until summer of 2010 before I was up and running again and decided to go “all in”.  So the system is based on three critical components:

• Complete system both Home/Work
• GTD Connect Member
• Weekly Reviews

Having a complete system is a big task to do, and I guess it is never really “Done”. But I feel very good about my system. I trust it. The GTD Connect community has helped to stay on course and get constant reassurance that I’m not alone in doing GTD when nobody I know is. Thanks Kelly and everyone! I did 49 weekly reviews the first year. Probably the biggest single factor for GTD success.

The biggest “wins” this first year:

• Changed job
• Better relationships with my family/friends
• Spiritual awakening

I had been at my old job for seven years and it was time to leave (a long time ago really), but GTD gave me a system to go through the struggle with CV and interviews and disappointments. And it payed off!

I have a much better relationship with my friends than I’ve had in a long time. I see them more often. My family is probably the biggest “winners” since I actually DO domestic things at home, AND have time for family activities.

My spiritual awakening is the one thing that has surprised me the most. Once I implemented GTD the “mental noise” slowed down and I had time to think for the first time about the purpose of why I’m here. This resulted in the realization that I do have a spirit after all.

This first year has been mostly a mental journey. To change the way I think and therefore act. The second year is probably going to be more driven by spirit though. More around values, purpose and principles.

So how about “Mind like water” then? Not even close. But I’ll keep trying!

Life is good

I am a big fan of David Allen’s GTD system. He has written what I feel is the greatest productivity book in the history of the world.  If you have not read it and you are an overwhelmed momma then please borrow from the library or buy yourself one.  It is what keeps me sane.  It allows me to find time in the crazy busy momma world. The best part of the system is the physical inbox, what I call my big fat inbox.

The book is called Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. It simply rocks.

His system in a very tiny nutshell for me is something like this.

1. Collect all the Stuff and Write all the Stuff –anything that comes into mommy land goes into my physical inbox.  Mail, school papers, work papers, catalogues.  Any awesome mommy idea that comes to my head gets written down and put into my physical inbox.  This includes recipe ideas, family outing ideas, article ideas, coupon inserts, field trip forms etc.  It can really get full.
2. Process the stuff into projects, tasks, or file it away for a rainy day, just in case, or a momma memory file. And clear out the box every single day all the way to the bottom. Projects can be planning family outing, planning purchases, meal planning or putting brochures in a file for my dream vacation.
3. Review, plan, do.  This really just means planning, scheduling for how and when all the things that need getting done will get done.
   
   

I cannot tell you how easy it is to get things done, when all of it can be found either in the inbox or filed away in a nice, crispy, new labeled folder.

This system is perfect for the mom who has ever:

• Forgotten or lost a field trip form or misplaced a report card to sign in and turn into the teacher.
• Had a great coupon for 10 dollars off at the favorite family restaurant and thrown it away by accident.
• Lost the best recipe for no-roll piecrust.
• Misplaced the electric bill.
• Misplaced the baby’s shot record.
• Forgot to charge the camera battery for the big birthday bash.

Is this you?  I know it was me a time or two before I purchased and started using my big fat inbox every single day. If you don’t have one, then give it a try. You can use anything you have on hand that is big enough to hold what you process in one day.

The essentials for this system are as follows:

1. Big Fat Inbox
2. File Folders
3. Hanging File Folders — it is just easier to pull out the plain folder and leave the hanging one in place.
4. Filing system
5. Label Maker or Black Permanent Marker – I simply cannot live
   without my label maker.

*Note: when I process my inbox I place all my bills in a magnetic box on my bulletin board.  The key is to keep them all in one place where you will not forget them.

Have a super productive day!

Momma

If you already have a physical inbox:

Simple Daily Challenge for the day is to clear it out!

Lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed. Not because I can’t process all the tasks, projects, and goals on my plate, but because I keep forgetting that I only have one plate.

As I’ve applied GTD strategies to my life, opportunities to “live the life of my dreams” have literally exploded in front of me. My website is growing, creative ideas are spilling into my colorful assortment of spiral-bound notebooks, friends and associates are jumping on board to support the vision I’m helping to create, and my family life is exactly what I always hoped it would be.

However, along with all this excitement, my emails have quadrupled, my project load has significantly increased, and my stress level has been rising beyond my comfort level. (Once you experience “stress-free productivity,” there’s no going back . . . .)

So today I decided to apply the Natural Planning Model from GTD to my overall life plan. The point of getting organized isn’t to simply “get more done.” The point is to get the right things done–and that takes some serious decision making.

I figured that as long as I’m doing this exercise, I might as well document the process and share it with others who also might be trying to cram too much onto their plates.

Step 1: Defining Purpose and Principles

This was a fun one. I got out a blank sheet of paper and wrote at the top: ”If I were to feel thrilled about my life each day, what would it look like?” I know this list could go on and on, but I tried to keep it simple, basically entailing things like having a healthy, clean environment, building strong relationships, spending my time on meaningful projects (that can only be done by me–delegating everything else), nurturing my mind, body, and spirit, and living a life filled with purpose.

Step 2: Outcome Visioning

As I looked over the list from Step 1, I started envisioning how this “new life” would be (and how it would not be). For example, I pictured our closets and cupboards containing half as many things as they currently do. I pictured my children happily completing their responsibility charts. I pictured our family going on more walks together, cooking new recipes in the kitchen, and snuggling together for story time and bedtime. I imagined myself responding to emails twice a day, when I could actually sit down and process them calmly (instead of rushing through them whenever I had a free second in the kitchen). I also pictured myself breathing more, smiling often, and feeling more deliberate about my daily routines.

Really seeing these things is empowering.

Step 3: Brainstorming

With this vision fresh on my mind, I started seven small mind maps–encapsulating all the actions and characteristics I want to translate into habits.

The seven mind maps (for my specific needs) were as follows: Spirit, Environment, Routines, Recreation, Relationships, Power of Moms, and Other Pursuits.

As I did this, an interesting thing happened. I started to see how a few basic changes would transform my entire life.
I need firm boundaries. As a mother who is working on lots of projects from home, it’s enticing to squeeze work into every open minute. I need more space in my day, and that means keeping “extra” work separate from “family” work.
I need to be deliberate about making time to read and think. That’s what fuels me, and when I stop doing those things, the person inside starts to die.
I need to delegate or defer as many projects as possible. There are some things that can only be done right now–like making podcasts with my children, photographing their childhood, recording what I’m learning about motherhood, and building a family that I adore. A lot of the “urgent” things can wait.

Step 4: Organizing

Here’s where I took all those principles, dreams, and brainstorms and translated them into a very doable list. I first identified eight components of my “ideal” life. As I prioritized them, I realized that half could wait awhile, so I put them onto next month’s trigger list. I also realized that the four remaining items were the essence of my stress. (Kind of fun to figure that out.)

Step 5: Identifying Next Actions

Before placing these four items onto my “Current Projects” List, I identified my Next Actions and put them on my context-based list. It is one of the most liberating things in the world to see a broad, theoretical plan become something doable and focused.

This week, I don’t have to think about every little thing I’ve ever wanted to accomplish. I simply need to keep my work hours within predetermined slots of time, spend 30 minutes moving those “I’ll-sort-someday-but-these-really-belong-in-the-office” boxes out of my bedroom, take 15 minutes to research a landscaping company, and invest one hour evaluating my Routines and Responsibilities List. That can be done.

Not everything in life can be controlled, and there’s no way I can plan for every single distraction or opportunity. However, GTD has helped me realize that I can create the life I’ve always wanted–even if I DO only have one plate.

April Perry is the mother of four children and co-founder of www.powerofmoms.com.

I’m a fan of gadgets. I love shiny new objects that promise to deliver bigger, stronger and faster results. The problem with a lot of these shiny new objects is that there is a learning curve for most (if not all) of them and even when the knowledge is set firmly in place, they are only part of the equation. It’s the other part that often lets us down. That other part is us.

We often get bogged down in the details, mired in a slew of hidden tasks that pile up in our electronic folders and leave us with our heads spinning. And as a bit of a technophile myself, I’ve had it happen to me on several occasions. When this happens, I turn over my trusted system to a device that I can trust with its implementation: paper.

Paper is a powerful device in its own right.  It is simple in both design and execution. You write something down, and with the act of writing it out you have enhanced your chance of doing something productive with it.

There’s no framework as to how you lay out your productivity plan when you have a blank piece of paper in front of you. You can build your own, use an existing template or adapt an existing system to make it your own. As long as you’ve got a system in mind, you’re only limited by how it appears on paper by your own imagination. In a sense, paper is freeing.

There is simplicity in using paper over electronic devices. It doesn’t have an operating system that needs rebooting, and it is always wireless.  If you hand someone a piece of paper with action items on it, they can look at it and understand it without having to refer to a manual. The only operating system that would ever require rebooting when paper is used is the user.

The cost of paper is another bonus. Costs can range from a few dollars for a simple junior legal pad to hundreds of dollars for elegant paper products. Again, it is the user who will define how well the paper is used — so an expensive planner could be worthless if not used diligently while a dollar store legal pad that is used extremely well would be priceless.

Whether you choose paper to implement GTD or some form of software comes down to personal preference and choice. Some, like me, might use software to handle the bulk of their work while using paper to outline other work.  It all comes down to to what works best for you. Paper is a great gateway device for someone getting started with GTD.  For those who have more experience with the methodology it can be used to great benefit as well. Anyone with some GTD know-how can tailor paper to the fit the system.

The key is not tailoring the system to fit the device. Doing that will result in doing very little.

In an earlier GTD Times post, I talked about some of the basic ways I use the principles of GTD with my kids. That post focused on Capturing, Clarifying, Organizing and Reflecting at a high level.

This week, I spent the better part of an evening on a Clarifying mission with my kids, and it struck me that the act of processing an inbox with kids is vastly different from how we do it as adults.

If you are a parent who works outside the home, your kids probably generate a lot of artwork during the day. And by “a lot” I mean levels that will wake you up at night with hoarders’ nightmares of having to dig tunnels through the piles of coloring sheets and construction paper stacked floor-to-ceiling in your house. Or maybe that’s just me.

At any rate, Capturing & Clarifying can be particularly helpful in dealing with kids’ art projects. Here’s how I handle it.

Capturing
- The kids’ artwork comes into the house via a delivery device known as a “backpack.”

- Each night, we empty the backpack and look at all of the papers while we eat dinner. This is not so much processing as just enjoying and observing and talking.

- Things that are particularly awesome might get immediately hung on the fridge, placed in the baby book, or tacked up on one of the kids’ bulletin boards. (They have one in their room, and one over their play table.)

- Any remaining papers are placed in an orange plastic box. (Seen on top of the wooden toy shelf in this photo.)

Clarifying
When the orange plastic box gets full, we go through it to decide what we should keep, and what we can let go. There are two advantages to this delayed processing.

First, papers that seem unimportant at first sometimes feel meaningful after a few weeks (or months) and it can be fun to look at them together and marvel over them. “Wow, look at how much better you can write your name now than you could then!”

Second, it gives the kids some emotional distance from their work. I mean, think about it: what if you brought an awesome spreadsheet home and your spouse looked at it for 2 minutes and then tossed it in the trash? Okay, fine — I’ll admit that I sometimes recycle their papers on the sly. But, it’s rare, because I would be crushed if someone looked at what I did all day and immediately decided it should be tossed out. But if I looked at it months later, I might agree, “That thing? Oh yeah, toss it. It’s a metrics report that’s out-of-date.”

It’s the same with kids: given some space, they’ll look at old work with more of an ability to recognize what’s really special, and what they’re willing to part with.

That being said, kids usually need more processing time than adults. As adults, we can — and should — push ourselves to make decisions about “stuff” and not re-process the same materials over and over. With kids, I find at least two rounds of processing are necessary.

Round 1 involves going through everything in the inbox item-by-item and setting aside things that should obviously be saved or recycled.

This is where patience comes in: what’s “obvious” to me, isn’t always obvious to them. So, in addition to “Trash” and “Treasure”, have an “Undecided” pile. Give them their space; if they’re not ready to part with it, allow it to go in Undecided. Tip: I keep the Treasure box visible. It helps them understand and visualize the small amount of space for the things we are keeping.

By the same token, it may help to keep the Trash bag out of site. The idea of your things being tossed out is less harsh than actually seeing them get tossed out. In the photo below, our Trash bag is visible — in the past, the “let’s say goodbye to this one” pile gets thrown out after they’re in bed.

Round 2 is going through the Undecided pile. I’ve noticed that decisions are easier and faster this second time through. Usually, they’ve let go of a few things during Round 1 and have noticed it hasn’t killed them. We’ve also referred to the Treasure box — and how full it’s getting — so they know not everything can be saved.

So, how does all this look in real life? The photo above shows us in action.

Clockwise, from left to right:

- Brown Paper Bag: Trash.

- Orange Archive Box: Treasure. Only a very small number of things make it to this box — this is the forever box and space is limited!

- Kids, 5 and 2. In the act of processing.

- Orange Plastic Box: The kids’ art “inbox”.

- Truck. It’s just helpful to have a large dump truck nearby. You never know.

- Pile of papers: Undecided. See how big that pile is? We’re early in Round 1 at this point. Even though it’s been weeks since the kids made this stuff, it’s hard for them to part with.

So, if I had to summarize my tips for successfully processing “stuff” with kids it’d be this:

- Define a process that works for your family. Yours may be different from mine, but I think it’s good to have a process so kids know where to put their art, where they can find it later, and so that they feel like they’re a part of deciding what to keep (vs. feeling like their stuff disappears mysteriously!). It also prevents the awkward, “Mom, why is my precious artwork in the garbage?!” discussion.

- Have lots of patience. Remember that their brains are processing differently from yours. Encourage them to talk through their thought process and try to help guide them when they get stuck. Ask lots of questions about how they feel about their art. Let them know it’s sometimes hard for you to get rid of stuff, too — or to make decisions.

- Try to make it fun. Seriously, when the Trash pile is literally a dump truck…throwing stuff out is way easier!

Meghan Wilker is a regular community contributor to GTD Times.  She’s also been featured in David Allen’s In Conversation series on GTD Connect, spotlighting some of the most fascinating people in our network of GTDers around the world.

Tackling a 5th-Grade Science Project

My 11-year-old daughter came home with a huge packet of science project information a few weeks ago, and the entire family started feeling the stress.  Before the world of computers and fancy tri-fold poster board, science projects were a cinch.  I remember hunkering down at my dining room table with construction paper, some magic markers, and a simple sheet of white poster board.  But today’s children have a lot more pressure.  They need charts and graphs, digital photographs, and well-written hypotheses.  It’s enough to overwhelm the children and the parents.

Instead of letting the stress get to me, I decided to apply the principles I learned from Getting Things Done and show my daughter that projects don’t have to give us headaches.  Here’s what we did:

Step 1: We read through the packet of information and made a list of tasks based on context. 

My daughter got out a little sticky-note pad, and she divided her tasks into the following categories:

• On My Own
• With Mom @ Home, and
• Errands

Step 2: Each day we started checking things off the list, depending on our energy level, schedule, etc.  When we were out at the mall one evening, my daughter said, “Since we’re running errands, can we pick up the poster board and notebook I need from the art store?”  Fifteen minutes later, it was done.

When I was helping the other children with their homework after school, my daughter did the typing and research she’d already determined she could do on her own.  Even though she was a little timid at first, it turned out great.

On the days we didn’t have anything planned, we looked at the list of things we needed to do together.  Her project was to see what would happen to a loaf of bread when one of four ingredients was left out.  So one day, I stayed in my pajamas until noon while we mixed up five different little loaves of bread, including the “control” loaf.  Then we ate the tasty ones for lunch.

The greatest part was that whenever my daughter would say, “Mom, I don’t want to do the Science Fair,” I would say, “Don’t think about the whole project.  Just think about your next action.  What is the next, specific thing you need to do?”  Since she’d already taken the time to identify each task, it only took a second for her to figure out the next action.  She became much more calm and confident as the project progressed.

Step 3: We set a date on the calendar for when we would put the entire project together.  Prepping each component of the project wasn’t too difficult, but we knew we needed an entire evening to print and assemble everything onto the poster board.  Our little three-year-old LIVES for projects like this, and we were sure that involving him would spell “catastrophe.”

When my other daughter and husband bought tickets to attend the Daddy-Daughter Dance at school one Friday night, we decided that would be the perfect time to have our own party, science-fair style. We put it on the calendar and didn’t worry about the details one bit.  We tucked the three-year-old in bed and had such a fun time cutting our print-outs, chatting, gluing, and enjoying our work together.  We even learned to make photo collages together using Picasa, and she was so excited to make the background purple.

Tackling the Science Fair together strengthened our relationship, gave me a chance to teach my daughter about project planning, and even provided a tasty lunch along the way.  The smile on her face when we finished that project was priceless, and now we’re already brainstorming for next year.

April Perry is the mother of four children and the Co-Director of The Power of Moms.

Here’s how Community Contributor Meghan Wilker uses them:

In the workplace, one of the best ways to distinguish yourself is by being effective. And, in this era of constant — and I mean CONSTANT — interruption, one of the best ways to be effective is to be strategic about how you communicate with others.

Humanity has been stricken with several email-related diseases over the past few years. Two in particular are insidious contributors to the interruptive environment.

 The first is what I call “Forward-itis.” This affliction causes people to forward every email they receive without pulling out the important points, or thinking about who should really get them. These emails are often accompanied by the dreaded label, “FYI. Read below.”

A related, and often concurrent, condition called “High Priority Hyperbole” causes one to believe that every email they send deserves a few extra exclamation points.

These bad habits, combined with instant messages, texts, tweets, and meetings mean that we can get trapped in a near-constant state of reactivity. I mean, gosh, look at those exclamation points on that email! We really ought to respond quickly right?! Not always. It’s just not effective for us, or those around us.

Enter the Agenda

The agenda is one of the unsung power tools of GTD. With agendas, one captures everything they need to talk to a particular person (or group) about so that when we are in the presence of that person, we can remember all the things we need to say.

Why is this so powerful? In this age of ever-present interruptions, an agenda allows you to thoughtfully gather everything you need to say, which can greatly reduce the stress you place on yourself, and on the person you need to talk to.  It’s really just a specialized form of a list — and we all know how great a good list can be.

Agendas at Work

Throughout the day, issues come up that I need to ask my boss about. Instead of bugging her about each one (in person or over email/instant messenger), I collect those items onto an agenda and — at least once a day — check in with her, run through my list, and move on. What’s important is that I don’t forget to talk to her about things because they’re all collected on an agenda. If our time gets cut short and I can’t get to something, it stays on the agenda until we have time to talk about it.

 If something comes up that doesn’t require us to speak face-to-face, I can still use the idea of an agenda and gather topics into one email (instead of peppering her with 50 emails a day).

Another way I’ve implemented this agenda/list approach is by gathering all of a client’s “high-priority” emails and sending a single reply at the end of the day. This doesn’t always stop the tidal wave of exclamation point-riddled emails, but it can curb them a bit (and my client appreciates my organized approach to their barrage of emails). More importantly, it helped save my time, and my sanity.

On the flip side, as a manager I deeply appreciate the people who report to me who do the same.  I feel like they respect my time, because they aren’t coming in my office every 5 minutes with a new question. What they are telling me is that they can proactively manage both their time, and mine.

Dropping by someone’s office every two minutes (or forwarding them an email at the same frequency) indicates an inability to manage oneself effectively. And a huge part of being an effective and noticeable employee is the ability to manage oneself.

So, agendas. Give ‘em a try. You may be surprised at the huge impact you’ll see with such a seemingly simple tool.

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I’m the mom at the toy store on December 23rd with a cart full of car tracks, dolls, sports equipment, and art supplies my children may or may not like. I’m also the mom paying overnight shipping charges to send hastily-assembled photo albums to Grandma. I stay up late the night before school gets out for Winter Break, making bread for the teachers (mainly because I can’t think of anything else to get them). Our Christmas cards usually get sent out after New Year’s . . . if they get sent out at all. My neighbors don’t get plates of cookies from us, our mail lady never gets a card, and my husband gets only a big hug and a kiss. All the while, I’m feeling frustrated and overwhelmed with the holiday season–wishing I could pull things together.

This year, I decided to plan out my Christmas festivities using GTD. It works for my business, my family, and my personal life. Now I’ve made it work for my gift-giving. Here are the steps that have made this year’s holiday season a breeze:

Step 1: I sat down with my family and brainstormed all the people we want to remember this season–teachers, family members, friends, neighbors, etc.

Step 2: We identified inexpensive but fun gifts we can give them, and then we wrote our Next Actions on a sheet of paper organized by context (errands, computer, stuff to do at home). On the errands list, I included each store we need to visit. When I get to those stores, I’ll reference my gift list, which has very specific items on it. On the computer list, I wrote down each item that can easily be purchased online. Those can quickly be ordered weeks before Christmas. On the “stuff to do at home” list, I wrote down all the things my children can help me do–like pick out photos for Grandma and draw cards for the teachers.

Step 3: I noted deadlines on my calendar so I wouldn’t forget to deliver any gifts. My sisters all got together for a wedding at the end of November, so I delivered their homemade earrings then. Check! We dropped off little advent calendars to some friends before December 1st so they wouldn’t miss a day of chocolate. Check! We wrapped the teacher gifts (Christmas kitchen towels) weeks before Christmas so they could enjoy them throughout the month, and we started making the toy store rounds early enough that I wouldn’t end up buying random presents I’d only have to return later. Check, check!

I can’t even explain how great it feels to be on top of things this Christmas. Because I have things organized, I’ve been able to do some extra special things for families in need. I’ve been able to sit around with my children in the evenings, reading Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” We’ve been able to discuss the reason why we celebrate Christmas, and we’ve had a much more peaceful feeling in our home.

We’ve also decided that there are several things we won’t be doing this Christmas. Because my Routines and Responsibilities list is quite full this month, we’re not going to worry about Christmas cards. We’re not going to go to a ton of parties. We’re not going to travel. This Christmas, we’re keeping things simple, sharing love for the special people in our lives, reaching out to help those who are less fortunate, and truly experiencing Peace on Earth.

April Perry is the mother of four children and the Co-Director of www.powerofmoms.com.

A friend of mine came to visit when my first child was three months old.  Noticing I was still actively using my day planner, she joked, “What do you write on your task list, ‘Cook and Clean?’”

She wasn’t trying to hurt my feelings, but her question reflected an assumption that many people have about those who spend the majority of their waking hours taking care of little ones…that they’re not actually “doing” anything.

I’ve spent 10 years as a full-time mom, and let me assure you that taking care of a family is a huge responsibility.  It’s a party some days, a train wreck other days, but it’s the most important thing I’ve ever done.  I’ve created a Mom-and-Dad-friendly “Trigger List” to help parents see what types of things they can organize with GTD. 

Let the fun begin:

• Books to read together as a family
• Holiday traditions to create more unity
• Recipes that can be made with lots of “help”
• Lullabies to learn on the guitar
• Parent/Child date night ideas
• Promises I’ve made to my children
• Promises I’ve made to my spouse
• Family service projects
• Neighbors we’d like to know better
• Family Vacations
• “Quiet Time,” family-friendly websites
• Free community events
• Family day-trips
• Errands to run when I’m by myself
• Errands to run when I’ve got lots of company
• Volunteer opportunities with the PTA
• Birthday party gifts to keep on hand
• Fun birthday party games and ideas
• Good behavior incentive programs for my children
• Job charts/housework plans
• Shopping lists (pre-printed, organized by store)
• Sports for my children
• Home de-junking plans
• Cultural experiences to calendar
• Great mentors for my children
• Items to discuss with my children’s school teachers
• Holes in the wall to repair
• Family fitness goals
• Clothing to mend
• Clothing needs (did they grow out of that already?)
• Ideas to make nap time happen regularly
• Parenting books to read or classes to take
• Journal entries to record (so I don’t forget how cute my children are)
• Doctor and dental appointments to make
• Character traits I want to develop as a parent
• Character traits I want my children to develop
• Home decor ideas
• Play date ideas
• Crafts that won’t leave my kitchen sparkling with glitter
• Family memories to create so my children will always remember how much I loved them

The list can go on and on, but way I see it, I have two options:

Option 1:  When my children turn two, I can say, “Look, Honey!  This is called a TV.  It’s going to take care of you for the next 16 years!”

or

Option 2:  I can be an involved parent.  I’ll certainly take time, occasionally, to watch great programs on television, but I want more than that for my children. 

I want to be the kind of parent who thinks big.  I want to bring inspiring books into our home, bake 23 different kinds of bread, visit historical landmarks, tour the world’s museums, help families living in poverty, teach my children about history and politics, create a family of incredible photographers, and bike 12 miles together on Saturdays. 

All of this used to overwhelm me.  Of course I can’t do everything I imagine, but I can do a lot of those things–if I’m organized. 

Getting Things Done isn’t just about “things.”  It’s about people, about relationships, and about creating a lifestyle that most people think they can’t achieve. 

Our family has improved dramatically since I implemented GTD into my life–not just because I’m less stressed about running my business and managing the home, but because I now see a clear path to turning my dreams of a strong, healthy family into my reality. 

April Perry is the mother of four children and co-director of www.powerofmoms.com. She is a regular contributor to GTD Times.

A Community Contribution from Erik Hanberg

For me, one of the easiest and yet most difficult concepts of David Allen’s Getting Things Done was thinking of everything as work.

After all, who wants to work all the time? But I quickly learned there was strength in the idea.

As I was implementing GTD for the first time, I understood the concept as a way to make sure that I didn’t lose track of the fun things in life. If my lists concerned only work-related areas, it would always feel like a chore to check them. But I added projects like “Experience great art,” and “See the world.”  That means that every week I think about those two projects and make sure I am scheduling them, whether it’s “Watch next disc of Mad Men” or “Reserve train tickets in Italy.” (These might be the only projects I have that I’m glad there is no “done!”)

I also understood the concept as a way to re-think procrastination. David Allen’s system encourages me to take into account my energy level as I consider projects. So if I don’t have the energy to do that massive task in front of me, and instead I check off a lot of little things related to home or personal life, that’s still work. I’m not shirking, I’m still … ahem … getting things done. It’s all work.

But in the last two years, I have come to realize that there is even more power behind this idea than I’d originally thought.

My professional life is fractured into many small pieces. I am the part-time Executive Director of a civic non-profit (12.5 hours per week!). I am in public office, one of five commissioners overseeing the park district here in Tacoma, Washington. And I am a web developer, project manager, and bookkeeper for my wife’s graphic design company, which further divides into projects related to each client we have. Non-profit, government, and for profit work.

I don’t know if I could do it without GTD.

Clearly, having a well-maintained task list is essential to pulling off this kind of cobbled-together professional life. But it’s more than that. At times I can feel how easy it would be to let it get to me. On days when I have meeting after meeting after meeting—and none of them even barely related to the others—it’s tempting to think that if I could just “simplify” life would be a lot easier.

But I think that kind of simplicity is an illusion. In reality, even when I had a 9 to 5 job, I was tugged in different directions all day. Long-range goals, short-term goals, budget meetings, staff meetings, and—oh yeah—I’m the only one who knows how to replace the toner cartridge.

Thinking of my jobs, plus my personal roles, plus my volunteer roles as parts of the same big ball of “work” helps me achieve more than I’d ever thought possible. It’s all the same work. It’s all the same life.

If I were too busy trying to maintain a “work/life balance” I wouldn’t be doing nearly as much, and I wouldn’t be having as much fun with my work as I am.

I joined GTD Connect a week or two ago, and I’m discovering that it is an excellent resource. The amount of content is awesome, and you have developed an active community. (Initially I thought: $48/month is a lot of money. Now I realize it’s worth it.)

I read Getting Things Done about three years ago, and although much of it made sense, I missed a lot of it. I’m now reading Making It All Work, reading articles on GTD Connect, and listening to Connect webinars, and I’m developing a much deeper understanding of GTD and how to apply it.

Thanks!
Bruce

A Community Contribution from Erik Hanberg

Here’s how I deal with email and keep from getting too overloaded:

1. I have one inbox. Everything goes to the same place (accounts either forward to Gmail or I’ve actually set Gmail up to reply from those accounts).
2. I only check email when I can reply to it easily. Unless I’m waiting for something specific, I try not to check email from my phone, because it’s a recipe for getting an email that requires a length reply that I don’t have the time to give on my phone. And that just stresses me out until I can reply appropriately.
3. I don’t use preview windows. It’s too easy to only get half the information and miss important stuff. When I used Outlook for work, this happened way more often that I would have liked. I thought it was a feature, but it turns out it wasn’t helpful at all. It made me browse email more than read email.
4. When I do check email, I start at the bottom and move my way up, going through email one at a time in the order sent. It’s the only way to know I haven’t missed anything.
5. I know my hot keys. By not using a mouse, I fly through emails much faster.
6. If I can reply quickly, I’ll do it right then. If I need to think on it, or know it will be a long reply with lots of edits, I’ll star it (a Gmail feature), so I don’t lose track of it. Alternatively, if you have folders, just move it to an Action folder.
7. Two or three times a year I’ll unsubscribe to newsletters I’m not using anymore. It’s amazing how easy it is to get onto newsletters without really trying.

I was the guy on the back row when you asked ‘How do these unfinished things make you feel?’ replied with ‘a failure’.

I’ve been using the concepts learned in class to process my work and personal email. (I use Exchange for work – GMail for personal.)  I have a shared Google calendar my wife and personal friends can see.  This lets them know when I am available and when I am taking personal time.

All I can say is wow.

I now leave work with an inbox of ZERO knowing that everything is in its place and I get reminded about everything.   I can now think about where I am and the moment.

Result:

• This past month I became / finished a Six Sigma Orange Belt Project (first in my department to do so).
• Working on a book for small businesses to be available via Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, Nook, and Apple’s iTunes store.
• Earlier this year, as a result of looking at time / scheduling, my lovely bride signed me up for a fitness boot camp — at 5 a.m.
• I will be taking a boxing class right along side ‘professional’ boxers.  This would have been unthinkable a year ago.
• I’m doing consulting work for local non-profits and churches.  Two groups I have a fondness for.
• And, most importantly, we’re expecting our first addition to the family in December.

I’m thankful for GTD.  This has brought me out a chaotic state and into a ‘mind like water’ focus.

A Community Contribution from April Perry

The first day of school started out great.  My three oldest children dressed in their new clothes, laced up their new shoes, ate a healthy breakfast, and then headed off to school with homemade sack lunches and brightly-colored, fully-stocked pencil cases.  I felt like a wonderful mom.

They returned home seven hours later, happy but tired, toting folders overflowing with paperwork, and that’s when MY work started (I mean…continued).  As I shuffled through more than 50 sheets of fliers, forms, and date-specific notices, I started to feel a little dizzy.  The pile on my counter harbored a LOT of information, most of which needed my attention right that minute.  I was tempted to break into tears or bury my head in a carton of Rocky Road, but then I thought, “Wait a minute.  I’ve been trained in GTD.  I was MADE for situations like this.”  

Within 30 minutes, the papers were completely processed, and I was ready to move on with our evening.  And since I had such a glorious experience with my paper party, I thought I’d share some ideas that might help other moms manage the near-constant influx of papers that comes flying from their children’s backpacks.

Shall we begin?

Step #1: I did a quick initial sort, pulling everything out of the pile that belonged in the trash.  That was actually half the pile, since all three of my children received identical copies of each handout (maybe they’ll go digital someday?).  By removing the trash at the beginning, the remaining stack looked much less daunting.

Step #2: I went through the stack again and processed everything that would take two minutes or less.  I typed the teachers’ email addresses into my Contacts list, noted the date of the school’s 5K, and recorded all of the holiday breaks onto my calendar.  That eliminated seven or eight more sheets of paper.

Step #3: I gathered all the sheets I wanted to keep for reference (bell schedules, classroom rules, details about the school exercise program, etc.) and put them immediately into my filing cabinet in a clearly-labeled folder…just in case I need to find them quickly in the future.

Step #4: I made a decision on the school picture order form and then wrote a reminder on the next day’s calendar page to order the photos online (doing so enabled me to receive a few extra photos free of charge.  Wasn’t that a nice of them?).

Step #5: I got out my Next Actions list and recorded the three extra school supplies my daughter needed in the “Errands” context.

Step #6: I spread out all nine of the emergency cards and a few extra forms on the table, and my children and I filled them out together.  They wrote their names, address, phone number, etc., and then I added a few additional pieces of information and my signature.

That was it!  Piece of cake, right?  There’s no need to stress when you’re a “black-belt” at paper processing.

There was one little boy in my daughter’s Kindergarten class a few years ago whose mother NEVER emptied his backpack.  I’m serious.  Every morning, he came to school with a bulging backpack–full of paperwork that had been piling up for months.  I knew his mom a little bit, and I don’t think she was trying to be neglectful.  I think she just felt overwhelmed with her own paperwork and problems, and unzipping a backpack of “stuff” would have thrown her over the edge.

I feel like part of my mission in life is to help the moms of the world to get organized.  It takes some work, but it’s not that complicated, and the basic ideas presented in Getting Things Done have the power to make life much, much easier–whether it’s the first day of school or simply the first day of the rest of your life.

April Perry is the mother of four children and co-director of www.powerofmoms.com. She is a regular contributor to GTD Times.

First of all, thanks for a great class!  I really enjoyed it.  You are an awesome instructor – very engaging and really good at demonstrating practical applications of the GTD concept.

I will admit that I was a bit skeptical about the GTD concept as I have taken time management courses before and was never able to make the concepts work in the fast paced/put out 100 fires every day work of IT training development/delivery and IT technical support.  I wondered how constructed the  responses from people having implemented GTD saying “GTD changed my life!” were.  But hey, I will try anything once – twice if I like it.  So about a week after the class – I took two evenings (about 2 hours each day) and did the mind sweep, Outlook task setup, etc. following the guides and what we learned in class.  I also included home, family, and such in the setup.  I finished on a Friday evening and for the first time in my career – I will say it again – for the FIRST time in my career  – I went home and didn’t think ONCE about work!!!  That weekend I was even able to accomplish many of the little “@Home” tasks that had been swirling around in my head as needing to be done, but I would forget because I had not written them down and scheduled them.

Before GTD I was stressed out and down to the last minute on completing many of my tasks, not from procrastination but from lack of organization.  With GTD, I am now so “up to date” and “on track” with my projects and tasks that I have even received several “Thanks for the fast response!” emails and comments from several co-workers and upper management!!!  I am even able to quickly gather “Completed Tasks” for my monthly notes and program review reporting to management.  I completed my two sets of monthly reporting charts in record time because all of the information was literally at my fingertips!!!

I feel such a weight off my shoulders that I am still amazed every day at how well GTD works.  There are not words to describe the feeling of elation of going home each night and not worrying about work and what needs to be done.  I know it is all captured and ready for me to address tomorrow.  To be able to actually focus on my family and home life without work raging through my head is quite an amazing feeling.  I have even found time to take up training 3 times a week to run a 5K coming up in Oct.  My next short term goal – and yes it is on my GTD list – is to run a 10K next Spring and next long term goal is to run a Half Marathon next year in the Fall.  I have “Run a Full Marathon” in my 30,000 level “Someday/Maybe” list (not sure I will like running that much!).

GTD is working so well for me that I have asked my team to sign up for the next available GTD class and I will be sharing the concept and how it is working for me – doing what they do – with them at our offsite in October.  Some are getting a taste with the Outlooks “Assign Task” from my GTD list that they are getting from me already.

The two quotes from class that ring so true to me are:

“Your ability to generate power is directly proportional to your ability to relax.” – David Allen
“You can only feel good about what you are not doing, when you know what you are not doing.” – David Allen

So I can say without a doubt and with much enthusiasm that “GTD changed my life!”

GTD has changed my life so much at work that I actually felt guilty at first because I was not feeling that ever present swirl of turmoil in my head at all the things I needed to be doing that I figured I must not have enough to do.  LOL!!!  I soon came to realize that is the beauty of GTD – like you said – “mind clearing” – an amazing feeling to say the least.

Thank you again for a great class and when you see David Allen – give him a good ole’ Southern hug and a great big THANK YOU for me please!!!

A Community Contribution from Nuno Donato on how he used the GTD Horizons of Focus model to gain clarity about a life change

About one and a half year ago I moved from a busy big city “A”: to a smaller one in the country side “B” to develop a project with an organization I volunteer with. My life changed in many ways due to this, and I enjoyed it a lot. Recently, lots of things on the personal and professional level changed and I felt that it might be good to go back to A.  Lots of things were involved in this, as some people and projects depend on where I am. I spent the last 3 months with the question of where should I be, on my mind. I tried getting all possible arguments, opinions, made a list of pros and cons, but nothing could really assure me that I was making a good decision. It was like my gut feeling was telling me not to trust anything. Sometimes my mind would give me some arguments in favor of A, my heart would ask me to stay in B…. and after a week they would switch places .  So it was getting very confusing and difficult to me.

Finally I thought, why not to use GTD to solve this problem? It was a wise decision! After a good weekly review I made a deep dive into my horizons of focus synchronizing my life with my mind and my heart at different levels. After I finished the map (mind-mapping is my favorite tool to do the horizons of focus), I took a look at the whole picture of my life and asked the question again, where should I go? The answer came it 2 seconds, and it was so crystal-clear that I could not believe it!

Being aware of where we are and where we are going short-and-mid term, knowing what is our purpose here, is such a valuable tool to make decisions that I can not thank David enough for giving us this! By the way, the answer was quite interesting: I will move to A for 2-3 years in order to accomplish some short-term goals which are very important, and then move back to B to walk in the direction of my long term goals and how I see myself living.

Take care,
Nuno

You can learn more about the Horizons of Focus in Getting Things Done and Making It All Work.

I refuse to use the word “busy” because in this day and age we are all in the same boat. This year has been an enlightening one for me so far. Truthfully, I decided a couple months ago to take a step back from the constant search to improve. I found myself constantly reading books on getting better at work and life. Also, consistently reading GTD material and listening to podcasts, etc. While this worked for a long time and I tangibly saw the benefits of my learning, I found that it became a vicious pursuit of perfection. The pursuit of perfection is what most of us are after. It’s a noble pursuit. However, it can be an addicting one as well. You can really equate it to a drug addict or alcoholic in some ways. I found myself constantly reading. Finishing one book and picking up the next. Constantly thinking about how to achieve this or to achieve that. At the end of the day, this pursuit of perfection is all about a future state. I found it very difficult to enjoy what was happening in the now.

As I got to this saturation point, I literally stopped reading, stopped writing and stopped researching ways to get better. I didn’t stop working hard, both at work and life, but I decided to just work for the now. To really see if all that I’ve learned and have applied via GTD and other methods was working w/out constantly needing a “coach” around. It’s almost like a golfer who always has his swing coach with him, or his trainer, or his mental coach. While all serve a great purpose, can that golfer produce results on his own? Can he go to the range and figure out how to change his swing w/out someone telling him? When he pulls his drive into the trees late in a round, is he mentally strong enough to recover and execute on his own?

The long and short of it is this. The time that you spend away from the chase is more important than the daily pursuit of whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish. I firmly believe that. When you take a day off of work, don’t check your BlackBerry. When you’re on vacation, disconnect as much as possible. When you go to your kid’s soccer game, don’t even bring your phone with you — leave it in the car. When you’ve been working your butt off at the gym all week, take a day off and eat whatever you want. It will make it that much easier to get after it the following week. If you’re married and have kids, step back and don’t feel guilty about going away for a weekend with your husband or wife. It will make you a better parent and partner.

The same goes for GTD. Back off a bit. You don’t have to be perfect. Your systems are going to get out of whack. You’re email’s going to be out of control at times. Your office inbox is going to overflow. The key is to trust what you’ve learned. Trust that you can back off and apply your knowledge to getting yourself back on your game. It’s in this trust that the potential stresses of the craziness subside.

Be well and, again, thanks for sticking with me during this hiatus.

“Happiness is not in the pursuit, for it is in the silent corridors of this thing we call life.” – Unknown

I’ve been using GTD principles since I was first introduced to them in 1994-95. I was part of a consulting group at Polaroid responsible for supporting cross-functional new product development teams in the areas of effectiveness, organizational learning, and functional expertise. After some research, a colleague found the Time/Design system, and before long we had arranged for David Allen to come in and deliver what was then called the “MAP Seminar.” I don’t exaggerate when I say it changed my life, and I have applied the questions “What’s the desired outcome?” and “What’s the next action?” to every conceivable personal and professional issue since.

The thing that astounds me most about GTD is the fact that, 25 years later, I discover nuances and have epiphanies on a regular basis – this is truly an organic approach that grows with the user. My latest epiphany came a few weeks ago and concerns the dreaded Weekly Review. I thought: “If I feel stress in any given week, it’s because I’m trying to think about several ‘big pictures’ while simultaneously reigning in the chaos that threatens to run away with my sanity!” I realized that my ability to think clearly during the ebb and flow of my days, my ability to be with any input that arises for me, is directly proportional to the time I’ve spent that week in reflection. On a daily basis, I am calmer and more focused when I meditate in the morning. When I say “meditate,” I am using the term loosely – I mean that I’ve been able to have some quiet, non-thinking time either sitting and watching my breath, or perhaps staring out the window or writing in a stream of consciousness way. When I don’t have that little buffer between my sleep state and my full-on, awake, “handling things” state, then I find I’m a little off-kilter.

On a weekly basis, I have the Weekly Review. It is a time to reflect, and not do. Now when I do my Weekly Review, I treat it as a real meeting with a real assistant. When I frame the weekly review as a session, during which I get to delegate to an assistant (rather than figuring out what I need to do) then it takes on a liberating quality instead of feeling like another should. I suppose you could really file this approach under “acting as if,” but whatever you want to call it, it works for me. When I’m delegating to someone, I have to be very clear as to what I want them to do. I can’t vaguely say “Work on the Thompson Project.” I need to give that person specific tasks to accomplish. Tasks that I can review with them the following week in order to determine how much progress has been made. That way I can re-calibrate and re-negotiate if necessary based on “our” available resources. If it seems as though I’ve been over-loading my assistant, and only a few of the intended tasks have been accomplished, then it’s time to take a step back and see why this might be so, and how we might fix it. Obviously this approach can work extremely well between a person and their flesh-and-blood assistant. But it’s an approach that has made a light year of difference in the effectiveness of my own self-review. The Weekly Review becomes less emotionally charged; less about beating up on myself for what I didn’t do, and more about setting myself up for success.

There is nothing like the feeling when I’ve thought through everything on my plate, have decided what needs active attention and what can be put on the back burner, and have subsequently identified precisely what needs to happen to move it all forward. It allows me to be present in each moment, and to move into the daily role of “self-assistant” – fulfilling my “manager’s” requests and not really worrying about much beyond getting things done. How many of us who have been managers haven’t longed for the day when we didn’t have to “worry about stuff all the time”?! The Weekly Review, done consistently and with perhaps a little internal role-playing, has given me the best of both worlds.

Carolyn Sullivan is Director of Marketing for Rosewalker Design Project, which specializes in antique restoration and the creation of mixed media decorative arts. She also works a full 40-hour-plus work week as an Executive Assistant for an international logistics company. She loves to write and play music, read, watch films, and just be.

A Community Contribution from April Perry

Just about every mother I know has a refrigerator that is completely covered with party invitations, handouts for school assignments, reminders for community events, coupons, and about 50 other things calling out, “Me! Me! Me!”  We’re so afraid of the “out of mind, out of sight” rule, that we want to keep everything that needs our attention smack dab in the middle of the kitchen.

Although this tactic might help us feel slightly organized, the drawbacks greatly outnumber the benefits.  For example, how are moms supposed to calmly make it through the dinner hour when every time they turn around, they’re reminded of all the things they’re not doing?  How are they going to remember which items have associated computer work or which ones require a run to the grocery store?  What happens if an important notice gets buried under alphabet magnets–or stolen by a toddler looking for something to color?  It just doesn’t work.

That’s where the Tickler File comes in.  It saved my life.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but it’s brilliant.  You just put items that need your attention into date-specific folders, and you “mail” them to yourself.  My stress level has literally been cut in half since I implemented the GTD Tickler system, and as I’ve introduced the idea to my friends (who also have colorfully-decorated refrigerators), their eyes have lit up with excitement at the possibility of finally having a system to keep track of all their madness.

Here are a few Tickler ideas that have worked for me and lots of other moms out there:

(1) Simply take 12 folders and label them January through December.  The “official” way to build a Tickler involves 43 files–31 for days, 12 for months, but some moms feel overwhelmed by such a large number of folders, and they’re so busy dancing from breakfast to clean-up to carpool, that they won’t get around to checking their tickler until everything in it is out of date.  Maybe we’ll try this gain once the children have grown up….

(2) Make sure that everything in your Tickler is referenced on your calendar.  Because moms may not be checking their Tickler every day, they want to be sure to note all “tickled” items on their calendars (which they will be checking every day).  A small capital T with a circle around it is a simple symbol to use.  That way, if the middle school is hosting a holiday dance in December, and if they’ve sent home an order form for photographs at the event, you know exactly what to do with it.  You record the dance time and date on your calendar, put a “Tickler Symbol” next to the event, and place the order form in your December Tickler.  Voila!  No more rushing out the door with keys and corsage–screaming, “How much money do I need to send for photos?”  Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

(3) Use your Tickler to create the family of your dreams.  It’s true…the Tickler has this power.  You know all those ideas you get at the absolute wrong time of year?  The holiday decorations you discover in July?  The summer activities you read about in October?  The New Years’ traditions you dream up on February 27th?  You don’t have to waste those “light bulb moments” anymore.  Write them down, put them in the appropriate month’s Tickler, and write a little trigger on your calendar to “Check Tickler for GREAT ideas.”

The Tickler File works.  It will be one of your best friends.  (And as an added benefit, “Tickler” is fun to say!)  Thank you, David Allen.

April Perry is the mother of four children and co-director of www.powerofmoms.com. She is a regular contributor to GTD Times.

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…

Thanks to GTD, I finally got rid of the old kitchen we replaced 4 years ago, but was still in our garage catching dust and spiders, I got to launch very nice projects at school, recorded a CD–I am organised and nothing blows up in my face anymore. In short, this changed my life completely.

Now it seems as though the whole world around me is one big chaotic mess. And if you start paying attention to what people are saying, everybody is struggling with the same organisation problems. That’s why spreading GTD has become a new hobby (…didn’t I have already enough things on my mind? – No, this is fun!) So, as soon as someone complains about all the things he has to do, I tell him: ‘You know, there is a system to manage that.’ – ‘There is?’ (big eyes) Then I show my PDA ‘Well, this contains everything I have to do for the moment.’ And then a giant question mark show up on their faces. So I tell about the wonderful books David wrote. And they get all excited and ready to start.

When we meet again a few months later, I ask about their GTD system. Most of them answer, “Well, that was an interesting book – Did you apply it already?”– ‘Oh, well I have to many things to handle right now, you know,…’ Except one of my colleagues, who had terrible stress-related headaches. He’s getting it, and is flying the corridors of the school. If he gets stuff in: whoosh! Process, Organise, Do, … give me a new one!

I think a lot of people need someone to hold their hand to get started. So this is what I am doing now: when I see my wife with 124 items in her email: honey, let’s clean that up. My kids (6y and 8y) know by now, if they need something to be taken care of, they drop it in my inbox (I get a lot of broken toys in my in basket). Students struggling with workload, I try to give some tips and hints to get their things organised and planned.

Next thing on my plate is getting my wife into real GTD. She already started reading the book but somehow became stuck: ’I’m too busy to read a book’ – ‘Yeah, but this book is great for dealing with busy people.’ – ‘Oh, I don’t have the time.’ So now, I slipped the CD’s of GTD Live into her car, hoping she might listen to them sort of by accident. I’ll let you know how that goes!

Jan lives in Belgium.  He says that “GTD got me organised, now I can be chaotic without losing perspective and control.”

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.

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…. ?

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!”

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.