The GTD Times Team is the gang from the David Allen Company who oversee, manage and contribute to GTD Times.
The GTD Times Team is the gang from the David Allen Company who oversee, manage and contribute to GTD Times.
This excerpt is from an interview that Mike Williams, President and CEO of David Allen Company, did with Inc.
OWNER’S MANUAL | Jeff Haden Mar 5, 2013
Best Way to Start, Well, Anything
The road to success starts with asking–and answering–one simple question.
To be more productive and truly engage other people, always start with that one question: What does a wildly successful outcome for this meeting, this project, this sales call, etc. look like?
Don’t start anything until you know the answer.
Read the full article here.
Learn the keys to mind like water in our next “Keys to Getting Things Done” webinar. It’s coming up this Thursday, March 7th from 10am-11am Pacific Time.
We have about 20 seats still available. Register now.
You have three categories of daily work. When you understand these, you can better clarify, manage, and renegotiate your total inventory of projects and actions.
1. Doing work as it appears:
When you turn your attention to something unexpected that turns up (your boss asks you to stop by her office, for example), you’re deciding by default that this is more important than anything else you have to do.
2. Doing predefined work:
When you’re doing predefined work, you’re working off your Next Actions lists, completing tasks that you have previously determined need to be done.
3. Defining your work:
Defining your work entails clearing up your in-tray, your email, your voicemail, your meeting notes, etc., and processing new projects into into action steps. Once you’ve defined all your work, you can trust that your lists of things to do are complete.
This week, challenge yourself to spend more time doing predefined work and defining your work. Most people spend too much of their time doing work as it shows up.
Download a free article on the Threefold Nature of Work from our Free Articles Library.
Is your productivity affected by meetings that are poorly run or you’re not sure you should really be in? The New York Times did a story recently, called “When You’ve Had One Meeting Too Many,” about the culture of meetings that so many of us deal with these days. Looking back at this week’s calendar, how much time did you spend in meetings?
For those of you who have iPhones, there’s a brand-new setup guide that describes how best to configure the iPhone for GTD. The David Allen Company online store has letter and European A4 sizes of the guide for sale as PDF downloads. You’ll find information here about the GTD & iPhone Setup Guide, as well as other guides. A free sample is also available for download.
In my experience, the greatest successes don’t come from grandiose scenarios of good intentions engendered by temporarily pumped-up motivation. Rather, the most lasting and significant positive effects result from small things, done consistently, in strategic places.
—David Allen, “Win the self-help game,” in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Epipheo.TV talked with David Allen about how to hack through your to-do list and free up your mind to focus on what’s most important to you. It’s a very short, very fun video.
(This video is streaming from YouTube, so it may take a few seconds to load.)
David Allen outlines the steps to get clear, current, and creative on a regular basis. Grab the free GTD Weekly Review® checklist. Now available as a PDF download.
http://www.davidco.com/free_articles
The GTD Mastering Workflow seminar is coming to New Orleans on March 14th! Learn the foundations of GTD in this wonderful destination city. If you’re just getting started with GTD, this is a perfect opportunity to get your system off the ground. If you’re experienced with GTD, it’s a great time to identify any gaps in your systems for greater productivity. This one-day presentation is packed with practical recommendations and suggestions about how to put the proven GTD principles to work for you—at work, at home and in everything you do.
Sign up now to get the early registration discount.
Tony Schwartz has some excellent advice about the value of relaxation for increasing productivity. Here’s an excerpt from his recent New York Times opinion piece.
Relax! You’ll Be More Productive
By TONY SCHWARTZ
Published: February 9, 2013THINK for a moment about your typical workday. Do you wake up tired? Check your e-mail before you get out of bed? Skip breakfast or grab something on the run that’s not particularly nutritious? Rarely get away from your desk for lunch? Run from meeting to meeting with no time in between? Find it nearly impossible to keep up with the volume of e-mail you receive? Leave work later than you’d like, and still feel compelled to check e-mail in the evenings?
Golden Cosmos
More and more of us find ourselves unable to juggle overwhelming demands and maintain a seemingly unsustainable pace. Paradoxically, the best way to get more done may be to spend more time doing less. A new and growing body of multidisciplinary research shows that strategic renewal — including daytime workouts, short afternoon naps, longer sleep hours, more time away from the office and longer, more frequent vacations — boosts productivity, job performance and, of course, health.
Read the full article here.
