Oliver Starr served as editor to GTD Times from its launch, through March 2009.
Oliver Starr served as editor to GTD Times from its launch, through March 2009.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one basically says it all. What could better illustrate the value of GTD than someone like Steve Pugh, pictured below, on duty in Iraq with a copy of “Getting Things Done” at his fingertips.
Steve was just at the recent GTD Global Summit and took the time post event to write to the David Allen Company to let them know how much he enjoyed the experience and to share this image of himself at work.
The brief note that accompanied the photo is also below.
Janet,
I really enjoyed talking with you at the summit. I can’t believe how quickly the two days went by! I hope you guys decide it was enough of a success to do it again.
Attached is the picture we talked about at the summit. This is me, in an old Iraqi building, at my desk. I have my Beretta M9 on my leg and a copy of GTD on my desk. I was stationed at Balad Air Base which is about 30 minutes north of Baghdad. GTD really helped me keep my head cool in a totally new environment that had more intensity and stress than I ever imagined. Enjoy.
-Steve
With all the recent attention that GTD has been receiving, especially since the incredible GTD Global Summit that just concluded, you might find yourself being asked to explain the “How To” of GTD to a curious colleague, friend or even spouse.
Unless you are David Allen himself, you might find yourself struggling to eloquently distill the practice of GTD down to a short and memorable set of concepts and equally simple and equally memorable steps that a novice can understand and even implement in short order to take those first few steps towards a lifetime of improved productivity, reduced stress, and the confidence that you are doing what you are best served to be doing at any given time.
It figures that someone whose title is “Editor in Chief” of a company called Goose Educational Media would be the one to do such an extrordinary job at creating such a document. Thankfully for the rest of us, Chris Taylor not only took the time to write this resource he has generously put it online where anyone can take advantage of it any time they like.
Beyond this truly excellent summary the Goose Educational Media site is a truly amazing resource. Founded upon the idea that sharing knowledge distilled from the top books about productivity, management, decision making and other disciplines can have a profound impact upon an individual’s effectiveness, Chris Taylor and a team he describes as a phenomenal team of dedicated individuals have created a resource that is intended to give an individual the tools and the resources to change his or her life, and thereby the power to change the world.
It is a selfless effort that can benefit each and every one of us. I urge you to take a look at the Golden Eggs of GTD and then to dig a bit deeper. The site has a tremendous amount to offer and such a gift should not be overlooked, especially in these difficult times where every one of us can be well served to find ways in which we can each improve ourselves.
For many people this is the session they came to see. After years of reading, re-reading, listening to, watching and discussing “Getting Things Done: the art of stress-free productivity” people, especially the majority of the people at the Summit who are serious about practicing GTD – are ready for something new from David.
“Making it All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life” is that something. And I’m not just talking about the book, either. David has worked for years to clarify, refine, broaden, deepen and in some ways complete the work he began with his original program of GTD.
For most people I suspect that the abbreviated Making it All Work presentation that David delivered today felt both familiar yet new at the same time. That’s because it was.
I think that David retained much of the best of his original program but has fleshed out and added more material to those areas that people have occasionally said were not clear enough in the original.
Here are some basic outline notes from David’s slides for the presentation. They are pretty much self explanatory. The goal is to help you see more clearly what David means by each of the subcategories that he uses to define the various aspects of GTD.
They are as follows:
“If my brain had a brain I wouldn’t need a system.” – David Allen
Capture, Clarify, Organize, Reflect
This leads to having control and perspective
Control is simply cooperating with reality with conscious intent
Capturing
Clarifying
Organizing
Reflecting
Engaging
Perspective
Capture: write it down
Clarifying: what does this mean to me?
Organizing: put it where it goes
Reflecting: look through the whole
Engage: Do
Purpose/ Principles – 50,000 How: how do I want to operate as a human being?
Vision – 40,000 Feet How do I see my self and my life
Goals – 30,000 Feet What do I want to accomplish both long term and in the next two years?
Responsibilities – 20,000 Feet What do I have to do
Projects – 10,000 Feet
Actions – Runway
System: build, fill, use
“You are here for a purpose. You are either on purpose or you’re not.” David Allen
“Focus on what has your attention and you’ll find out what really has your attention.” – David Allen
This post rambles a bit as it’s a live blogging effort to cover the real key questions and associated answers that this group of accomplished entrepreneurs provided during an hour plus panel discussion about the trials and tribulations of starting your own company.
Topics included what personality characteristics should you have to thrive as an entrepreneur. What are the most common mistakes that they see entrepreneurs making (or which they’ve made themselves). They discussed their biggest fears and how they’ve overcome them and even why right now is actually a really good time to 
begin planning an entrepreneurial venture.
Panel Discussion
Peter Gallant: serial entrepreneur, Pathogen Detection Systems
Execution is the biggest risk facing start up companies. The plan is usually not the problem. The execution is. Knowing when to do what needs to be done.
Recommended reading “The War of Art” it is very rare for entrepreneurs to really know what the milestones the must be achieved are. when they need to achieve those goals and how to forecast whether or not they are on track or behind or in real trouble.
He hasn’t met an entrepreneur that has a complete broad focus across all the horizons of focus
John de Souza, serial entrepreneur, founded the product that became Microsoft Messenger
Do you have the right temperment, the right skill set and is it the right timing. Once you are an entrepreneur, it gets going, you’re excited about it and suddently…what’s next? You need to get the company going and for this GTD can be extremely important.
How does being an entrepreneur impact your family? What if you fail? What if you have no money?
Buzz Bruggeman: Active Words. His belief is that computers should understand us. Problem: voice is not really a viable option. Active Words lets people name things. For example setting up the keystroke NT for directly navigation to New York Times. ( also like Quicksilver)
Frode Odegard: Founded several companies including one before he was 18. What is the nature of a true entrepreneur: restless by nature. potentially reckless, frequently fall into the “crazy maker” quadrant.
What’s important is that entrepreneurs tend to underestimate and possibly even feel resentful towards the needs to spend time simply thinking.
“If you don’t have a good framework to manage your commitments you will just drown”.
EDS: Entrepreneurial Dysfunction Syndrome
Buzz: the single biggest problem for him is the weekly review. Part of it is the issue of having the time to make an appointment with himself.
Once you’re an entrepreneur and you have built the product you are faced with two new problems: Distribution and Adoption.
They’re talking to HP so Buzz emails every single person from HP that downloaded their application and he asks them for help
If you can’t handle rejection you should probably just work for a big company.
If there’s anything you wished you knew earlier
Buzz:
1. The inventor should NOT be the CEO
2. Take Smart Money of Just Money
3. Use GTD to maintain sufficient discipline to keep wandering to a minimum
Frode
1. Having the right revenue model. Understanding what works in a given economy
Frode: My biggest fear is relationships. Can I trust these people? What are their intentions
Buzz: Biggest Fear: The serious maybe…
de Souza: Hiring the wrong senior person. As soon as you realize there’s a problem take action.
Gallant: making a wrong effort from a time, talent or investment perspective
Odegard: What’s your definition of success for an experience?
Gallant: A call to action: imagine that you’ve lost your job. What sort of entrepreneurial venture would you start next? This is a great time to be planning a start-up company. There’s sufficient cash, it is simply that the VC’s are being especially cautious.
Buzz: If I did not have a partner with a skill set he didn’t have they would have been dead.
For those of you that would like a voyeuristic view into the GTD Global Summit, I present for your lengthy reading pleasure all of the tweets from the legions of twitterers that are attending the summit. (And there are many, at least half the audience is on twitter).
These are in reverse chronological order so you can take a trip back in time from present moment to last night’s cocktail party or you can start at the bottom and work your way forward in time to see the event blossom in the way that it actually has. Either way there are some wonderful pearls here as many of the tweets are actual quotes from the speakers presenting at the conference.
Tweets are here as a PDF: twitters_eye_view_gtdsummit
After more than a year of planning thousands of hours of meetings and more emails, phone calls, and late night conversations than anyone cares to think about let alone remember, the GTD Global Summit has come to life in a huge way.
I’m wearing several hats here so my coverage will be as real time as I can deliver it. I’ll also try to get some coverage over on Qik if bandwidth allows.
Keynote:
David’s powerful initial remarks to put this event and GTD in context. If you have never seen David speak you simply cannot imagine the incredible authenticity and integrity of this man. I have attended literally hundreds of conferences and heard perhaps thousands of speakers yet he is by far the most genuine, transparent and honest speaker that I have ever had the good fortune to hear.
His opening remarks were testimony to this as one of the first things he mentioned was the fact that just before we did this conference he had to cut 40% of his workforce. … He said that for this conference he wanted to look for the silver lining in this current crisis. To find that silver lining and learn how self improvement is even more essential in times of crisis…that’s the overarching theme for the summit.
Keynote Interview with Guy Kawasaki to Follow
Eric Mack, the individual behind David Allen’s new favorite tool, eProductivity, has got a pretty amazing promotion going over at his site right now. The first ten people to take advantage of his special offer will get a free pass to the GTD Global Summit.
If you want to get eProductivity at the best price ever and you want to go to the GTD Global Summit without having to pay the regular admission, you’d better move fast. I wouldn’t be surprised if Eric has already given out all ten passes by the middle of the day today.
If you were one of the folks we heard from who wished to attend the GTD Global Summit but simply couldn’t get away for both days this should be some welcome news. In response to a surprising number of requests that we make passes available for each of the two days of the Summit, the David Allen Company is happy to respond in the affirmative. You can now buy a pass for either day, and of course for both days too.
The GTD Summit is only three weeks away, can you really afford NOT to attend? If you or your team are one of the many people that are suddenly being asked to do more with less, attending the GTD Global Summit might actually be one of the most important investments you could make.
The knowledge you can acquire from the world-class line up of experts on not only GTD, but also entrepreneurship, creativity, productivity in general, life hacking, military strategy, leadership, ethics and more will be far more enduring than any other use of funds we can imagine.
Nevertheless, we understand that for some people it simply isn’t possible to take two days off from your job, school, or family, while for others, the full price of the summit might simply be out of reach at this time.
Regardless of your reasons, the team at the David Allen Company is sensitive to your situation. It should go without saying that David’s commitment to helping people achieve more, learn more and get more out of life goes far beyond any financial element and this attitude permeates the entire company. It is for this reason that the team decided that unlike many conferences that are an all-or-nothing sort of affair, the GTD Global Summit will be different and will offer people the ability to attend just a single day of their choice if that is what someone wants to do.
Day passes are now available for each of the two days. Pick one day or two.
Each day pass includes:
Autographed copy of David’s new book.
Exhibitor Expo
Coach’s Corner – your chance to sit down with a GTD coach one on one
Coach’s Theater – “how to” presentations from senior GTD facilitators
Breakout sessions with high impact presenters and moderators
All meals and beverages
The Best Part?
You will see and hear from some of the world’s leading minds on productivity, making change and adapting to our changing world. Intelligent conversations. Compelling speakers. And more.
HOW TO REGISTER:
Pick the day pass that best suits your schedule.
Thursday, March 12th
Friday, March 13th
DAY ONE PASS – MARCH 12th
David Allen & Guy Kawasaki: Welcome & Keynote
James Fallows, Marshall Goldsmith and General Randy Fullhart
Breakout Session One
Self Management as Strategy: GTD and Leadership
Good Things Getting Done: GTD Serving Service
GTD at Home: From the Boardroom to the Living Room
Breakout Session Two
A GTD Workforce – Is There a New Industry Standard?
Innovation – Getting New Stuff Done.
GTD as Super Charger and Safety Net: Life Transitions and Transformations.
Breakout Session Three
Entrepreneurs and GTD – Making it up and Making it Happen
GTD and Education: Reading, Writing. Arithmetic and GTD
The Virtual Workplace – Does it Work?
Book Signing – David and other authors
Exhibitor Expo Wine and Cheese Reception.
Register here for your Thursday, March 12th Day Pass
DAY TWO PASS – MARCH 13th
David Allen presents “GTD Making It All Work”
Plenary Session – How the world works, and should we care?
Dave Logan
Ron Kaufman
Sanjiv Mirchandani
Michael Winston
David Allen
Breakout Session Four
Best Practices to Good Habits: Can I Make GTD Stick?
Your Brain on GTD: Why it Works
Productivity Tech: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Breakout Session Five
Critical Behaviors in the Crunch – GTD and Organizational Change
GTD and Sales. Customers and Relationships
Creativity and Clear Space – Inseparable, or Mutually Exclusive?
David Allen Final Remarks
Book Signing – David and other authors
Exhibitor Expo Wine and Cheese Reception.
Register here for your Friday, March 13th Day Pass
HOW TO REGISTER:
Pick the day that works best for you and register now. A limited number of day passes are available. See you there!
Day Pass for Thursday, March 12th
Day Pass for Friday, March 13th
