Mike Williams, speaker at the recent GTD Summit, and longtime friend of David Allen Company, sent us this story with us about his experience sharing GTD with his kids. We thought this was fitting to share on Father’s Day.

I am always running experiments with my kids (queue the evil scientist laugh!).  I would love to share these experiments or test new things (experiments, gear) to help start the GTD thinking at an earlier age.

Here is a recent post I wrote on one of my experiments.  It resonated with several GTD moms and dads at the GTD Summit.

I am also experimenting with home design, backpack gear, homework routines, school routines and home routines to build systems that enable the GTD systemic approach.

Read more about Mike’s experiment>>

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A community contribution by self-professed productivity expert Mike Vardy

We’ve all heard the benefits of taking naps or practicing meditation during your workday can result in one being more productive. We’ve also heard how these things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive – sometimes (often by accident) they go hand in hand. However, depending on your work environment these suggestions may not be applicable…or even possible.

I’m certain that many employers wouldn’t take it too kindly  if you were seen napping – break or otherwise – on site. That may not be fair, but welcome to life.  I also know that achieving a meditative state can be difficult, unless you work in a church, monastery or perhaps a library. What I would suggest to replace napping and/or meditation is that you look back to your youth, back when you were in grade school. Remember what it was like to have recess. [Read more →]

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The recording of the webinar David Allen did on GTD & PersonalBrain is now live. It’s about an hour long. David starts off with a good overview of the GTD Control + Perspective models, then moves on to talk about the PersonalBrain software. You’ll even get to see his own personal stuff (which most GTD’ers seem to go crazy for!)  Check it out.

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David is doing a free webinar next week on GTD & PersonalBrain.  If you are not familiar with this creative tool, it’s great for making connections and linking knowledge.

“Simply type in your ideas. Drag and drop files and web pages. Any idea can be linked to anything else. Using your digital Brain is like cruising through a Web of your thinking. See new relationships. Discover connections. Go from the big picture of everything to a specific detail in seconds.”

Wednesday, June 3rd, 11am Pacific Time. Register for free.

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David Allen is now a regular columnist for the newly-launched UK version of Wired magazine. Check out his current column.

In his regular column on GTD Connect, David shared about how this came to be:

“The associate editor, Ben Hammersley, became a big GTD fan when he wrote about it for The Guardian; and he now wanted to include my thinking in with the new publication’s intended focus on “life going forward.” Ben’s enthusiasm to make it “the best combination of New Yorker, the Atlantic, and the Economist, with an edge” was infectious, and I think a perfect venue for a more sophisticated spin of GTD-ness. Having scanned the first two issues, I’d say Ben’s on track.”

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For those that assume GTD is only about rigid, structured task lists, it could seem like a natural conclusion that GTD is not for creative types.  But if you were to ask a few people you know who are really into GTD, or at least get something out of it, they probably don’t consider themselves to be un-creative people!

We believe GTD enhances creativity.  Some of the most creative, intelligent people are drawn to GTD because they see what’s beyond the lists.  Lists are a means to an outcome.  Consider that the spirit of GTD is about finding and using the most energy-efficient, effective, and least stressful ways of getting things done. That means:

• Capturing anything and everything that has your attention
• Defining actionable things discretely into outcomes and concrete next steps
• Organizing reminders and information in the most streamlined way, in appropriate categories, based on how and when you need to access them
• Keeping current and “on your game” with appropriately frequent reviews of the six horizons of your commitments (purpose, vision, goals, areas of focus, projects, and actions)
• So that you can focus clearly, view your world from optimal angles and make trusted choices about what to do (and not do) at any moment.

In our experience, we’ve seen as many ways to work this approach as there are people working it.  If you follow David Allen on Twitter, he recently mentioned a client (well-known creative artist in Hollywood) who felt the most creative way to “do” GTD would be on 3×5 index cards.   Musician Evan Taubenfeld recently did a wonderful podcast with David for our GTD Connect members where he credits GTD with helping him to be more creative in his songwriting process.

Michael Bungay Stanier has done a wonderful series with David on Connect called Creative Questioning, as well as a new one available on Michael’s website.

As we often say, GTD is an approach, not a system.  Dive deeper and you may find that GTD is actually one of the best things you can do to tap into your creativity.

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