This 45 page Guide, created by David Allen and the senior coaches, will show you how to:

• Manage your email effectively on the BlackBerry–including how to get email to zero
• Use BlackBerry Tasks for your Projects and Actions–including descriptions and examples of what goes on different lists
• Use the Calendar as a critical foundation for actions–with shortcuts for switching between different views
• Create useful reference lists in MemoPad–for managing the “non-action” part of your life as well
• Move faster with speed keys and shortcuts–referenced throughout the Guide and on handy quick reference sheet
• Navigate around the BlackBerry easily–with tips on customizing some settings to match the way you work

*210 MM wide and 297 MM tall (about 8 1/4 x 11 3/4 inch), used in Europe, and rest of the world, except the US and some neighboring countries where ‘letter-size’ paper (8 1/2 x 11 inch) is used.

This is an excerpt from a Webinar David did for GTD Connect, our online learning center.

Listen now (20 min)

We have hundreds of audio and video selections like this on GTD Connect, with more added every week.  Hook into the most active Getting Things Done community in the world.  Check out a free guest pass (no credit card required and we won’t nag you when you’re done!)

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See a sample

Buy the Guide now

What people are saying on our Forums about the new Guide:

“As are all the GTD products I have purchased, the new GTD Implementation Guide is of very high quality. This guide outlines completely, yet succinctly, how you can implement and maintain the GTD process.”

“I’m no GTD rookie and STILL I bought this new product! I’m glad I did! There are things in here that will help me get closer to black belt. This would have cut 3 months off my initial implementation easily!”

Learn more…

You’ll hear insights, tips and tricks from David Allen and two of the senior coaches on this key phase of GTD. It’s about 30 minutes and chock full of helpful coaching advice.

If you missed the first 4 in this series (Collect, Process, Organize & Review), you can find them all in the free GTD podcast feed.  If you like these free podcasts, we have loads more like this on GTD Connect, our online learning center.

What does the David Allen Company recommend for implementing GTD® Task lists on the iPhone?

The iPhone was not built with a Tasks application, so you will need to find an App that will support the GTD best practices for a list manager (e.g. sort by category/context, allow but not force due dates, allows related notes to be attached to the Task, etc.)  What you choose for the iPhone would depend primarily on what do you need to sync it to.  The corresponding application you want to sync it to (Mac, PC or Web) would narrow down the best application for you to install on the iPhone for Tasks. The end result is that you would have a Tasks application on the iPhone–>syncing through a service–>that then shares that information with a corresponding application on the web or desktop.

Also, be sure you understand what makes a good GTD list manager. For example, if you read Getting Things Done, or even any of our Setup Guides, there are some key things a good list manager would need to have to work well. It’s not just about storing a flat list of To Do’s.  If you understand the best practices, then you’ll find the sea of Apps in the iTunes store much easier to wade through.  If you’re starting from scratch on all of this, read this post on How to Choose a GTD system.

The only platform we have any specific recommendations for is Mac. We recommend and endorse OmniFocus for the Mac and iPhone.  For PC and Web users, there are many options, but we do not have any specific recommendations around that at this point. We will post updates if that changes.

Although they’ve been recorded for our GTD Connect online learning center, we have been posting the GTD Best Practices series to our free public podcast as well, for all to benefit from.  These informal podcasts are a great way to learn the essentials of GTD.  Here is the series:

Best Practices of Collect

Best Practices of Processing

Best Practices of Organize

Best Practices of Review

Best Practices of Doing

If you like these podcasts, GTD Connect has over 110 recordings like these, with more added every week, that you can play on the Connect site or  sync to iTunes.  It’s a great way to learn coaching tips from David and the staff, listen to interesting interviews with GTD’ers (Evan Taubenfeld being one of the recent ones), watch the “Slice of GTD Life” videos and more.  Good stuff.  Check out the free trial of GTD Connect.

Like this podcast? Subscribe to our free podcast series.  We also do frequent podcasts with David and the Coaches on GTD Connect®, our online learning center (over 108 podcasts available to Connect members more added all the time…)

In the original Getting Things Done, much of the focus was on paper systems with an electronic complement. These days much of our world is the opposite.

I try to have as much as possible in electronic form with a paper complement. Having things on a computer or PDA allows it to be searchable and easily changed from one category to another. But just because we can search for something doesn’t mean we should. Why not just know where it is?Despite limitations of paper systems they do have the advantage of offering visual and tactile boundaries where a computer based system allows data to stagnate easily and just be searched. This clogs not only the system but our heads!

I have several programs on my iPhone dedicated to organizing and sorting information.  But I found myself using all of them all of the time. That didn’t make sense – I don’t open my file cabinet every day. My electronic boundaries had broken down! To-Dos had meandered to my references and journals had infiltrated my to-do lists. I found myself adding projects and actions to my reference memos because I had that program open but we would never add a To-Do into our file cabinet! So, electronic boundaries needed to be set and implemented as everything had turned into a digital inbox. Here are some tips to clean the digital house.

I use SplashNotes for my contextual action lists and ShoveBox for my digital file cabinet. ShoveBox is really great because it can handle PDF files, pictures, web archives and bookmarks as well as text. It also syncs with it desktop companion. The calendar program (iCal) is obviously for items that need to be scheduled. I found the Notes program to be less than useful so for me that is relegated to short text for mental affirmation and meditation. I also use a program called The Daily Tracker for habits that I am forming or breaking. All of these are on the first page or the dock.

By putting an item in the appropriate program my head felt immediately better because it knew where to look! I didn’t need to check my electronic file cabinet every day. A quick morning scan of the calendar and a check of my contextual action lists was all I needed. After a workout I know to enter it into the Daily Tracker for logging. If I encounter dead time I can open Notes and review my meditations.

With all of my content in order – and it does take time just as the paper review process – the GTD system can continue to flow into the modern era and beyond.

Peter Tambroni is currently a classical musician, music teacher,writer and photographer in suburban Chicago. He holds degrees from the Crane School of Music and the University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign. He is currently vice president of the School District 83 Teacher’s Association.  Peter maintains and writes for MostlyBass.com and EvolvingEducator.com.  With his busy schedule, using GTD methods is an absolute must!

Having a total and seamless system of organization gives you tremendous power because it allows your mind to let go of the lower-level thinking and graduate to intuitive focusing, undistracted by matters that haven’t been dealt with appropriately. – David Allen

In other words…get a seamless, leakproof system for tracking everything you can’t do in the moment–personally and professionally.  And make sure you trust it more than holding stuff in your brain.

In our podcast series on the best practices of GTD, we’re moving on to the 3rd stage of mastering workflow: organize. Once you’ve collected and processed your work, then you just need to put it into places that you trust.

For those of you who want even more on this topic, the Getting Things Done book club on GTD Connect is just about to move to Chapter 7 of the book, which is all about organizing.  The book club is a great way to make sure you really “get” all of the pieces of GTD to put together a complete and intuitive system that makes sense for you.

Right before the podcast, I Tweeted that I’d be speaking with him and I asked Dean some of the questions some of you sent to me (such as getting tech support, Office 10 release, how it interfaces with Toodledo and more.)

Ken Case: The big thing that we tried to do as we were designing the application is really think about the parts of the GTD workflow that we could address, and automate those, and then maybe not try to touch the parts that didn’t make as much sense. For example, we don’t do calendaring; we leave that to whatever calendaring system you already have. I use the calendar app that’s built-in to the iPhone, but you can use a paper calendar or whatever works for you for that part of the system. We do focus on the GTD collecting and processing–capturing stuff out of your head and getting it into your inbox. We tried to make that really easy with a keystroke…

LISTEN NOW>>

Grab a list of all of the OmniFocus speed keys.

If you missed the previous episode in our GTD best practices series on Collect, you can catch it here.

Link Projects to Actions (solving the timeless question and request from GTD’ers, “How do you know which project a next action relates to?”)

Process input more easily (gives a GTD toolbar for one-stop processing, linking and organizing)

Create projects and sub-projects (both can be linked and tracked along with their actions–for example, Project “Get Married” might have a subproject called, “Put on Reception” which then has a linked action step, “Call DJ”.)

View projects and actions in a variety of ways (the Add-in builds additional views, such as Active Tasks by Project, Completed Tasks by Project, etc.)

In the latest 3.0 release, there are few new things they’ve introduced:

Two-minute timer (yes, as dorky as it sounds, the little 2 min timer app in the DavidCo store is a big seller and is a feature in the new version of the Add-in)

Project Central (for more easily managing your master projects list)

Simpler interface (in my opinion, it’s the easiest and most intuitive in all the releases I’ve seen over the years)

Obviously, if Outlook is not your tool of choice, then this Add-In won’t be either! But if you’ve been looking to “GTD-ize” Outlook you may find this to be a useful enhancement, especially if you already have a good understanding of GTD. In my many years of coaching and presenting GTD to clients, my advice is always–do not look to the tool to teach or do GTD for you. It will enhance what you already know about the core concepts of GTD projects and next actions.

I’ve also written a few articles on my experience of GTD & iPhone over on my blog:

• GTD & iPhone – Part I – My criteria for choosing
  
• GTD & iPhone – Part II – My system evolves
  
• GTD & iPhone – Part III – Still looking for Lotus Notes sync
  
• GTD & iPhone – Final – Update on Chapura (it’s no longer an option)

Stay tuned to GTD Times for more on Getting Things Done with the iPhone.

In this 35 minute podcast they talk about:

• Some of their favorite tools for capturing anywhere, anytime
• The essential tools for work and home spaces
• What makes or breaks a good collection tool?
• The essential “red folder“
• Collect versus organize and why most people don’t get the difference
• Why an empty inbox reduces interruptions
• What’s it like to work in a GTD culture?

Listen now>>>

Subscribe now>>> to all of the free podcasts

“People ask me, is it [Twitter] a waste of time? Is going to a cocktail party a waste of time? Well, people go to cocktail parties, so if you feel guilty for going, you shouldn’t go to begin with. If you are going, why are you going?”  – David Allen

Listen Now

In our recent podcast  on The Perfect GTD List Manager, we shared that one of the most common questions we get is, “Which tool should I use for my GTD lists?”  Specifically, you want to know which tools David Allen uses!  While the GTD approach is tool-agnostic, we have our personal favorites, as we know many of you do as well.  eProductivity for IBM Lotus Notes is one of those, and is the tool David (and most of the staff at DavidCo) use to help manage our workflow.  Even if you are not a Lotus Notes user, we think you’ll find value in hearing from Eric about what he learned would make the ultimate tool for David Allen to use.

In this podcast, Eric Mack (@EricMack) shares with Coach Kelly Forrister (@GTDCoachKelly) on some of the design philosophy and underlying features and principles that make eProductivity a tool David recommends.  (Note: There’s a free trial and on the podcast Eric also offers a $100 off to the first 50 people that contact him by June 15.)  Some of the features discussed on the podcast will make more sense if you check out some screenshots.    LISTEN NOW

(Yes, we know many of you like “Things” by Cultured Code too!)

As I was putting together my personal system, I realized that there were no great tools for implementing GTD on the iPhone (the tool that I wanted to use). Being the geek that I am, I decided to write one. The result is Action Lists, a fairly strict interpretation of the GTD process for the iPhone. My goals with Action Lists were to be the best GTD implementation on the iPhone, and to make it easy to use so that you can quickly get to the information you need. There’s also a free version called Action Lists Lite that is limited to only a few tasks so that you can “try before you buy.”

I know that you aren’t in the business of plugging non-David Allen Company GTD solutions, but I wanted to make you aware of this new tool, and thank you again for a great experience up in Chicago this January.  - Charles Perry, Daze End Software

We know this is one of MANY applications and tools out there to support a GTD implementation.  We don’t have an official endorsement on this, but it’s one you can check out for yourself.

No more!  iamplify a company with the world’s largest selection of downloadable audios and videos has partnered with the David Allen Company to put the GTD Weekly Review, GTD Live, David Allen’s Full 2 Day Seminar, and In Conversation with David Allen into the convenient (and instantly yours) format of MP3.  Now you can easily take your GTD recordings with you wherever you go and the price is lower than the same products on physical media so it’s a win all the way around.

More recordings are sure to come so if you’re a fan of MP3’s be sure to check back with iamplify to see what new titles they add next.  This product will also be available in the DavidCo GTD Store in a few weeks.

Too Much to Do

In April of this year, I left my full time job to “go freelance.” My schedule has been all over the place as a result. Between writing and doing web development for my fiancé’s graphic design firm,  managing my coworking office space in downtown Tacoma, operating my small theater production company, presiding over my condo association,  trying to get a novel published, and last – but most certainly not least  – getting married at the end of the year; you could say I’m a pretty busy guy.  While no single one of these activities takes up a full work week, the number and variety of things I needed to do made me feel like I was dropping the ball on all of them.

No More Dropped Balls

David Allen’s Getting Things Done changed all that. I’m actually making some headway on all these fronts. I first implemented his system with long lists in Microsoft Word. That was until I discovered “Things” to manage my things.

Things is a GTD system designed for Mac computers with mobile applications for the iPhone and iTouch. To any user of David Allen’s productivity system, Things should look very familiar. Hot keys (or mouse clicking) will bring up a task window for easy entry. To each task, you can add notes, due dates, links to files, and customizable tags, which serve as “contexts.”

I appreciate that the tags are easy to use and customize. I kept many of the preset tags-phone, read/review, errand, home-but (following GTD) I created a “Waiting For” tag, which allows me to keep track of shipments, emails, and phone calls I’m expecting. I also created a “pack” tag, which I use in the weeks before a trip.

Things offers a feature called “teammates” which helps with collaboration. This pulls from your Mac’s address book and allows you to add a contact’s name to the program. Have something to talk over with a coworker? Drag the item under their name and it’s waiting for you when you see them next.

I can also set up scheduled and repeating tasks very quickly. A new task to post on my blog shows up daily. A task to review my projects list shows up every weekend. The “today” toggle lets me quickly see my scheduled items, items due in the next couple days, and any overdue tasks.

“Things” Everywhere

As David Allen said, the key to the system is that it’s with you all the time. Because of the iPhone sync, if my phone is with me (and it always is) my system is with me. The quick entry field lets me jot down a note in less than a minute if I’m at a restaurant, in a meeting, or otherwise away from the computer. Later, when the phone and computer are on the same wireless network, they sync. (One current drawback to the iPhone app is that is does not allow for my context tags, although Things developers have indicated the next update will have tags enabled.)

A Few Things that Would Improve “Things”

There are some features I’d really like to see added. Currently, the drag-and-drop feature lets you place action items inside project folders for easy sorting. Handy, normally, especially during my weekly review when I check that I have a next action item for each project. But, if you spend most of your time in the next action window as I do-and as Allen would probably recommend-the feature becomes cumbersome. I don’t need to know that “Call parents for carpet cleaning recommendations” is under the “home care” project. I just need a list of calls to make. But I can’t turn it off, which means that I lose a lot of screen real estate and can only see a fraction of the calls I need to make on a single screen. I’ve opted for more items on a page, so I don’t use the projects tab the way I should.

The projects list and the someday/maybe list don’t play well together yet, either. I can’t add a project directly into the Someday list, I have to add it in projects and then drag it into the list.

And I have yet to touch the “inbox” feature. For the life of me I cannot figure out what to put in there that I can’t do with the next action list. Putting items in this folder doesn’t make sense. If I’ve taken the time to type out my action note, it’s safe to say I’ve already processed it from one of my real inboxes-mail, email, voicemail, etc.

There was one debilitating bug. A few months after use, the program slowed to a crawl as a result of some flaw in the XML database to the point I could barely open it. Browsing the support forums, I couldn’t find anyone else who had the problem, so I think it was an isolated incident. Getting it running again took a couple hours, and illustrated to me how much I’ve come to rely on the program.

Things is still in beta testing for the Mac, and will be officially released January 6, 2009 at MacWorld. It is currently free and will be $39 when it’s released (if you sign up for their newsletter before its launch) and $49 after that. The iPhone program is $9.99.

Final Thoughts on “Things”

Things has been intuitive, helpful, and even fun. My minor quibbles are nothing compared to the benefits I’ve gotten from the program. The Mac-iPhone sync gives me a quick-entry capability to get my thoughts out of my head and into a program that is always with me. It has become invaluable to getting things done.

If you’d prefer to download the show so that you can listen to it offline, that link is here.

The topic is GTD for Startups. They are involved in a new company Survey Gizmo. The session is very hands on with real-time q and a.

They have found some good collaborative technical solutions. One is the use of IMAP, which allows for common synching of email from various clients. They use Zoho CRM (a poor man’s Sales Force) as their CRM, a majority of the collaborative features at a fraction of the price. They use Google Calendars for sharing of multiple calendars.

Slides from the session are available here.