A community contribution by Meghan Wilker. Join Meghan and Coach Kelly Forrister on the upcoming Webinar for GTD Connect Members–”Productive Use of Social Media.”

When Google unveiled Buzz a few weeks ago (and Wave a couple of months before that), it got me to thinking about how the emergence of each new technology often means an associated emergence of a new inbox.

These new inboxes now can sometimes creep up without us noticing right away. For example, when I got an iPhone in 2007, texting suddenly became a major new source of input. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a self-professed “Geek Girl” — it’s not like I didn’t have a phone capable of texting before 2007. I did. But, it was rather clunky and I didn’t use it often. Most people I knew didn’t use it much (I’m a Gen Xer, so we don’t text as profusely as those Gen Y youngins do). Once I got an iPhone, texting was suddenly dead simple. Once my PARENTS got iPhones…good night. Suddenly I was getting texts from my Baby Boomer dad (“Hi, honey!” “Did you get that?” “Is this working?”) [Read more →]

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One of the most common questions we get is how to get started with GTD.   New people, especially, will ask this after coming to us dazed and confused by what GTD is really about.   And, lots of people seem to be hoping a piece of software will teach them GTD.  Sorry, but that’s kind of like buying a car and then learning how to drive.  You’ll make your way down the road, but it won’t be pretty.

As a GTD Coach, and also intimately involved in the education and offerings from David Allen, I would suggest one of the following products:

The GTD System – This is, in my opinion, one of the best educational products we offer.  You get a ton of resources to learn GTD at your own pace.  You get the GTD book, coaching CDs with David Allen, GTD Connect and more. Good stuff. [Read more →]

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“When in doubt, throw it out. When in doubt, keep it.” – David Allen

OK, so what you should really be keeping?  This is a standard records retention list that we got a few years ago from our accounting firm in California. There may be better ones out there, or more specific to your location. It should in no way constitute final judgment for your own accounting and record-keeping. We’ve heard that it is quite a grey area, and can differ from state to state.  It might help with some general guidelines, however.

Type and Retention Period (years)
Accident reports and claims (settled cases)— 7
Accounts payable ledgers and schedules— 7
Accounts receivable ledgers and schedules— 7
Audit reports of accountants— permanently
Bank reconciliation— 1 [Read more →]

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People ask us all the time how to get GTD to stick in their organization.  Here’s a great testimonial for how to build a network of GTD’ers:

David,

Just a quick note to let you know my company is still employing GTD and getting better at it!  We conversed a few years ago about a group we created at my business for people to implement and be accountable for creating their systems and establishing the habit of the Weekly Review…

Well…I am pleased to say we are still doing it!  And, we resurrected the group again in January, and this time there are 12 participants (voluntary of course).  I wanted to let you know some of the successes and insights we have had during this session.   [Read more →]

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For those of you who haven’t seen this, it’s one of the best descriptions out there for distilling the essence of Getting Things Done®.  It’s also a good reminder that GTD® is not just about inbox zero, or picking a cool list manager, or doing a Weekly Review. It’s a whole workflow ecosystem that David has laid out here. As he says, “it’s more than meets the eye…”

Sophisticated without being confining, the subtle effectiveness of GTD lies in its radically common sense notion that with a complete and current inventory of all your commitments, organized and reviewed in a systematic way, you can focus clearly, view your world from optimal angles and make trusted choices about what to do (and not do) at any moment. GTD embodies an easy, step-by-step and highly efficient method for achieving this relaxed, productive state. It includes: [Read more →]

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Do YOU know the best practices of GTD?

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 are the first 4 in the series.

Best Practices of Collect

Best Practices of Processing

Best Practices of Organize

Best Practices of Review

The final phase, the “Best Practices of Doing,” will be recorded in early March.  It will be released for GTD Connect members first, then put into the public podcast feed some time after that.  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.

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Here’s a great Q&A between David and a new GTD’er.  To appreciate David’s response, it helps to understand the GTD definitions for projects and next actions:

Projects = Your outcomes that require more than one action step.

Next Actions = Your next physical, visible action steps. Some are project-related, some are not.

Question:

If a project requires, by your definition, at least two steps, I am not clear about how many of the needed steps to put into my action list.  For example, say I have a project with 20 steps.  I may be able to do the step 1, but if I had also put down 2  or 3 steps of that project, I might have done more on the project.   Presently I have about 57 projects, but some are monster projects I’ll be working on for months.  Others I can list two steps and it’s done very quickly.  A few projects are so trivial–but important enough to be listed–that some days I don’t do the one item I listed as the next step for that project.  I could put it into the “Someday” list, but I know I’ll do it sooner than that, so it stays around not being done.  I’d rather do step 2 and then 3 and then 4 of a more important project (I might be on a roll!) than complete one whole project that is easier to do but less important.  So I’m a bit unclear about how much of one project to put in my action list.  I find myself doing the “Weekly Review” every day, so I can add more steps from more important projects.  Could you share any thoughts about how to solve this concern?    [Read more →]

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The problem is not information overload, by David Allen

E-mail overload has gotten a lot of press lately – the quantity, the distraction it creates, and our inability to do much about it. There was even a recent debate in a global newspaper between readers voting for keeping e-mail at zero vs. those who use the digital in-basket as a giant library keeping useful information at hand with no concern for the volume. The issue is tied closely with the popular concern about our always-on culture – that we seem to never unhook from the incessant demands of being in touch, put upon us by our clients, our bosses and ourselves.

What’s the problem? There is one, but not the one that’s been popularized. “Information overload” has been the commonly identified culprit, coupled with universal access. That gives the picture of a mounting pile of stuff under which we are constantly and increasingly buried. And if incessant information bombardment is what we are trying to deal with, then help shows up as attempts to filter, sort and organize it faster and faster so we can feel in control of it.

But information overload isn’t the problem. If it was, you’d walk into a library and die. The first time you connected to the Web, you’d blow up, and merely browsing a newspaper would make you a nervous wreck. [Read more →]

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