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.

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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

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Cue released data, and The Atlantic commented on it, showing that most of us wrote a novel’s worth of email last year.

What’s more surprising is that we received more than six times as much email as we sent. Even if you deleted some of that email without needing to read it, you probably read several novel’s worth of email last year.

If you’re still not handling email as efficiently as you can be, try a 60-minute webinar on email management. The focus will include structuring your email system to support action management, and dealing with backlog email.

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A participant in our last “Keys to Getting Things Done” webinar said: “This was a GREAT use of my time and money…very excited to begin implementing GTD in my life.”

Get excited about your GTD implementation in our upcoming Keys webinars on February 7th or 27th.

Click here to learn more or register now.

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You can get 20% off GTD productivity gear, including physical and digital products.  The sale is on now in the David Allen Company online store.

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Question: Can I edit the Next Action list contexts you recommend in the Getting Things Done book?

David’s Answer:  There are no hard rules about these context categories. You might have action lists specific to more than one office or home location; or you might want to combine At Computer and At Office; or distinguish between Web-Access Computer vs. Offline Computer.

You have to navigate among: How many different ways do I want to keep all these different segments? How easily do I want to be able to review them? And how confusing is it if I put too many things together in one list? I recommend you just get started, try out the most common ones (Agendas, Anywhere, Calls, Computer, Home, Errands, Office), and give yourself permission to change or enhance your system to fit your world as you move forward.

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Here’s a simple calendar guideline from Senior Coach & Presenter Kelly Forrister: If something needs to be done ON a day, it belongs on your calendar. If it can be done ANY day, or BY a day, it goes on a Next Actions list.

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DAVID ALLEN
Bestselling author and inventor of
Getting Things Done

Click on the link below to find free articles and diagrams on getting email under control, reference filling, organizing your workspace, time management, and more. You can select from individual articles, or select a zip file to download all at once.

Free GTD articles and handouts.

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This is from a recent issue of the “Productive Living” newsletter.

Hi Folks,

The major complaint about our Getting Things Done methodology is not that it doesn’t work or that the principles aren’t sound—it’s that people don’t work the system. I’ve learned that many times the problem is not lack of motivation or discipline, but instead some rather mundane and practical behaviors that can be easily changed to make things work much better. I’ve identified three in this essay. If you do a quality check on your own system and where you notice you have cracks and stress fractures, it could likely include at least one of them.

All the best,

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

THREE COMMON REASONS WHY PEOPLE FLOUNDER

There are three common reasons why most people seem to flounder with their personal workflow. At least part of their systems lack one or more of three essential variables: consistent, current, and contextually available. This was reaffirmed for me in a coaching session I did with a senior executive. Here’s what showed up: [Read more →]

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Our friends in Australia and Eastern Asia have been asking for a webinar that fits their schedule. And here it is!

The Keys to Getting Things Done® webinar is being offered at a special time to support our customers in that part of the world. This live webinar will give a fast and fun overview of the keys to Getting Things Done. You’ll learn about the best practices for managing the five phases of your workflow: Collect, Process, Organize, Review, and Do. Walk through the decision-making model for moving your “stuff” to clear outcomes and actions. This is a great overview if you’ve been wanting a better understanding of the big picture of managing your workflow with GTD.

This webinar is being offered at a special time to support our customers in the Australia and Eastern Asia time zones—7am in Singapore, 8am in Tokyo, 10am in Sydney, and 12pm in Auckland, on December 14. Check your time zone.

For more information and to register, click here.

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