A Community Contribution from Mike Vardy

As the first quarter of 2010 passes us by, I’m going to ask it: How many of you have stuck to your “resolutions” that you made at the start of 2010?

I’m betting that some of you – perhaps most of you – have faltered on them in some form or another.  It’s to be expected.  In fact, it can be preferred.

I’ve heard David Allen say you need to make a bunch of resolutions – essentially goals – and the real challenge is making some of them stick.  When I first heard this, I couldn’t believe it.  I mean – c’mon – surely we should have some focus on what we want to get out of ourselves and the year ahead.  Why not hone in on a few resolutions from the onset? [Read more →]

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Hello David,

I was in the middle of reading and applying your book when I came home  one day and found it like this.

Yep my dog ate it on a day when he was bored because I was so busy I didn’t get him out for a walk. Did I mention that I was in the middle of applying your recommendations?  Well, I am keeping the book because I can still read most of it and it  is a reminder that I must complete the process I started so I will not lose any more books.

Thanks, Joy

~~

Joy,

If your dog starts getting more bones buried, odors smelled, and books eaten, let me know. (Most people haven’t absorbed as much GTD as he obviously had!)

Thanks for sharing!

David

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This article is a community contribution by John Lewis.  Enjoy!

As a follower of GTD, I am fortunate to receive many things, including the Productive Living newsletter. This particular edition included some “food for thought” about decision making, which I found extremely nutritious!

Information and accuracy

It brought to mind two things that I have often thought, and perhaps there is a link between them.

Firstly, there is a feeling that if we gather enough information about something that the decision can often become obvious. We sometimes even say things like “the decision made itself”!

Secondly, if there is very little to separate two (or more) choices then we often have difficulty in accepting that the inaccuracy of our assessment of the benefit of any choice may be greater than the actual difference between them; as in the story of the donkey which starved because it was unable to decide between two equal sized piles of hay. In other words, either one will do; and next time it might be a good idea to pick the other one so that we learn more about both! [Read more →]

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“The short-term memory part of your mind–the part that tends to hold all of the incomplete, undecided, and unorganized “stuff”–functions much like RAM on a personal computer. Your conscious mind, like the computer screen, is a focusing tool, not a storage place. You can only think about 2 or 3 things at once.”

- David Allen (p.22 of Getting Things Done)

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I recently discovered that the musical I’d been working on for the past several years was no longer going to be viable.  Not because it wasn’t a good story, or even a good idea.  It’s because someone beat me to it.

I was surfing the web and discovered that not only had someone written a similar play, they had named it almost exactly the same and it was a smash hit!  Talk about a body blow.  I’d spent the last few years working on it sporadically, and now it was never going to see the light of day.  [Read more →]

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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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A basic principle of the Getting Things Done approach to managing your commitments is to keep nothing in your head.  We here at David Allen Company believe our head is a “great place for having ideas, but a bad place to attempt to hold on to them.”   This is true because we believe you’ll forget something stored in your head – we call it psychic RAM – as new inputs show up in your life and compete for your valuable mental real estate.

When I present this concept in GTD classes, it’s without exception that someone makes a humorous remark about age, saying something like, “Oh, I thought it was just happening to me more when I hit 40.”  No, I remind them, it’s not so much about age as it is about the design of the brain.  Most of you’ve heard or seen the research that the average person can only hold onto 7 concepts (+/- 2) in their head at one time.

Last week I was reminded again of the unreliable nature of our brain to hold onto simple tasks…by my 14 year-old son.  It goes like this.  My youngest child lost a tooth, a molar to be specific.  As you can imagine she was very excited because in  the Bader house – perhaps like your own – the Tooth Fairy pays a visit to exchange some cash for the tooth.  Any of you that have or know 8 year-olds will agree this is a big deal.  Plus my daughter’s tooth was a molar, a larger back tooth.  Somewhere in her beautiful mind she developed the reasonable  – to her – assumption that the larger the tooth, the more money she gets.  This did turn out to be the truth, but not because of her reasoning, and you will see why.

[Read more →]

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Mike Vardy, the character behind the satirical productivity website Effing the Dog, recently interviewed David Allen.  We think you might find the humor in it, as we did.

Interview – Part One

Interview – Part Two

Enjoy!

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