This excerpt is from an interview that Mike Williams, President and CEO of David Allen Company, did with Inc.

 

 

 

OWNER’S MANUAL | Jeff Haden  Mar 5, 2013

Best Way to Start, Well, Anything

The road to success starts with asking–and answering–one simple question.

To be more productive and truly engage other people, always start with that one question: What does a wildly successful outcome for this meeting, this project, this sales call, etc. look like?

Don’t start anything until you know the answer.

Read the full article here.

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Learn the keys to mind like water in our next “Keys to Getting Things Done” webinar. It’s coming up this Thursday, March 7th from 10am-11am Pacific Time.

We have about 20 seats still available. Register now.

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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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Epipheo.TV talked with David Allen about how to hack through your to-do list and free up your mind to focus on what’s most important to you. It’s a very short, very fun video.

(This video is streaming from YouTube, so it may take a few seconds to load.)

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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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The GTD Mastering Workflow seminar is coming to New Orleans on March 14th!  Learn the foundations of GTD in this wonderful destination city.  If you’re just getting started with GTD, this is a perfect opportunity to get your system off the ground. If you’re experienced with GTD, it’s a great time to identify any gaps in your systems for greater productivity.  This one-day presentation is packed with practical recommendations and suggestions about how to put the proven GTD principles to work for you—at work, at home and in everything you do.

Sign up now to get the early registration discount.

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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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Comment from a new GTDer: I feel like I’ll spend all my time maintaining these lists recommended in the book!

David Allen’s reply: If by “maintaining” the lists you mean, “write action reminders down in a retrievable place that you’ll look at when you need to,” then it’s not going to take you nearly as much time, effort, and stress as filing it in your head, constantly feeling pressured about what’s in there, and having the thought occur again (and again, and again) in your mind because it doesn’t trust your system.

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USA Today has an article in their Money Quick Tips section, on how to Make Telecommuting Work for You.

The article points out that ten percent of workers work at home for some or all of their time on the job, so it’s important to make that home office a productive environment.  Expect to be distracted, by things like these:

1. Children and family wanting attention.

2. Children, family, pets disturbing work telephone calls.

3. Difficulties accessing office equipment.

You can make your telecommuting more productive by having clear agreements with family members about whether it’s okay to interrupt you when you’re working at home. Ask for as much IT support as your employer will provide, including remote access to files. And be sure to set boundaries on how much time you’ll spend working, if you find you tend to work more hours just because the line between home and work has been blurred.

How has telecommuting affected your productivity?

And if you’re not telecommuting, how much of your job could you do remotely, if your employer supported that option?

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