If you’re being asked to do more work than before, with less time for your personal life, you’ll relate to this excerpt from Todd Brown’s blog post for Next Action Associates.

Want your people to be more productive in the office? Help them get more of their personal things done.

Published on January 22, 2013 by Todd Brown

Why do people have so many personal things on their minds? In my experience it’s because they are better set up to handle things at the office, because that’s where “work” happens, and productivity is expected. Personal things are allowed to take a back seat. But here’s the rub: If the personal open loops aren’t handled appropriately, they are just as likely to generate stress, relationship problems, and mental distraction, both at home and at the office.

The problem is exacerbated by the current economic reality. One of my clients, the head of HR for a firm here in London, told me last week that while staffing levels are down on last year, work levels definitely aren’t. We’re hearing similar thing from many of our clients these days.

With even more to do at the office, the pressure on home life is becoming even more intense. There are just as many open loops at home, and they’re probably getting less attention.

So if your goal is to enable your people to deal with increased demands at work, with a clear head and without distraction, support them in developing a “whole life” approach to managing their open loops that helps them get their personal life under better control.

This doesn’t mean they’ll spend a lot of time at the office doing personal things. It does mean that when open loops present themselves in their personal lives, that they’ll have the confidence that they can handle them appropriately. And at work they’ll be able to focus better, undistracted by the open loops at home.

That’s what I call a “win-win.”

You can read other blog posts and find out more about Next Action Associates, the only Certified International Partner for GTD in the UK, here.

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Question: What’s a Project?
Answer from David Allen: Any outcome that’s going to require more than one action item, in some sequence of events in order to be able to get to that outcome, that’s a project. And boy, there are a lot of people that just miss that. Invariably I see that most people’s “project lists” are very, very incomplete. One of the more subtle ones that comes to mind is: What issues are on your mind right now, or situations or circumstances? Not necessarily negative things, but oftentimes there’s kind of a health thing, there’s kind of a family thing, there’s a relationship thing, there’s a—who knows? There’s all kinds of subtle stuff that show up out there that are either problems or opportunities and they don’t march up to the door with a pretty pink bow and say, “Hi, I am now a project!” Get those clarified in a way that you know what done looks like (the project outcome), and what doing looks like (the next action).

Taken from the GTD Mastery: Closing the Gaps webinar David did for GTD Connect members, Dec. 2012.

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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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The Power of Moms has a very useful post on how to methodically get your house organized. There’s even a handy PDF download.

A Seven-Step Plan to Organize the House

by April Perry on Jan 8, 2013

I want my home to be a simple, functional, happy environment that enables every family member to thrive.

But if I want it to get there–and stay there, I have to have a plan.

Over the past 12 years, with 9 moves, 4 children, and a bustling schedule (like yours, I’m sure) I’ve refined my home-simplification process down to seven steps that work every single time.

Many aspects of this process are based on David Allen’s best-setter, Getting Things Done (a wonderful book you must read).  Corporate executives worldwide live and breathe this kind of training, and now we’re going to have a great time applying it to our homes.

Read the full post here.

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Forbes has picked up Senior GTD Coach and Presenter Kelly Forrister’s article on how to tackle a crazy to-do list, originally posted on The Daily Muse.

Crazy To-Do List? Here’s What to Tackle First

Many people try to tackle their mountain of personal tasks by sorting them by priority, and starting at the top. Seems logical—but they’ve actually got it backward. In reality, before you think about priorities, there are three factors you need to consider, because they each actually limit your choices about what you should (and even can) do next.

Limitation #1: Context
If you’re not in the right place, don’t have the right tool, or are not in front of the right person required to take an action, you can’t take that action.

Limitation #2: Time Available
The second factor that comes into play is how much time you have. If you’ve got a big project to work on, but you need to bounce to your next meeting or pick up your kids in 10 minutes, it’s probably not a good use of your effort to start it.

Limitation #3: Resources
The third factor to consider is what your energy is like. I don’t know about you, but Friday afternoon after a long, busy workweek is not the time to dive into anything that will take a lot of mental bandwidth. Instead, I make choices that match what my mental and physical energy is like. Not to say there aren’t times I need to just “buck up” and get in there anyway, but I like to be conscious about what I’m choosing and match that to when I think I’ll bring my best self, whenever I can.

Read the full post here on The Daily Muse, or here on Forbes.

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For those of you who like to customize your workspace so that it’s an integral part of your GTD system, you’ll enjoy seeing Lifehacker’s most popular featured workspaces of 2012. Alas, the one that’s missing is David Allen’s workspace.

Most Popular Featured Workspaces of 2012

Seeing how others have organized and set up their workspaces can be great inspiration for creating your own perfect workspace. This year, we had lots of inspiration. Whether your taste leans towards a minimalist approach or more eclectic style, here are the most popular featured workspaces of 2012 to get your ideas flowing.

You can see the full post here.

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David Allen answers the question about when something belongs on the calendar vs. organizing it on a tasks list. This short podcast will help you use your calendar and task lists more effectively. Available for download now on the David Allen Company podcast page.

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Hi Folks,

Is there anything in your world you need to declare “done” but haven’t yet?

I’ll take a deeper look at completing the past to prepare for the future in a public webinar I’m doing in January on Creating Wild Success in 2013. We’d love to have you join us online for that.

Until then, my essay this month should give you some good direction about going back to those things you need to unhook from and how to be complete with that.

All the best,

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO STOP DOING?

We’ve got to learn to declare things DONE. Especially when they’re not. Not completed, that is, to the level of perfection or result that we initially visualized or committed to.

The world changes, and our creative focus along with it. So do our standards. We will always maintain some inventory or backlog of projects to complete, of things to do. But if we’re not careful and take responsibility for unhooking from those that have outlived their seat on our active list, they can easily constipate our creative process. [Read more →]

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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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