In my experience, the greatest successes don’t come from grandiose scenarios of good intentions engendered by temporarily pumped-up motivation. Rather, the most lasting and significant positive effects result from small things, done consistently, in strategic places.
—David Allen, “Win the self-help game,” in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

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Tony Schwartz has some excellent advice about the value of relaxation for increasing productivity.  Here’s an excerpt from his recent New York Times opinion piece.

Relax! You’ll Be More Productive

By TONY SCHWARTZ
Published: February 9, 2013

THINK for a moment about your typical workday. Do you wake up tired? Check your e-mail before you get out of bed? Skip breakfast or grab something on the run that’s not particularly nutritious? Rarely get away from your desk for lunch? Run from meeting to meeting with no time in between? Find it nearly impossible to keep up with the volume of e-mail you receive? Leave work later than you’d like, and still feel compelled to check e-mail in the evenings?

Golden Cosmos

More and more of us find ourselves unable to juggle overwhelming demands and maintain a seemingly unsustainable pace. Paradoxically, the best way to get more done may be to spend more time doing less. A new and growing body of multidisciplinary research shows that strategic renewal — including daytime workouts, short afternoon naps, longer sleep hours, more time away from the office and longer, more frequent vacations — boosts productivity, job performance and, of course, health.

Read the full article 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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CBS Moneywatch asked David Allen about New Year’s resolutions. His advice? Nix ‘em!

3 reasons to nix those New Year’s resolutions

January 1 always offers a tantalizing gift: the chance to start over again. We think that the right resolutions will make us more productive, healthy and successful. But productivity guru David Allen, author of “Getting Things Done” (and the creator of the widely-adopted GTD system) says that he doesn’t make New Year’s resolutions. Here’s why—and why you should reconsider the practice, too:

1. Review your life more frequently.  Allen and GTD enthusiasts schedule regular reviews (usually weekly) to study any open loops and look at where things are going.

2. Focus on the positive. “People don’t pat themselves on the back like they ought to do,” says Allen. Instead of New Year’s resolutions—which focus on what you haven’t managed to do in your life—he recommends trying New Year’s “recollections.” Allen and his wife sit down and reminisce about, “basically, what did we accomplish, what did we experience that was cool and interesting?”

3. Finish old business—and gain inspiration. “People would be much farther ahead just cleaning up at the end of the year, as opposed to moving things forward,” says Allen. “If you try to set goals—to recalibrate or refocus—and you’ve got old business hanging around your neck like an albatross, good luck,” says Allen. After all, most New Year’s resolutions fail. But tackling a few things on your to-do list? That you can do, and success breeds success.

Do you make New Year’s resolutions?

You can read the full article here.

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If you’re an account executive looking for a new job, or know someone who is, David Allen Company is hiring in three cities.  More details and contact information below.

We have an immediate need for highly motivated, successful Account Executives in the Washington DC, Chicago and Dallas markets. Candidates must have 5+ years of successful professional services sales experience in the training and HR/OD arenas. Major job responsibilities include managing existing accounts and being proactive in managing new sales opportunities.  Prospecting is a very big part of the job.  This position exists primarily to create new demand for company products and services.  Compensation is a blend of salary and commission.  Qualified candidates are invited to submit a cover letter and their resume to jobapplicants@davidco.com.

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David Allen has announced a partnership with SMCOV to expand the GTD productivity coaching internationally.

International Expansion

Productivity Expert and Author of Getting Things Done, David Allen Goes Global with SMCOV

David Allen, the pioneer of the modern productivity movement and the author of the seminal business book Getting Things Done, announced today a partnership with SMCOV that will help the David Allen Company bring his productivity coaching to an international audience. Founded by co-CEO’s Stephan Mardyks and David Covey, SMCOV is a leader in global training distribution.

Through the partnership, SMCOV will distribute Allen’s world-class Intellectual Property (IP) based on his international bestseller, Getting Things Done, to the global business community. GTD® is the product of 30 years of studying productivity, and training millions of people to achieve greater performance in their daily lives. Allen’s philosophies, which have been wildly popular among the business and technology industries in the U.S., give people the tools to help alleviate the feeling of overwhelm, instilling focus and clarity while providing for a system of stress-free productivity.

The full press release is posted here.

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David Allen’s recent TEDx Talk has generated quite a buzz.

“The art of stress-free productivity is a martial art.”

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

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James Fallows of The Atlantic has posted highlights from his conversation with David Allen, about coping with the modern nightmare of email and all-hours connectedness.

David Allen on How to Fix Your Life

By James Fallows, Oct 24 2012, 10:40 PM ET

I know that you’ve laid out your message in your books and in seminars and recordings. Still, I’ll ask you: What is the single main point you’d like people to remember again, gaining a feeling of control in their lives?

All the stuff that is coming in needs to be externalized. I don’t know that I could get it any simpler than that. You need to capture the stuff that’s potentially meaningful, you need to clarify what those things mean to you, and you need to keep a series of maps of the results of all of that so you can step back and see it from a larger perspective. That’s the only choice: you’re ultimately going to have a lot more to do than you can do, so the question is, do you want a half-empty or half-full life?

You can read the full post—highly recommended—here.

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David Allen recently presented at TedX at the Claremont Colleges.  He was interviewed by the Claremont Forum about his presentation.

The Art of Getting Things Done with David Allen

By Ellie Beckett | October 8, 2012 at 7:00 am

Last week, TEDx came to the Claremont Colleges.I was lucky enough to sit down with Allen the day before his talk to learn a little more about his model.

Allen’s entire Getting Things Done (GTD) system is based off of one simple idea: appropriate engagement. Your mind should be appropriately engaged with all the tasks at hand. This system gives you a “mind like water”; if you throw a stone into calm water, the water will ripple out exactly as much as it needs to—not too much or too little—and then return to its calm state.

So how does one obtain a mind like water? Perhaps you’ll be disappointed with the simplicity of the answer. Allen said, “I can tell you the model in twenty seconds; it’s just, keep anything potentially meaningful out of your head, sooner than later decide what it means and what you’re going to do about it, and park those results in some trusted place that some part of you knows you’ll look at the right time and the right place, and trust your intuitive judgments about what you do. That’s all it is.” While it may be simple, it is absolutely effective.

You can read the full post here.

You can click on the Play button below to watch the video.

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Did you catch last night’s episode of The Office? Darryl was carrying around a copy of David Allen’s Getting Things Done, and talking about productivity improvements. Here’s the episode, with the first appearance of GTD about 2 minutes in.

(This video is streaming from Hulu, so it may take a few seconds to load. There is a commercial for about 30 seconds before the episode begins.)

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