For many people, a mobile list manager is a requirement for implementing GTD.  To support productivity on the go, the lists must be accessible in real-time, showing your projects, as well as your actions sorted by context.  There are plenty of third-party task applications for mobile devices that help to some degree with list management.  The BlackBerry is a very popular choice among GTDers looking for a device with a built-in task app.  In fact, David Allen Company has a Setup Guide specifically written so you can dial the  BlackBerry in according to GTD best practices.  If you’re considering a mobile device, this review at Notes on Productivity describes the functionality of the task app in the BlackBerry Torch.  How do you think the BlackBerry stacks up for managing your lists the GTD way?

13 Comments »

We received this letter from Bruce, about his recent experience with GTD Connect:

I joined GTD Connect a week or two ago, and I’m discovering that it is an excellent resource. The amount of content is awesome, and you have developed an active community. (Initially I thought: $48/month is a lot of money. Now I realize it’s worth it.)

I read Getting Things Done about three years ago, and although much of it made sense, I missed a lot of it. I’m now reading Making It All Work, reading articles on GTD Connect, and listening to Connect webinars, and I’m developing a much deeper understanding of GTD and how to apply it.

Thanks!
Bruce

2 Comments »

Josh Kaufman wrote a succinct review of Getting Things Done on his blog, The Personal MBA.  David saw it and commented to Josh, “I’ve run across few people who have “grokked” GTD conceptually as well as you have.”  With Josh’s permission, we’re sharing his complete review here.

~~~~~~~

If you’re ready to stop stressing and start accomplishing your goals, David Allen’s Getting Things Done can help you create a simple, effective personal productivity system.

About David Allen

David Allen is the author of the Personal MBA-recommended book Getting Things Done, as well as Ready For Anything, and Making It All Work. For more information about his work, check out David Allen’s website.

Here are 10 big ideas from David Allen’s Getting Things Done…

1. If your day-to-day life is out of control, it’s almost impossible to think strategically or plan effectively.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed about how much you have to do (and who isn’t, really?), it’s difficult to focus on ensuring your life and work is moving in the direction you want to go. That’s why it’s important to get control of your daily tasks before working on your big-picture life planning. [Read more →]

11 Comments »

A Community Contribution from Jason Verly

For anyone who uses a Mac and utilizes the GTD method, you may eventually look into what software you can use to help manage your project and next action lists. Currently on the Mac, the leading apps to help manage your lists are OmniFocus and Things. Each app covers four of the five steps of the GTD workflow: Collect, Process, Organize, and Review. (Sorry, but you still have to do ‘Do’ on you own.)   Here is a comparison of how each application handles these four steps.

Read more from Jason Verly’s article

Editors Note: Many of you know we are partners with OmniGroup. We wanted to provide this article to our GTD Times readers, as Jason has done a great job comparing these two popular applications.  It should give you some great information from a fellow GTDer, when choosing which one is best for you.

14 Comments »

Dominique James has written a book review of implementing Getting Things Done with Cultured Code’s “Things” software.  As a creative professional, it’s an interesting view of what he needed in a software program to work for his GTD setup.  Read more…

No Comments »

A Community Contribution from Sarah From

My Year in Review, by Sarah From

This time last December, I was working in an office crammed with stuff.  Conference programs, old speeches, copies of travel receipts, notebooks brimming with ideas from half a decade ago, and drafts of reports long-ago published were filed and piled around me.  I wasn’t a hoarder – I just considered stacking things to be a valid organizing system.

Since I was generally able to find what I needed when I needed it, I didn’t consider myself disorganized.  Psychologically, my stacks served as a symbol of the important work that I was doing – work so important that it kept piling up and didn’t wait for me to get around to filing it.

At the same time, I knew my stacks weren’t really doing me any favors.  [Read more →]

3 Comments »

There are lots of creative mapping tools out there, and PersonalBrain is one that David Allen uses to capture an autobiographical brain of his life.  Shelley, an evangelist for TheBrain put together a cool demo of how to look at the corners of your mind…

TheBrain also just launched a new hosting service for PersonalBrain users called WebBrain, with a great example about GTD.

No Comments »

We received this unsolicited letter from an active GTD Connect member (“Barb” on the Forums) who was so enthusiastic about the value she gets from her membership, she wanted to share it on GTD Times.

I’ve been a GTD Connect member for just a little under two years.  I’m a Dallas-based Consultant and I DO NOT make a living from writing enthusiastic reviews on GTD or have any affiliation whatsoever to David Allen Co.  But big changes have happened at the GTD Connect site and I’m writing today because of one simple fact:  The more the merrier! [Read more →]

3 Comments »

Years ago, David Allen worked with software design firm Netcentrics to create a GTD solution for Outlook users.  In fact, it’s one of the few applications (Eric Mack’s eProductivity product is another) that has David’s fingerprints on the look, feel and functionality.  Although you can customize Outlook to be more useful via the GTD & Outlook whitepaper, the Netcentrics GTD Outlook Add-In automated many of the customizations we suggest in that paper and adds a few key things that only the Add-In will do:

Link Projects to Actions (solving the timeless question and request from GTD’ers, “How do you know which project a next action relates to?”)

Process input more easily (gives a GTD toolbar for one-stop processing, linking and organizing) [Read more →]

4 Comments »

Making It All Work, David Allen’s latest book, ties together what many people were hungry for after reading Getting Things Done:  control + perspective.  In MIAW, control (5 phases of mastering your workflow) gets married to perspective (your horizons of focus)  to give an overview of the whole game.

Chris Taylor, editor for Goose Educational Media, wrote up a detailed book review of Making It All Work that we thought you may find helpful. He wrote:

We broke the review into two parts, as I felt Making it all Work really lent itself to that format.

Part 1, focusing on control
Part 2, focusing on perspective

You can also read their review of GTD. Enjoy!

Editor’s note: Here are the new links for the two parts of the review.

http://www.actionablebooks.com/summaries/making-it-all-work-part-2/

1 Comment »