A Community Contribution from Chip Joyce

After retiring from being the most successful professional cyclist in history, Lance returned to the sport in his late 30s to compete, for the eighth time, in one of the most challenging athletic competitions: the Tour de France. During training, however, he crashed and broke his collarbone, was in a lot of pain, and faced surgery and physical therapy. It was the first major crash of his career.

In an article on VeloNews.com, Lance recounted, “Sitting on the side of the road in Spain, headed to an anonymous hospital… I wanted to never come back,” to the sport. His long-time team manager and mentor, Johan Bruyneel, said, “I could feel he was really down. I had a feeling he was ready to walk away.” [Read more →]

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A Community Contribution by Meghan Wilker

Near the beginning of a new year, we often take stock of the big things in life. Am I happy at my job? Do I need to lose weight? It’s such a good time to take stock of — and clean up — major sources of stress and a fresh place to start large, complex projects. All of that is great, but this year I’d like to encourage you to think small steps, too.

In my GTD office tour, I made note of a small change I made to my system in 2009 which had a big impact on my overall mood and productivity: my tickler file. Yeah, I know. Really? But, yes…really. My old system (folders on a riser) was fine, but it was clunky. Keeping all the folders orderly meant constantly shuffling groups of 10 folders up and down the riser to keep the current folder at the front. It certainly wasn’t killing me to do it, but it was a small irritant. Barely noticeable, really. [Read more →]

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A Community Contribution by Aeon J. Skoble, PhD. He’s a Professor of Philosophy at Bridgewater State College.

I know that David Allen is interested in seeing how people in different sorts of professions use GTD, so I offered to share my experiences applying the methodology in a world that’s generally regarded as a different one: academia.  I have found that GTD is highly applicable to the academic profession.

I was actually managing adequately before I discovered GTD, but my productivity, while pretty good by institutional standards, was sub-optimal with respect to my own expectations.  I wasn’t well-organized, I often had “near misses” with deadlines, and I had a good deal of stress-producing clutter.  I literally had 6000+ messages in my Outlook inbox.  As the cover of the book hinted, I wanted not only to increase productivity, but to reduce stress.  GTD has indeed helped in both aspects: productivity is up, stress is down. Some of the most useful parts have been among the simpler ones, chiefly “capture everything rather than try to keep it in your head” and “don’t confuse your calendar with your to-do list.”  I used to drive myself crazy repeatedly by playing this game: I’d realize I hadn’t worked much lately on a particular essay I needed to write, so I’d put “work on that essay” on my calendar for Tuesday morning, then I’d spend Tuesday morning prepping for a class or putting out a fire, and then I’d feel anxious because I didn’t write the essay.  If nothing else, I have learned to distinguish calendar from to-do list, and projects from next-actions.  That’s as vital for academics as it is for any business executive. [Read more →]

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A Community Contribution from Sarah From

A recent article in the New York Times highlights new research on a fascinating phenomenon: the procrastination of pleasure. Not only do we avoid the tasks we dread, we also put off activities we enjoy. Redeeming gift cards, using frequent flier miles, and visiting hometown landmarks all belong to the category of activities we express the desire and intention to do, but chronically put off to another day.

When we put on our GTD glasses we can see one relatively simple approach to this problem: clearly define the very next action. Like all forms of procrastination, pleasure procrastination can result when we are not sure what to do next. Faced with an ill-defined task, we find it easier to ignore the item than to figure out how to do it. It takes shockingly little to derail us into full-on procrastination. [Read more →]

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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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Tim, a high school administrator in Utah, sent us this letter about his experience with GTD:

Four years ago, I left a job at a University Research Center and took a job as a High School Administrator.  I went from a relatively relaxed job, to a high stress, high volume experience.  It has been the most challenging and rewarding job I have ever had.  However, I have been highly frustrated with my inability to get on top of things.  There always seemed to be 100 things to do, enough time to do 10 of them, and none of those well.   I really wasn’t getting to anything very important, like the students.  [Read more →]

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What’s it like to do GTD when you are an bioinformaticist?  Here’s a community contribution from Fred, sharing about his recent week:

After a monstrous review today, I felt compelled to sit down and write this:

I started a new job a week ago squeaky clean.  A review the Friday before got everything squared away.  No loose ends.

It’s 14h20.  I just finished processing my in baskets.  I started three hours ago.  The end isn’t in sight.  Only the two minute rule has kept my head above water.  My projects list has multiplied and multiplied again. [Read more →]

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Readers of my site know that I am a big fan of David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” methodology, which the cool kids call “GTD” (see my 5 must read business books post).

GTD for some is a life changer. I can tell you that I personally went from work drawers full of paper piles to an organized filing system and, every once in a while, a clear desk.  But GTD isn’t about organization. It’s about capturing your commitments in a trusted system and using your now free brain to make decisions about what you should be doing right this instant. [Read more →]

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If you received David’s latest Productive Living newsletter, you know the theme for this month is about mind like water and paying attention to what has your attention.  We received this heartfelt letter from Jay, who asked that we share his journey and experience with GTD.

GTD is more than a task management system, it’s an external mind system. Things that are important to me, for whatever reason, good, bad, little or big, are all being captured in a system that will consistently remind me that those things are important to me. My mind and spirit don’t have to hold on to the job. They can relax and hence have more energy to focus greater mental/spiritual power on anything I do focus my energy on because they’re not also expending energy in trying to hold on and remember all the things that are important to me. Its simplicity makes it possible to do it all the time, developing the habit to do so is more of the challenge. Its benefits can be tremendous. [Read more →]

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Community Contribution from Yolanda Otero, an HR Compliance Coordinator from AmerisourceBergen in Orlando Florida

I been doing the GTD for the last 6 months and this has changed my day completely in a way that I’m more proactive, organized, and I have full control of work time due to the way that I manage my time through the GTD process.

This is an idea that I want to share with you all.  I do a lot of projects and it was not easy to keep track of every step that a project has as a different task.  What I do now is to write down all the steps in the body of the task and as I go to each task I mark the preceeding one “DONE”.   I change the subject, I type the new step # and change the due date and or category. Any thing new I’ll add it to the body and that way I keep track of the complete project in one task.

I shared this with the management team GTD meeting in our Division in Orlando and they like it. Hope you like it too, thanks.

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