Question: I just finished the “Getting Things Done” book and I know the methods you have expressed will for sure help me! I was wondering if you can help answer one of my questions? For Actions, let’s say you have to delegate work to someone. If that person doesn’t do the work that they volunteer to, how do you act in a stress-free way which doesn’t decrease your productivity and efficiency as a person?

David’s answer: There’s no “system” that can answer your question. “Stress-free” emerges when you know you’ve made the decisions that you need to about something, and parked the results into a trusted system that will feed reminders and information back to you at the appropriate time and context. So you have to decide if there’s something that you need to do about the situation or not; and if so, what’s your next action? Then park that next action in the right place that you’ll deal with appropriately.

The main problem most people have with delegation is the lack of regular review, enough so that you will light a fire or check status early enough to be able to deal with the other person optimally. But you can’t make anyone do anything. You just have to deal with your own agreements with yourself about the situation.

Best,
David

“Yes, but not the way most people seem to understand goal setting. In my experience, the real value of defining desired futures is not so much in the world they describe, but the change in perception the process of setting goals fosters.”

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

THE VALUE OF GOALS

What we focus on changes what we notice. Our brain filters information, seeing one thing in a situation instead of something else, based on what we identify with, what we have our attention on, what we’re looking for—more or less consciously.

The reason for long-term goals is the permission they give us to identify with the greatest value we can so it changes our filtered perceptions. The future never shows up (have you noticed?—it’s always today!). But playing with it as a working blueprint can be a remarkably useful tool to see things (and how to do and have them) that you never saw before.

Subscribe to Productive Living. It’s free and sent about every 4 weeks. You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

In this Dorm Room Tycoon interview on huffduffer, David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, explains how entrepreneurs can be in control, and why planning and having an overall purpose are keys to success.

David Allen: Getting Things Done Interview – Getting your Startup Under Control: Business

David Allen, Author of “Getting Things Done,” by Kevin Ohannessian in Fast Company

Has productivity changed as technology has evolved, from the utility of iPhones to the connectedness of Facebook? We continue our examination of the business book Getting Things Done with an interview of author David Allen.

Why do you think the book was so successful and resonated with the business world?

I think people were hungry for a model that was hip enough and current enough to deal with the kind of world everyone was in. Most of the other models that had to do with time management or personal organization or any of that all had good stuff, but most of it was way too structured for the speed and volume of change that people were dealing with.

So what can you do to improve upon this? Make collection tools a part of your lifestyle. Keep them close by so no matter where you are you can collect a potentially valuable thought. Think of them as being indispensable as your toothbrush or your driver’s license or your glasses.

What can you do to plug the holes in your collection?

-David

What have you actually finished, completed, and accomplished? If you haven’t made a list in the last year, I would highly recommend that you give yourself a treat and review the year that just passed and look forward to the year ahead.

When I go through these kinds of questions I like to consider my answers in several areas:

Physical
Emotional
Mental
Spiritual
Financial
Family
Community Service
Fun / creativity / recreation

Completing and remembering last year

• Review the list of all completed projects.
• What was your biggest triumph in 2011?
• What was the smartest decision you made in 2011?
• What one word best sums up and describes your 2011 experience?
• What was the greatest lesson you learned in 2011?
• What was the most loving service you performed in 2011?
• What is your biggest piece of unfinished business in 2011?
• What are you most happy about completing in 2011?
• Who were the three people that had the greatest impact on your life in 2011?
• What was the biggest risk you took in 2011?
• What was the biggest surprise in 2011?
• What important relationship improved the most in 2011?
• What compliment would you like to have received in 2011?
• What compliment would you like to have given in 2011?
• What else do you need to do or say to be complete with 2011?

Creating the new year

• What would you like to be your biggest triumph in 2012?
• What advice would you like to give yourself in 2012?
• What is the major effort you are planning to improve your financial results in 2012?
• What would you be most happy about completing in 2012?
• What major indulgence are you willing to experience in 2012?
• What would you most like to change about yourself in 2012?
• What are you looking forward to learning in 2012?
• What do you think your biggest risk will be in 2012?
• What about your work, are you most committed to changing and improving in 2012?
• What is one as yet undeveloped talent you are willing to explore in 2012?
• What brings you the most joy and how are you going to do or have more of that in 2012?
• Who or what, other than yourself, are you most committed to loving and serving in 2012?
• What one word would you like to have as your theme in 2012?

David Allen: Just focus on doing the next action perfectly, which is a lot easier than trying to be perfect about how you approach something bigger. Be as retentive as you want. The only problem is when it stops action. Be a perfectionist about the process, which will require, of course, making decisions on the front end that might not be perfect. Think about what might go wrong if you avoid decisions and action! (If you need a negative motivator.)

My essay this month talks about the wisdom of “the way out is through.” I hope it gives you some good direction on dealing with what may be dragging on your psyche and systems. Defining what you are not doing is as important as knowing what you are doing for stress-free productivity. Having things you’ve told yourself to do (implicit agreements with yourself), still undone, can be deadly to your confidence and energy if they are not appropriately managed by constant renegotiation with yourself.

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

THE WAY OUT IS THROUGH

Most of you reading this don’t even have time to finish to perfection your current set of projects, even if you stopped the world from giving you anything new, and you had several months or even years within which to do them.

It’s strange, but I work with people to define the work they are not doing.

There’s an old Gestalt theorem — the way out is through. Defining what we could do, and what we are doing right now instead — managing the triage strategically with ourselves and others, is a key component of managing ourselves and our workflow these days. You can only feel good about what you’re not doing when you know what you’re not doing.

There is no catching up. There is only catching on.

Subscribe to Productive Living. It’s free and sent about every 4 weeks. You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

David answered this way . . .

It’s hard to get it any simpler than this:

• Keep meaningful stuff out of your head
• Make action and outcome decisions about the stuff sooner than later
• Organize reminders of those items in easy to view places
• Review it all and keep it current

Any one of those elements without the others won’t really produce that much value.

This webinar is free for GTD Connect members.  You can sign up for a free trial membership, and when you log in, you’ll find the webinar information on the home page of GTD Connect.  You’ll also see an extensive list of previous webinars you can access in the archives. (Partial listing shown here.)

The free trial membership is easy to begin—just first name and email address—with no cost or commitment.

I want something more than that, though.

I don’t want to have to “recover” from Christmas. I don’t want to start the new year eight pounds heavier. I don’t want my children focused only on the electronic gadgets they hope Santa brings. But everything I don’t want will probably become my reality–unless I take the initiative to implement what I do want.

David Allen’s Natural Planning Model seriously saves my sanity on everything from birthday party planning to creating new programs for my website, so this year, I decided to use the five steps of the Natural Planning Model to create a Christmas experience that is both magical and meaningful.

Step One: Defining Purpose and Principles

For this part, I sat down with my children and gave them the following prompts:

• What’s the purpose of this season?
• What do you want this Christmas to feel like for our family?
• Please finish this sentence: “I would be happy with any Christmas celebration, as long as . . .”

Then I took good notes, and the beauty of their responses continues to amaze me.

Step Two: Outcome Visioning

We did this part on a separate day with an informal breakfast discussion, which basically took our ideas from Step One to a deeper level.

My 11-year-old was the scribe:

We agreed that we want to be well-rested, reasonably-paced, and organized throughout the holiday, and we’re going to continue exercising and eating well so we’ll be in better health by the time the tree comes down.　

We’re all going to be happy with our Christmas gifts–even if we don’t get the “big” stuff that all the kids at school are talking about. We’ll purchase and wrap our presents by the first week of December, shop together for a beautiful tree that will be trimmed with homemade decorations, and focus the majority of our activities and expenses on making others happy.

Just typing these things out gets me so excited about the holiday season. Certainly, there will be days that won’t go as planned (probably most days), and some of us will be whiny or emotional while others will be frustrated or exhausted, but that’s just life. We can still aim high, can’t we?

On to Step Three: Brainstorming

This step is my favorite because it gives us a place to write all the ideas we’ve been cooking up over the past few months.　

We looked carefully at our notes from the first two steps and then gathered as a family one evening to brainstorm around seven areas of focus. Here they are:

• Activities and Outings
• Helping Others
• Uplifting Media
• Christmas Cards
• Gifts
• Meaningful Traditions
• Healthy Food

Then my daughter added an eighth area called, “Unhealthy food.” (She needed a place to include the gingerbread house.)

Photo courtesy of Shawni Pothier

Seeing our areas of focus as clusters on one page helps us to realize that the “all-consuming” holiday planning really is finite. We can create boundaries around our time, we can control our expenditures, and we can make sure our energy is spent on what’s most important.　

In many areas, there’s a clear overlap. Can’t we create meaningful traditions that help others? Can’t healthy Christmas goodies and beautiful music be part of our Christmas-gift giving? Looking at the big picture clarifies everything.

Step Four: Organizing

This part initially feels hard. How am I going to take all these brainstorms and make them manageable?

Simply jump in.

I wrote out all the components and sub-components on little slips of paper.

Then I moved them around and organized them according to priority and sequence.

Here are my three sub-clusters: things to do this week, things to do before December 1st, and things to do in early December.

I noticed that four of these slips contained two-minute tasks, so I quickly accomplished those and then moved onto the next step.

Step Five: Identifying Next Actions

As I was getting all my ideas out onto Post-it Notes, I realized that some things I wrote down were projects, while others were tasks.　

I created a list of Current Christmas Projects,

and then I created two Next Actions Lists: one for immediate Next Actions–things to accomplish within the next week, and one for important Next Actions–things to accomplish as soon as it’s convenient.

Then I simply put these sheets into my inbox to organize during my next Weekly Review.

I’ll create calendar triggers for the Christmas plans that mean the most to me, and then I’ll just do my best with the rest, knowing that ultimately, spontaneous events might replace those I’ve planned, some of these projects might not seem as important three weeks from now, and what really matters is how this holiday feels.

Your family’s Christmas planning will likely be much different than ours. There’s no one “right” way to do this, but I hope that this exercise using the Natural Planning Model will help you to create a wonderful Christmas for you and the ones you love.

April Perry is the mother of four children and Co-Director of The Power of Moms.

David Allen’s response:

“If you say someone is responsible, that usually means that if he makes an agreement, he keeps it, or re-negotiates it, and doesn’t let it fall through the cracks. A lot of GTD is about that — keeping agreements and not losing stuff. If I’m going to be responsible, I’m going to hold myself accountable. But I think a subtler and more interesting spin is to break the word down into two parts, “response” and “able,” meaning one’s ability to respond.”

“Motivation is like showering; you need it every day.” Through the trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship, great business owners find ways to keep themselves motivated.  Luckily for us, in the 21st century, some of the greatest leaders of the world have poured themselves into online content to help inspire us on a daily basis.  The following list is filled not only with great pieces of motivation, but video blogs, Twitter accounts, articles and Facebook pages to keep you moving forward every single day. Introducing the Top 50 Motivators on the Web…

In addition to David, the list includes Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Tony Robbins, Tim Ferris, and more. You can read the complete list here.

Does your company plan things correctly? Or are meetings unproductive due to poor planning? We continue our Leadership Hall of Fame series . . .

How Bad Plans And “Good Ideas” Ruin Meetings

BY David AllenTue Nov 1, 2011

When the “Good Idea” Is a Bad Idea

Have you ever hear a well-intentioned manager start a meeting with the question, “OK, so who’s got a good idea about this?”

What is the assumption here? Before any evaluation of what’s a “good idea” can be trusted, the purpose must be clear, the vision must be well defined, and all the relevant data must have been collected (brainstormed) and analyzed (organized). “What’s a good idea?” is a good question, but only when you’re about 80 percent of the way through your thinking! Starting there would probably blow anyone’s creative mental fuses. 

You can read the complete article here.

• Why bright people procrastinate the most
• Dumbing down your brain
• Typical causes and cures
• The bottom line of why we procrastinate

This webinar is free for GTD Connect members.  You can sign up for a free trial membership, and when you log in, you’ll find the webinar information on the home page of GTD Connect.

And coming up in January, GTD Connect members will have another opportunity to participate in the hugely popular 14-day GTD Challenge.  Members who did the recent 14-day GTD Challenge had this to say:

“Great webinar by Meg and Kelly as usual. I liked your advice on picking ‘Wins’ for the 14 days, instead of trying to climb the entire mountain at once.”

“Coaching from the webinar has gotten me more relaxed and re-energized about GTD.”

“The Webinar really motivated me to get back on track. Though I’ve been really busy, I’ve made time to get clear and current again.”

The free trial membership is easy to begin—just first name and email address—with no cost or commitment.

• The list is out of date
• The list is incomplete
• The list is not really what the list is about

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

HAVE YOUR LISTS BECOME LISTLESS?

We’ve all had this happen. We create a set of lists of relevant items, appropriately categorized. We’re excited, we feel in control, our brains relax, and life is good.

Then, over time (and often not a very long time), the luster fades. We only look at the lists when our guilt overcomes our apathy; and we gird our loins, committing to some sort of review of them, just because we know we “should.” Then we begin to resist looking at the lists at all, even though we know it’s the answer to renegotiating our agreements with ourselves. Then we go numb to our system, or at least a part of it. The thrill is gone. We’re in productivity purgatory.

Subscribe to Productive Living. It’s free and sent about every 4 weeks. You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

• Set up Lotus Notes To Do’s for your projects and actions
• Use the calendar as a critical foundation for actions
• Get email to zero consistently
• Create useful reference lists
• Organize contacts
• Move faster with speed keys and shortcuts

Instructions in the Guide are primarily written based on Notes 8.5, with helpful references to differences in previous versions.

Read a free sample from the first few pages

Buy now from the DAC Store

In this video, co-author John Tierney talks to Reason.TV about success and failure and the positive impact David Allen and GTD can have on all that. 

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

This is the latest in a series of free podcasts.

[Editor's note: Good news for Chrome users, the podcast page is now Chrome-compatible.]

GTD has made a significant impact on my life, and I’m glad to share a specific technique that has worked for me.

I format my Action Items list in a spreadsheet. It’s really convenient to add items as they come in chronologically or during the processing of  ”in.” Then the items can be sorted according to context. This is easily done by just having three columns in the spreadsheet:

1) Context (errands, @computer,  etc.)
2) The item itself
3) Notes such as phone numbers, reference data, referral name, etc.

You can process “in” without wasting time inserting rows in order to put like items together. Just add more items at the bottom of the list. It is a simple procedure to sort the data by context, and BAM – action items are grouped according to context. 

It has worked best for me to keep this spreadsheet on my desktop. This way I don’t have to open my spreadsheet program, open a folder, find the document, then open the document. A quick double-click on the desktop opens the application and the document, and I’m ready to scribe.

Editor’s note:  You can also add a keyword for projects and actions, and then sort by the Item column to see the Projects with their next actions.

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

YOUR COMPETITIVE EDGE

There is one organization that never has fires and crises—the fire department. Think about it.

They are constantly being interrupted from getting their work done. They have to clean, polish, maintain, train, fill out forms, hire, communicate, order toilet paper, cook lunch, feed the dog, give speeches, and maintain a happy face. Suddenly a bell rings and everything gets overturned. And the vast majority of these interruptions are false alarms!

They accept and organize for this.

How long are people going to complain about continual surprises and interruptions, especially the ones that are inherently natural to the business and value we are trying to add?

Subscribe to Productive Living. It’s free and sent about every 4 weeks. You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

From long To Do lists to overcommitted schedules, we tend to take on too much.  When is the last time you said no to someone when they asked you for something?  It can be hard to do.

Most of us want to help others when they need it.  There are times, however, when we need to say no.  I know I don’t like to say no.  I like to help people.  It feels good when someone wants you to do something for them.

It may help to start weighing that commitment against what you’re trying to accomplish in other facets of your life.

Here are three questions to ask yourself when faced with saying yes or no:

1. Do you have the capacity to say yes? If you have the capacity, great, go for it.  Say yes.  Make sure you can commit 100% though.  Committing and not delivering is much worse than not committing at all.  You’ll know if you have capacity because with GTD, you already have an inventory of your projects and actions, the things you’re already commited to.

2. If you say no, do you know how to do it eloquently? Saying no could seem harsh on the surface, so sometimes you need to explain why.  An example is simply saying, “I have a lot on my plate and I don’t think I can give you 100% of my attention right now.  I’d love to help in the future if you need me.”  There’s not a lot someone can say to that.  You’re being honest.  Most people will respect that.

3. Are you the right person for the job? Just because someone asks you for help doesn’t mean you have the ability to help them.  If you have no idea how to fix your mom’s dishwasher would you commit to fixing it?  I don’t know the first thing about fixing dishwashers. (My expertise pretty much stops at changing light bulbs.)  Telling my mom that I can help would be doing her a disservice.

Same goes for work.  Your boss asks you to compile some information on an upcoming project.  He tells you he needs it by tomorrow morning.  You’ve got three other projects you’re working on that are equally important.  Do you have the courage to tell your boss no?  Again, explaining how you can’t give 100% to it and offering a different solution will help.

Knowing when to say yes or no is a big part of stress-free productivity.

These experiments demonstrated that there is a finite store of mental energy for exerting self-control. When people fended off the temptation to scarf down M&M’s or freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies, they were then less able to resist other temptations. When they forced themselves to remain stoic during a tearjerker movie, afterward they gave up more quickly on lab tasks requiring self-discipline, like working on a geometry puzzle or squeezing a hand-grip exerciser. Willpower turned out to be more than a folk concept or a metaphor. It really was a form of mental energy that could be exhausted. The experiments confirmed the 19th-century notion of willpower being like a muscle that was fatigued with use, a force that could be conserved by avoiding temptation. To study the process of ego depletion, researchers concentrated initially on acts involving self-control ­— the kind of self-discipline popularly associated with willpower, like resisting a bowl of ice cream. They weren’t concerned with routine decision-making, like choosing between chocolate and vanilla, a mental process that they assumed was quite distinct and much less strenuous. Intuitively, the chocolate-vanilla choice didn’t appear to require willpower. Read the full article

You will learn:
• The power of creative brainstorming
• How to define your priorities through the Horizons of Focus® Model
• The advantages of using the Natural Planning Model®
• How to effectively develop and move your projects to the next level

This is how David Allen Company staff member Kari McGee described her experience with Managing Projects & Priorities:

Sometimes a vision seems to be all we have, but it doesn’t have to be. That’s the lesson I walked away with after attending the David Allen Managing Projects and Priorities seminar. I realized that the projects piece of GTD is where the magic really happens. To be able to work through clear purpose and not just be prepared for the latest and loudest is really where the bigger dreams start to take shape on the GTD Journey.

Like any GTD enthusiast, I thought I had the world conquered once I realized how I could manage all of my tasks through lists and contexts. The Mastering Workflow seminar cemented this learning further into place and pretty soon I was explaining this approach to relatives and friends. After a few months I was scanning my projects and actions during my Weekly Review. I started to become haunted by a small, creeping suspicion that I just couldn’t shake: my projects list looked much too small in relation to the responsibilities my life called for. I called my GTD Coach and asked her how many projects I should have on my list, and as I suspected, I needed to enter the next phase of my practice.

When I was offered an opportunity to attend the Managing Projects and Priorities seminar, it was exactly what the doctor ordered. As I spoke to other people attending, I realized that many people were having the same experience of, “I don’t quite get the project piece.” Halfway through the workshop I realized that the reason I had struggled with projects was because I had been ignoring one of the most integral pieces of project planning—the Natural Planning Model.

The Natural Planning Model connects the purpose of why we are investing in a larger goal, and the actions to reach that goal. After all, what is action without purpose? The presenter went through this model in careful stages to really explore the different steps of clarifying, brainstorming, organizing and implementing (taking action). By the end of the workshop, no project seemed too large or out of reach. In fact, I started of thinking of all the projects that were sitting on my Someday Maybe list and I couldn’t wait to get started.

The Managing Projects and Priorities seminar really aided me in rounding out my whole GTD system. The workshop offered an interactive breakdown of my Horizons of Focus. I was instructed on how to use projects as a way to achieve the goals that add purpose and value to my life. I realized that every domain of my life needed a project; my health, my work, my finances, my relationships. Having the instruction to be able to implement that kind of structure into my everyday reality has proven to be invaluable.

At the most basic level, the reason we organize is to accomplish projects, whether that be creating a new website or buying a new toilet seat. Whatever level of responsibility the project requires, we still need to be aware of the reasons driving us to create the path to achieve it. Maybe buying a new toilet seat will make your spouse happy for a week, and maybe creating a new website will help you reach an even higher vision of professional autonomy and financial success. In this seminar, the objectives of the individuals were that different, but they were all equally addressed. I know that my projects were clarified on a level that really catapulted me into a greater place of motivation. Now I fearlessly add on more every week, knowing that my intentions will quickly blossom into real results.

Kari McGee is an enthusiastic team member at David Allen Company. She works on the administrative team for our GTD Connect program and GTD Interactive course. We hope you enjoy her story!

Help manage overwhelm and uncertainty by providing affordable, convenient, and accessible GTD training to those critical workers who are responsible for taking your organization to the next level.

This certification program is perfect for training and empowering staff, managers and front-line workers for the constant change and complexities facing your organization today.

You can be certified to lead the engaging and fast paced 4 ½-hour GTD Essentials Workshop, based on the five phases of Mastering Workflow.  With in-house training, your staff will be ready to get the right things done. 

The certification program includes, but is not limited to, a three-day training workshop, in-house practice sessions and a tailored virtual workflow coaching session to review your personal GTD system.  The certification also offers a Master Trainer’s ongoing support and an annual maintenance program.  Educational and marketing support materials are also available.

To apply for our Certification Program, please contact us directly at 805-646-8432 or gtdessentials@davidco.com with any questions. We are taking applications for our next Program Workshop in San Diego, October 4-6, 2011.

Click here to find out more about GTD Essentials Certification Program.

David Allen: When you’re most productively engaged with whatever you’re doing, you won’t be concerned about balance, other projects, other things. You’ll simply be “on.” Time will disappear. There will be no sense of overwhelm. There will be no question about “work/life balance.” Those questions and issues only show up when you haven’t appropriately handled the specific issues, projects, problems ,or  opportunities in either realm. If you know and incorporate the best practices about how to put things onto “cruise control,” whether they’re finished or not, you can be fully present with whatever you put your attention on.

(The video is streaming from TechCrunch TV, so you may need to give it a moment to load.)

When: Thursday, August 25, 11am-12pm Pacific Time

Who: Hosted by GTD Connect–the online learning center for the David Allen Company

How: Login to gtdconnect.com to pre-register. Free for all GTD Connect members and current guest pass members.

David Allen: The more anyone around you is out of control, the more you need the GTD method! You can only be responsible for what YOU need to track about what THEY are supposed to be doing, and following up with them accordingly. Of course, the more they get onto this method, the more they’ll be doing their part…but you’re going to have to manage yourself, no matter what.

The more out of control your environment (including people), the more critical that you implement your own GTD process. You need to know what’s yours and what’s not, and manage your own “10 acres” with rigor. And as you hold new standards, it impacts everyone to some degree. Though there’s no guarantee, the more you manage your own stuff pristinely, the more people tend to engage with you at that level.