“People often remark to me that “GTD does take a lot of discipline!” Actually, it doesn’t, any more than taking showers and brushing your teeth require discipline, once the initial unfamiliarity has been overcome. How long does it take to get there? As long as it takes. You’ll be another day older tomorrow, no matter what. So just keep returning, when you stray. Write things down. Decide outcomes and actions. Organize and review them. And you’ll feel more and more uncomfortable when you don’t.”
–David Allen

5 Comments »

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.

No Comments »

2 Comments »

Hi Folks,

The elegance of productivity doesn’t just come from handling your “important” projects and actions, but also includes the rigor of managing the mundane and less important ones. Problem is, most people think they should consistently ignore the mundane and focus on only the important ones. There are limited times and contexts, though, in which you can do that effectively. For the most part, you have limited space or brainpower to tackle The Big Things. The trick is to know how to use the rest of your day, when your brain may be fried and your time constrained. You might find that handling the little stuff will help the other priorities along wonderfully.

All the best,

This excerpt is from a recent issue of David’s “Productive Living” newsletter. 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.

2 Comments »

“Priorities are determined from the top down—i.e., your purpose and values will drive your vision of the purpose being fulfilled, which will create goals and objectives, which will frame areas of focus and responsibility. All of those will generate projects, which will require actions to get them done.”

—David Allen, Making It All Work, Appendix vii, Horizons of Focus

No Comments »

David Allen did a live Q&A with Fast Company today.  Click here to see the questions that were submitted, along with David’s answers.  From runway to projects to goals, there are plenty of examples of how people like you are applying GTD in their lives.

No Comments »

David Allen will be doing a live Q&A with Fast Company.

GTD! Q&A With “Getting Things Done” Author David Allen Live

Join Fast Company as we chat with the popular productivity expert.

Join Fast Company on Tuesday, November 20th at 3pm ET for a live Q&A with David Allen, author of Getting Things Done.

Click here at 3pm ET on November 20th.

No Comments »

Ever feel like your email processing would be better if your coworkers just sent better emails? David Allen Company is offering a 30-minute Express webinar on this very topic. You’ll hear advice from one of their senior GTD coaches about the best practices for email communications with others—including when to use email, using To vs: Cc, writing effective subject lines, creating agreements about response times, and more.   Get tips you can bring back to your teams for more productive email communication.

Tuesday, November 27th from 10am-10:30am. Open to all GTD Connect members. Not a member? Try a free, two-week guest pass, which makes you eligible to sign up for this webinar. Look for the registration link on the home page after after logging in.

1 Comment »

Question: How do you keep from taking the “easy way out” of answering calls and responding to emails etc., to avoid the high-level work?

David Allen’s answer: It’s usually because of lack of sufficient reason to be doing the thing or lack of a sense of control in the initial engagement—physically, mentally, or emotionally. If the life of someone dear to you was dependent on you finishing the writing project in the next 24 hours (an outcome meaningful enough, I would guess), I think you’d find yourself breaking through some resistances to get that done.

No Comments »

This is a different spin on email overload, from David Allen’s interview with Wade Roush of Xconomy.

Punching the “Clear Your Head” Button

Xconomy: To me one of the most obvious irritants today is e-mail. The average number of emails that an office worker gets is around 125 a day and is going up at 15 percent per year. Do you feel that your system is capable of coping with that level of incoming volume?

DA: As opposed to what? Stopping getting it? Or letting it pile up and blow up on you? What are your options?

X: It just seems to me that e-mail overload presents an opportunity for innovation.

DA: Well, here’s another spin that you could put on this. [Read more →]

No Comments »