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 →]

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Question: What are the main reasons why people let themselves get overwhelmed at work?

David Allen’s answer: People tend to both over-commit and to be inefficient. Few people know exactly how much work they actually have, and therefore must take everything on that they think about and that others ask them to do. Their integrity forces them to agree to take things on because, not being real clear how many projects they already have on their plate, some part of them thinks they actually MIGHT be able to do it. And most people are inefficient because they don’t force themselves to decide what things mean and what they are actually going to do about them when they first show up. So, they are constantly rethinking the same things over and over and not making any progress in doing so–only adding to their stress. And when they DO finally decide what to do, it’s usually because they have allowed the situation to get into “last-minute” mode, and they now have to go deal with things as a crisis, one at a time, instead of in an orderly, timely, manner. For example, when you are talking to your boss about the urgent thing, why not also talk about the five things you need to talk to her or him about, before they are urgent? Most people are not that good at making next action decisions and organizing the results effectively. The inefficiency creates greater inefficiency, and it can get out of hand easily.

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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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In this free podcast from David Allen, he gives quick tips for getting back “on” when you’ve fallen off the wagon with GTD. At a little more than 2 minutes in length, it’s a bite-sized nugget of inspiration. Available for download now on the David Allen Company podcast page.

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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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The Financial Underground recently interviewed David Allen about how to use the Natural Planning Model for personal finance.  You can read the blog post here, or listen to the podcast.

Interview with David Allen. The Natural Planning Model for Personal Finance.

By Matt James / September 24, 2012

“If I asked you to stop planning, you’d plan how to do it.”—David Allen

Have you mastered the art of stress-free productivity?

How about stress-free cash flow planning?

Many of us would answer “no” to both. Part of the problem is that we go about solving the “problem” of personal finance and cash flow management in a manner that is neither intuitive nor productive.

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Hi Folks,

If all you get from the GTD methodology is to retire your mind from the job of being your list manager, you’d be light years ahead of most people on the planet. It’s one of the easiest principles to implement, and probably one of the most common to disregard in terms of how powerful it can be. Do yourself a favor—get smarter than your mind. It would love to let go of this stuff; it’s simply afraid you don’t have a better servant.

All the best,

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

GET SMARTER THAN YOUR MIND

Your mind doesn’t have one. A mind, that is. If your mind were smart, it would only remind you of something when you could do something about it.

Your mind is an incredible servant but a terrible master. Most people I meet, though, are still letting their mind run the show. You have to get smarter than your mind if you want to reach stress-free productivity.

QUOTABLE

Rule your mind, or it will rule you.—Horace

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.

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Autumn is one of the four most likely seasons for procrastination to show up.  If you’re curious about why bright people like Gwendolyn procrastinate the most, have a look at chapter 12 of David Allen’s Getting Things Done.

Used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi at Inkygirl.com.

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This is an excerpt from an interview David Allen did with Chief Mobility Officer. 

Are Smartphones Triggering a Productivity Boom? A Q&A with David Allen

By Bzur Haun | October 4, 2012

Where have smartphones made the biggest impact in ‘getting things done’?

I mean, sure, people have been able to migrate their organizational systems so that they can get email and calendar on their phones, and are able to manage communications between the lines a lot easier and faster.  That’s made a difference.  But it’s not that big of a deal. I mean, the smaller the device gets, the more constrained you are in terms of your productivity.

So a lot of it kind of depends on the nature of your work.  It’s great if you have mobile tools to be able to utilize weird whims of wait time — waiting to pick up kids at school for example — and you’re sitting there on your iPad and you can do all kinds of cool stuff. It’s a cool time to be alive with all this great stuff in hand.

You can read the full post here. 

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