Hi Folks,

Want to know one of the easiest ways to act on your creative ideas? Stop trying to hold them in your mind. Your mind is a great place to have ideas, but a terrible place to manage them.

All the best,

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

ARE YOU STILL USING YOUR HEAD TO TRACK YOUR AGREEMENTS?

There is a light year of difference between a system that has merely a lot of our commitments objectified and one that has 100% of the total. And few people have ever gotten to a totally empty head, with absolutely every project, action item, and potential agreement we have made with ourselves and others out and available in an easily reviewable format.

My hat’s off to you if you’re trying to keep mental lists as reminders of things to do—but I’ll bet those lists are not anywhere close to complete. Consequently they are putting enormous and unnecessary work on your psyche. If you don’t have everything in a system that the system ought to have, there is still no full trust in that system, and minimum motivation to keep it up and keep it current.

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 »

Too many next actions? DA weighs in…

Question: I have done a good job of getting all my commitments in Outlook tasks and out of my head, but here is my dilemma: I have written down every work and personal task I need to do, including converting emails to action items and now I have 580 work tasks, 346 personal tasks, 266 tasks for my assistant and 117 honey-dos for my husband! I have them organized by project and date, but am feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it all! Any advice? Thanks so much for your work.

David Allen: Well, you have as many commitments as you have, and unless you want eternal subliminal stress, you need to get them objectively out of your head and reviewable. As you’ve discovered, your next task to get more stress-free is to determine which ones are really “someday” vs. which ones need to be on the front shelf. Essentially, everything that you’re not doing at any moment is “someday,” but the psyche feels much better when you have made some distinctions between the active ones that you really want/need to get done within a reasonable time vs. those that can wait. Ultimately you’ll have to decide what kind of overview/map you need and want to see, to feel OK about what you’re doing. So there’s no right or wrong answer about any of this—only what’s most workable for you.

9 Comments »

GTD can be for anyone.  Here’s a blog post on Baby + You, pointing out that expectant mothers in the third trimester can benefit from the project management and delegation advice in Getting Things Done.

“Slow down. Be easy and don’t push yourself too hard,” advises Mark Moore, M.D., an anesthesiologist in Tallahassee, Fla., with a sub-specialization in obstetric and gynecologic anesthesia. His advice: Avoid rushing and overscheduling, especially in the late third trimester. “Control the nesting urges — the feeling of needing to have everything perfect before the baby comes.”

You don’t have to fight the feeling completely. Here are some safe and fun ways to indulge the pregnancy nesting urge and prepare for baby’s arrival:

Make lists and delegate. Act as project manager and have hubby or helpful family handle strenuous tasks like installing shelves, putting together furniture or painting the baby’s room.

Read the complete post here.

No Comments »

Question: You claim that in most of the situations we are guilty for being stressed and frustrated. What can we do to avoid these frustrations?

Answer from David Allen: Clarify what your desired outcome is, what the next action required to move it forward is (and who’s going to do it); and evaluate those commitments consistently within your total context of commitments about work and life.

No Comments »

I assert that it’s actually less effort to maintain your email inbox at zero than to maintain it at 300 or 3,000. Will it take effort? Of course. But there is gold to be mined there with a trusted practice that will have ripple effects across your workflow and motivation.

At a certain point, you will clean up your email. For some people twenty is too many. And for some, it’s five thousand. Different standards for “stuff.”

These standards are very powerful unconscious drivers of your behavior and permitted experience. You may consciously think you’d like to keep a neater house, or process your email more regularly, but if you don’t change the set point of the real standards you have about the amount of out-of-control-ness you actually will tolerate, they will slide back in spite of your best intentions. Pit your willpower against your unconscious cruise controls, and guess where I’ll place my bets.

If the good fairy visited everyone you know and work with right now and magically dissolved every email sitting in IN, within days the number would be back up to the comfort zone of the individual. Some people would have twenty, some three hundred, and some two thousand. Even people doing the same jobs, at the same level, with the same amount of input.

For email, it’s actually less effort to maintain it at zero than to maintain it at three hundred. The decision about the next action is still unmade for much of what lies in IN (hence it is still “stuff,” i.e. something in your world for which the action is still unclear). Every time you even slightly notice that email again and do not dispatch it, it wastes energy. As soon as you allow indecision on the front end with any of your input, you have broken the code and it will mount up all around you.

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.

6 Comments »

Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations.
—Faith Baldwin

Change is on the way. Time will bring alterations. Your GTD system, with a current and complete inventory or your commitments, helps you manage yourself effectively regardless of time’s alterations.

4 Comments »

Here’s some great news for Microsoft Outlook users. Netcentrics has released version 3.2 of their Getting Things Done® Outlook® Add-In. You can review the new features and benefits here and read their press release with additional details by clicking the …more link below.

Netcentrics offers a free 30-day trial, so you have plenty of time to take this terrific new software for a test drive. [Read more →]

No Comments »

Question: For the people who need an immediate change, what are the first steps to be taken?

Answer from David Allen: Get a notepad and inbox, capture everything that has your attention. Decide the next actions on each and all of them. Review that total inventory, keeping it current, at least weekly.

No Comments »

The Creativity of Getting Things Done – Part One
by Wayne Pepper

GTD for creatives? While many of our enthusiasts love the systematic approach of GTD, we’re seeing more and more creative types embracing Getting Things Done, including musicians, comedians, and television writers. This article (written in two parts) will address two ideas. The first is that being “creative” is no excuse for not doing GTD, and the second is about using GTD within the creative process itself.

First let’s define creativity. Creativity can be thought of as “art” and that certainly can be a valid and true definition, but perhaps one that’s too narrow for our purposes. Let’s define creativity more broadly. Let’s think of creativity as any effort where we are bringing our creative energy, thinking, or forces to bear. That could be starting a new company, brainstorming a solution to a management problem, organizing a launch party, envisioning a branding approach, creating ad copy, or designing a new video game—and everything in between. [Read more →]

5 Comments »

David Allen gets right to the point about productivity in this interview with the Washington Post. 

How to clear your inbox, make decisions and generally get things done

By Tom Fox, Published: June 13 The Washington Post

What are some of the biggest productivity problems that leaders face?

A lot of stuff banging around in their heads; and if not captured, you’ll be driven by the latest and loudest. Even if you’ve captured everything, but you don’t decide what it means quickly enough, then you become a compulsive list-maker. You’re still not getting anything done, and you’re just wasting time making lists. People must ask: What does this mean? Is this actionable or not? What is the outcome that I am committed to?

Many people make decisions when they blow up instead of when they show up. Even if you’ve decided what the next step is, you must be organized. And, even if you’ve captured, decided and organized, you will still face problems if you don’t step back, review and reflect on your decisions. The worst practice is to fall off of any of those steps and start working out of hope.

 Read the full article here.

3 Comments »