Have you wondered whether goal setting works? The February issue of Productive Living has David Allen’s answer to that question.

“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.

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

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If you’re still trying to keep track of too many things in your mind, you won’t likely be motivated to use and empty your inboxes with integrity.  Most people are relatively careless about having seamless collection tools because they know they don’t represent discrete, whole systems anyway: there’s an incomplete set of things in their inboxes and an incomplete set in their mind, and they’re not getting any payoff from either one, so the thinking goes.  It’s like trying to play pinball on a machine that has big holes in the table, so the balls keep falling out: there’s little motivation to keep playing the game.

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

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David Allen has developed this set of questions for completing one year and beginning the next year. Enjoy!

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? [Read more →]

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A great way to kick off the New Year is with a review of GTD’s five phases of Mastering Workflow:

Collect

Process

Organize

Review

Do

For each area, ask yourself:

What’s working well for me in this area now?

What would I like to improve upon in the coming year in each of these areas?

How I could support myself more in that?

Acknowledge yourself for how far you’ve come. Be realistic in your commitments about where you want to be.  GTD is a journey…

Happy New Year!

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Someone new to GTD asked David Allen for advice on making GTD simpler to adopt.

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.

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An easy way for me to explain the “Doing” phase of GTD is to simply say “trust your gut/butt/intuition/hunch/heart.” There is gold in that, and ultimately that’s what it will come down to. But how do you even get to the point of trusting whatever part of you makes a trusted decision?  Here’s where the “ecosystem of GTD” starts to make more sense:

Capture everything that has your attention (Collect)

Make decisions about what it means and what you are going to do about it (Process)

Park those decisions in trusted places (Organize)

Step back to reflect on those choices from a clear, current, and creative place (Review)

So that you can make the best action choice  (Do)

So how will that help narrow down a To Do list the length of your driveway? You’ll want to pull in the  Criteria for Choosing model: [Read more →]

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Sometimes Christmas feels like an all-consuming project that sends us racing through malls, jumping from party to party, and being busy-busy-busy as we fill our time with lots of Christmas fluff.

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 . . .”

[Read more →]

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You can participate in special GTD® webinars featuring two of the most popular and requested topics:  Keys to Mastering Workflow and Implementing GTD with Microsoft Outlook.  These webinars are presented a la carte for $49 each.

GTD Webinar: Keys to Mastering Workflow

Offered live only on Tuesday, November 29^th or Tuesday, December 13^th from 11:00 am – 12:30 pm PT

This fast-paced and inspirational webinar is based on the best practices of GTD’s five phases of mastering workflow. From capturing everything that has your attention to making trusted choices – this webinar will elevate your productivity levels and prepare you to get the right things done.

GTD Webinar: Implementing GTD with Outlook®

Offered live only on Thursday, December, 1^st or Thursday, December 15^th from 11:00 am – 12:30 pm PT

Join this structured and practical webinar to learn to effectively track projects and next actions, set up your email folders, and create a system for reference storage on Outlook. Get your life in control by managing your bigger vision while tracking the small details. 

Note: These webinars will be held live only and will not be available for replay. Don’t miss your opportunity to learn from an expert coach through these live events.

Register now for these live 90-minute interactive webinars. To increase learning and interaction, implementation questions via chat will be encouraged and answered throughout the webinars.

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David Allen calls the Weekly Review the “critical success factor” to GTD. Why? It’s the glue that keeps it all together.  It’s also one of the steps people tend to resist the most.  Here are some keys for getting the most out of the Review phase to keep your GTD system humming along.

WHAT TO REVIEW:

There are 11 steps in the GTD Weekly Review.  David Allen recommends leading yourself through this every 7-10 days to get clear, current, and creative.

Get clear – ensure all your “stuff” is processed

Collect Loose Papers and Materials
Get “IN” to Zero
Empty Your Head
[Read more →]

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