Are there times when it’s more effective for you to relax than pressure yourself?  After you read this quote from David Allen, please post your comments on how you handle this self-management challenge.

“What compounds the challenges of the self-management game is that often the most effective thing to do feels like the last thing you’re capable of doing. When you most need to plan is when you least think you have the time. When you most need to relax is when you feel most pressured to push hard. And when you most need to deal with cleaning up the minutiae of your life is when you feel most compelled to try to stay focused on something ‘more strategic.’”

—David Allen, Making It All Work

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David Allen says that he “created GTD out of a personal desire to be freer with more space and energy in my life and let go of whatever was holding me back from…whatever. I would bet that for some of you, your resistance to fully embracing GTD is not about GTD or your ability to implement it, but comes from your resistance to letting go of your familiar structures, even if they are constricting you. So, what would it take for you to be free to feel free?”

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

ARE YOU FREE TO FEEL FREE?

If you want to have the feeling of freedom regularly, you’ve got to get used to it. Literally.

What’s the greatest obstacle to living in the relaxed state of mind that is possible with the methods I coach? People simply aren’t used to it. And anything your nervous system experiences as unique or unusual will likely be “rejected” unconsciously in short order, because it is not in the comfort zone.

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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David Allen talks with Bloomberg about technology and email protocols. A great 5-minute overview about the frustrations people are dealing with around email and some ways to deal with it.

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Many people have asked for a summary of the GTD best practices that we share in our Keys to Getting Things Done webinars. Here they are!

Collect
Pay attention to what is grabbing your attention
Empty your head

Process
Make decisions when things show up, not when they blow up

Organize
Sort your inventory into trusted buckets with “clean edges”

Review
Keep current and “ahead of the game”

Doing
Notice how you choose to spend your time (Threefold Nature of Work)
Make trusted choices

What stands out for you as your biggest improvement opportunity in any of those areas?

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David Allen on attention and daily activities.

Question: How do we know if the way we are handling our daily activities is right or wrong?

David’s answer: It’s not a matter of right or wrong—it’s simply, “Am I appropriately engaged with this and my commitments about it?” So you only need to pay attention to what has your attention. Only things that are not on “cruise control” are grabbing your attention. So you need to decide what you need to do about them, and park the results of that thinking, especially the next action required, in an appropriate place or with an appropriate person.

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What’s your level of GTD expertise? No matter what it is, these interactive and concise 90-minute webinars will deepen your mastery of the GTD best practices. David Allen Company offers these on an “a la carte” basis, giving you the flexibility and affordability to choose just the ones that work for you.

Keys to Getting Things Done®
This live Webinar will give a fast & fun overview on the keys for Getting Things Done, led by a Senior Coach. Learn about the best practices and tools for managing the five phases of your workflow: Collect, Process, Organize, Review & Do. Experience a “mind sweep” and walk through the decision making model for moving your input from “stuff” to clear outcomes and actions. Get tips for setting up a seamless system. A great overview if you’ve been wanting a better understanding of the “big picture” of managing your workflow with GTD.

February 16
March 15
April 19

GTD® & Outlook®
This live Webinar will give a detailed overview of the best practices for implementing GTD in Outlook. You’ll learn tips for setting up and managing Outlook Email, Calendar, Tasks, and Notes to support a seamless GTD system. See a demonstration of processing email (No, “inbox zero” isn’t an urban legend!) See examples of Task “contexts” and suggestions about how to structure your project and action lists.

Includes complimentary copy of our GTD & Outlook Setup Guide to assist you in your implementation of the recommended steps.

February 23
March 22
April 26

All webinars are held from 11am-12:30pm Pacific Time (California). Each webinar is $49. If you are planning on taking both, Keys to Getting Things Done is recommended before GTD & Outlook to build the foundation of best practices before the practical application.

Questions? Contact us at webinars@davidco.com.

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People who are starting with GTD often ask how to handle delegation, especially when a “waiting for” from another person doesn’t get delivered as agreed. Here’s a question and answer with David Allen on this topic.

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

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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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