In my experience, the greatest successes don’t come from grandiose scenarios of good intentions engendered by temporarily pumped-up motivation. Rather, the most lasting and significant positive effects result from small things, done consistently, in strategic places.
—David Allen, “Win the self-help game,” in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

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Epipheo.TV talked with David Allen about how to hack through your to-do list and free up your mind to focus on what’s most important to you. It’s a very short, very fun video.

(This video is streaming from YouTube, so it may take a few seconds to load.)

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David Allen outlines the steps to get clear, current, and creative on a regular basis.  Grab the free GTD Weekly Review® checklist. Now available as a PDF download.
http://www.davidco.com/free_articles

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The GTD Mastering Workflow seminar is coming to New Orleans on March 14th!  Learn the foundations of GTD in this wonderful destination city.  If you’re just getting started with GTD, this is a perfect opportunity to get your system off the ground. If you’re experienced with GTD, it’s a great time to identify any gaps in your systems for greater productivity.  This one-day presentation is packed with practical recommendations and suggestions about how to put the proven GTD principles to work for you—at work, at home and in everything you do.

Sign up now to get the early registration discount.

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Tony Schwartz has some excellent advice about the value of relaxation for increasing productivity.  Here’s an excerpt from his recent New York Times opinion piece.

Relax! You’ll Be More Productive

By TONY SCHWARTZ
Published: February 9, 2013

THINK for a moment about your typical workday. Do you wake up tired? Check your e-mail before you get out of bed? Skip breakfast or grab something on the run that’s not particularly nutritious? Rarely get away from your desk for lunch? Run from meeting to meeting with no time in between? Find it nearly impossible to keep up with the volume of e-mail you receive? Leave work later than you’d like, and still feel compelled to check e-mail in the evenings?

Golden Cosmos

More and more of us find ourselves unable to juggle overwhelming demands and maintain a seemingly unsustainable pace. Paradoxically, the best way to get more done may be to spend more time doing less. A new and growing body of multidisciplinary research shows that strategic renewal — including daytime workouts, short afternoon naps, longer sleep hours, more time away from the office and longer, more frequent vacations — boosts productivity, job performance and, of course, health.

Read the full article here.

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Cue released data, and The Atlantic commented on it, showing that most of us wrote a novel’s worth of email last year.

What’s more surprising is that we received more than six times as much email as we sent. Even if you deleted some of that email without needing to read it, you probably read several novel’s worth of email last year.

If you’re still not handling email as efficiently as you can be, try a 60-minute webinar on email management. The focus will include structuring your email system to support action management, and dealing with backlog email.

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Do you have any pointers for perfectionists?

Just focus on doing the next action perfectly, which is a lot easier than trying to be perfect about how you approach something bigger. Be as retentive as you want. The only problem is when it stops action. Be a perfectionist about the process, which will require, of course, making decisions on the front end that might not be perfect. Think about what might go wrong if you avoid decisions and action! (If you need a negative motivator.)
—David Allen

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A participant in our last “Keys to Getting Things Done” webinar said: “This was a GREAT use of my time and money…very excited to begin implementing GTD in my life.”

Get excited about your GTD implementation in our upcoming Keys webinars on February 7th or 27th.

Click here to learn more or register now.

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Comment from a new GTDer: I feel like I’ll spend all my time maintaining these lists recommended in the book!

David Allen’s reply: If by “maintaining” the lists you mean, “write action reminders down in a retrievable place that you’ll look at when you need to,” then it’s not going to take you nearly as much time, effort, and stress as filing it in your head, constantly feeling pressured about what’s in there, and having the thought occur again (and again, and again) in your mind because it doesn’t trust your system.

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USA Today has an article in their Money Quick Tips section, on how to Make Telecommuting Work for You.

The article points out that ten percent of workers work at home for some or all of their time on the job, so it’s important to make that home office a productive environment.  Expect to be distracted, by things like these:

1. Children and family wanting attention.

2. Children, family, pets disturbing work telephone calls.

3. Difficulties accessing office equipment.

You can make your telecommuting more productive by having clear agreements with family members about whether it’s okay to interrupt you when you’re working at home. Ask for as much IT support as your employer will provide, including remote access to files. And be sure to set boundaries on how much time you’ll spend working, if you find you tend to work more hours just because the line between home and work has been blurred.

How has telecommuting affected your productivity?

And if you’re not telecommuting, how much of your job could you do remotely, if your employer supported that option?

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