Technology should enhance productivity, making it easier to get things done so you have more leisure time. But have tools that are designed to help really just added to our workload, distraction, and stress?  In this concise interview with the SF Chronicle, David expertly frames the issue and helps you decide what to ask yourself.

Q: Do you think that we’ve seen technology move our workforce in an unproductive direction?

A: The whole planet is unproductive; it’s just that technology is making it more obvious. What’s important is knowing where are you and how do you allocate your resources to get where you want to go. That’s been true forever. It’s true all this tech is totally distracting all kinds of people, but then again, they are letting themselves be distracted. How come? Because they’re not clear about what they’re doing.

Q: So being distracted by tech is the symptom of a problem, rather than the core of the problem?

A: Yeah. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do. If you don’t know where you’re going, any tech is fine. It’s like: Why not? Why not surf the Web? There are worse ways to waste time. But it comes down to the situation: Who’s doing it, why are you doing it, and what are you avoiding by doing it?

Read the full interview here.

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With all the news leading up to the Mega Millions $640 million jackpot, lots of people have been asking each other, “What would you do if you won the lottery?”

Along a similar line, David Allen recently asked in a tweet, “With nothing left to do, what would you do?”  Some people have leveraged that question to consider what they would still choose to put on their to do lists, even if all the items that they have to do because of money were no longer there.  Of course winning the lottery could mean you’d have a whole new set of financial projects and actions.  But for the moment, set aside financial management on the runway to 20,000 levels.  Assume your new fortune is on cruise control, and you can put your attention anywhere else you choose.

How would winning a jackpot change the way your to do list represents your goals and purposes in the higher levels of the horizons of focus model?  And is there any of that you can start moving forward on, even before you win the lottery?

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Vacations enhance productivity, according to David Allen, quoted in Karen Leland’s column on Huffpost Business.

What’s your plan for a summer vacation? Or is it a staycation for enjoying your home? And how connected will you be to work, while you’re on vacation?

How Vacations Help the Business Brain

In exactly 12 days, I will be going away on a 10-day vacation. The thought of this impending time off from the daily in and out of work exhilarates me — and worries me.

On the pro side is the anticipation of rest, renewal and relaxation. Weighing in on the negatives are preparing to go in the first place and a heavier workload when I return. 

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There are four GTD Managing Projects and Priorities seminars coming up in November and December.  They will be held in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston.  If you’re ready to refine the GTD skills you use on your own projects, the Managing Projects and Priorities seminar is the place for you.  You’ll get plenty of specialized focus on how to manage projects to completion, from natural planning through next actions.  There will be opportunities to work with your projects in depth, so you can develop greater trust in your moment-to-moment decisions about priorities.

GTD Times readers who register by October 31 can use the code TIMES100 to get a $100 discount off the tuition for any upcoming Managing Projects and Priorities seminar.  (The coupon cannot be applied retroactively or in combination with other special rates.)

You can click here for all the details.

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David Allen was a speaker at the Do Lectures this summer in Wales.  The Do lectures are all about getting a handful of speakers together in one place, in the hope that they may inspire you to go Do something. To give you the tools and the desire to change the things you care about.

Click this link to watch David’s presentation now.

Or click this link to download or play an MP3 of the audio only.

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David Allen’s answer: Regarding defining existence and personal fulfillment, I’d put that more in the category of 50,000-ft thinking (in the GTD Horizons of Focus) or standards. It could be phrased something like, “continually exploring and expanding the fulfillment of my destiny on the planet.” That’s not something you ever finish (unless it is). But operationally it’s a standard to hold re: your internal focus, [Read more →]

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A Community Contribution from Nuno Donato on how he used the GTD Horizons of Focus model to gain clarity about a life change

About one and a half year ago I moved from a busy big city “A”: to a smaller one in the country side “B” to develop a project with an organization I volunteer with. My life changed in many ways due to this, and I enjoyed it a lot. Recently, lots of things on the personal and professional level changed and I felt that it might be good to go back to A.  Lots of things were involved in this, as some people and projects depend on where I am. I spent the last 3 months with the question of where should I be, on my mind. I tried getting all possible arguments, opinions, made a list of pros and cons, but nothing could really assure me that I was making a good decision. It was like my gut feeling was telling me not to trust anything. Sometimes my mind would give me some arguments in favor of A, my heart would ask me to stay in B…. and after a week they would switch places .  So it was getting very confusing and difficult to me.

Finally I thought, why not to use GTD to solve this problem? [Read more →]

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Community Contribution from Mike Vardy

I’m about to state the obvious.

We’re all human.

Ergo, we make mistakes. Like creating words like “ergo.”

Beyond “The Royal We,” we’re individuals. I’m sure you didn’t create the word “ergo” but I am pretty certain you’ve made other mistakes. I know I’ve made my share. For example, starting off this article as I have. That’d be one.

Another I make is getting off track rather than Getting Things Done. Hey, it happens to the best of us, right? [Read more →]

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A Community Contribution from Chip Joyce

After retiring from being the most successful professional cyclist in history, Lance returned to the sport in his late 30s to compete, for the eighth time, in one of the most challenging athletic competitions: the Tour de France. During training, however, he crashed and broke his collarbone, was in a lot of pain, and faced surgery and physical therapy. It was the first major crash of his career.

In an article on VeloNews.com, Lance recounted, “Sitting on the side of the road in Spain, headed to an anonymous hospital… I wanted to never come back,” to the sport. His long-time team manager and mentor, Johan Bruyneel, said, “I could feel he was really down. I had a feeling he was ready to walk away.” [Read more →]

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Let’s talk about the Horizons of Focus.  In my experience, this is one of the parts of the GTD approach that can take a little time for people to get their arms around. This is where priorities and perspective live. Whereas traditional time management approaches attempted to give people an ABC type coding system for defining their priorities, David Allen’s GTD approach has always been that priority codes are too simple for the complexity of most people’s changing lives, as the only measure of what to do. For example, assigning an “A” priority to something (or flagging is the popular method in email programs these days) could change with the next new piece of input you get. Plus, in my experience, people tend to get lazy with that code or flag without really deciding the next action. A flag, or #1, or lighting the email on fire still doesn’t tell you what your next action is. So is David saying to never use those? Of course not.  Just be sure that what you are marking as high priority has a a clearly defined next action and be willing to change that priority the moment your world changes–which it will. [Read more →]

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