This post on planning a baby shower is from the Art department at the David Allen Company.

Here’s a great reminder of how helpful GTD is for any project, personal or professional.

Our team at the David Allen Company is planning a baby shower for  a co-worker.  We met today to do the following:

1. Brainstorm and mind map the project
2. Decide on next actions
3. Assign people to the identified next actions
4. Decide when to loop around again for further planning

Here was our simple mind map that helped clarify the tasks:

Our 20-minute meeting allowed everyone to move forward on this fun project with their own clearly-defined tasks.

GTD can help integrate your professional and personal life. Simple, easy, and fun planning — that’s a “GTD” baby shower!

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This is a Community Contribution from Jon, a GTD enthusiast who hails from the midwestern U.S.

From long To Do lists to overcommitted schedules, we tend to take on too much.  When is the last time you said no to someone when they asked you for something?  It can be hard to do.

Most of us want to help others when they need it.  There are times, however, when we need to say no.  I know I don’t like to say no.  I like to help people.  It feels good when someone wants you to do something for them.

It may help to start weighing that commitment against what you’re trying to accomplish in other facets of your life.

Here are three questions to ask yourself when faced with saying yes or no:

1. Do you have the capacity to say yes? If you have the capacity, great, go for it.  Say yes.  Make sure you can commit 100% though.  Committing and not delivering is much worse than not committing at all.  You’ll know if you have capacity because with GTD, you already have an inventory of your projects and actions, the things you’re already commited to. [Read more →]

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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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This post is from Maureen, a coaching client of the David Allen Company.  She describes her experience using both paper and computerized GTD systems.

I have been practicing GTD for about 8 years. I use the word practicing deliberately, because it takes time, effort and patience to improve my skills.  Early last year, I made the bold decision to go from a paper-based system to using tasks in a computerized system.  I had observed how much of my work was generated on the computer.  It seemed that I ended up never fully capturing the totality of my work in my paper system because of this. I thought switching to a computer-based system would be the perfect way for me to finally get on top of all my work, get clear on my projects and their outcomes, etc.

I was so very, very wrong.

I have spent the last year in agony, enslaved to an elegantly designed system, which had me sucked in at such a minute level that the whole thing revolted me. I almost never did a weekly review. Looking at my lists happened sporadically. I dreaded trying to locate something in the system. I was miserable.

Then about 2 months ago I chucked it. I went back to paper, and a sense of calmness has enveloped me ever since. Am I perfect in my weekly reviews? Hardly. But happier? You bet. Here is what I learned through all this: [Read more →]

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This is a Community Contribution from April Perry.

Lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed. Not because I can’t process all the tasks, projects, and goals on my plate, but because I keep forgetting that I only have one plate.

As I’ve applied GTD strategies to my life, opportunities to “live the life of my dreams” have literally exploded in front of me. My website is growing, creative ideas are spilling into my colorful assortment of spiral-bound notebooks, friends and associates are jumping on board to support the vision I’m helping to create, and my family life is exactly what I always hoped it would be.

However, along with all this excitement, my emails have quadrupled, my project load has significantly increased, and my stress level has been rising beyond my comfort level. (Once you experience “stress-free productivity,” there’s no going back . . . .)

So today I decided to apply the Natural Planning Model from GTD to my overall life plan. The point of getting organized isn’t to simply “get more done.” The point is to get the right things done–and that takes some serious decision making.

I figured that as long as I’m doing this exercise, I might as well document the process and share it with others who also might be trying to cram too much onto their plates. [Read more →]

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Several GTD Times readers asked us to post this video of David Allen presenting at Google. This is a classic from David’s presentation at Google a couple of years ago.

Watch this special video presentation to hear what David has to say about GTD and the two keys to sustaining a healthy life and work style.
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(The video is streaming from YouTube, so you may need to give it a moment to load.)

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GTD creates more space in our thinking, so we can manage the surprises of an increasingly complex world.  That’s what Tony Schwartz said in the Harvard Business Review and Fast Company, following up on his talk at the SXSW Conference.  He advises readers to develop sustainable practices for productivity.  We’re more effective navigating the whitewater of our busy lives when we make sure that there are enough of what he calls “purposeful pauses” for review and reflection in calm water.

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David Allen discusses the 6 Horizons of Focus

Aside from the fact that the volume of what people need to organize is often light-years beyond what they imagine, there is much more to getting a grip on your “work” than most realize. Managing the flow of work can be approached from many altitudes, as there are many different levels of defining what your “work” really is. Whereas we may have some lower levels in control, there are often incomplete and unclear issues at higher levels that can and need to be addressed, to really get it all under control. And often there are issues about the nature and volume of work that cannot be resolved viewing it from an inappropriate level. We have roughly categorized “work” into six levels, or horizons of focus. [Read more →]

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We receive many questions about the electronic and international versions of David Allen’s books (Getting Things Done, Ready For Anything, and Making It All Work.)  We’ve compiled some FAQs on the topic that should be be helpful. We will update this post as the information changes and add these to our website FAQs as well.

What formats are available for David Allen’s books, like Getting Things Done?
Formats for David Allen’s books are established entirely by his publisher, Penguin Group, and through the agreements Penguin makes with each foreign publisher.  We are so sorry, but we have no influence over distribution and we are not involved in the process of determining where the books are released.  We do know that availability varies widely by country and distributors. For example, in the U.S., you will find paperback, hardcover, Kindle, ePub and audiobook versions.  This is not the case at all for other countries and download versions in particular are restricted by territory (e.g. someone outside the U.S. cannot download a book from the U.S. Audible.com site.)

Why is the download version more expensive than the paperback version?
We’ve noticed that too!  Unfortunately, pricing for David’s books is out of our control and is entirely set by the publisher, Penguin Group, with the distribution channels where they have released the book. [Read more →]

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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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