One of the most common questions we get is how to get started with GTD.   New people, especially, will ask this after coming to us dazed and confused by what GTD is really about.   And, lots of people seem to be hoping a piece of software will teach them GTD.  Sorry, but that’s kind of like buying a car and then learning how to drive.  You’ll make your way down the road, but it won’t be pretty.

As a GTD Coach, and also intimately involved in the education and offerings from David Allen, I would suggest one of the following products:

The GTD System – This is, in my opinion, one of the best educational products we offer.  You get a ton of resources to learn GTD at your own pace.  You get the GTD book, coaching CDs with David Allen, GTD Connect and more. Good stuff. [Read more →]

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A GTD’er wrote to us to ask what resources we have for helping her manage email. She wrote that email is “vying for top ten on my list of overwhelming.”  Here’s what one of our coaches shared:

There are a few excellent resources from the David Allen Company for applying the GTD methods to your email:

1. The GTD Setup Guides, specific to your tool, will cover the best practices of email.
2. There is a terrific free article called “Getting Email Under Control” that covers this issue as well.
3. Our GTD Connect online learning center also runs regular Webinar classes on topics such as email. There is a Webinar in the Archive Library called “Managing Email” that you should find useful. GTD Connect is $48 per month (cancel anytime) or $480 per year (one-year commitment.)
4. Our public GTD Mastering Workflow classes cover email best practices.  These one-day classes are a great way to learn all of the GTD essentials, including email.
5. There are loads of posts on GTD Times on the topic of email. Search on the keyword “email” or follow the tag.

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Do YOU know the best practices of GTD?

Although they’ve been recorded for our GTD Connect online learning center, we have been posting the GTD Best Practices series to our free public podcast as well, for all to benefit from.  These informal podcasts are a great way to learn the essentials of GTD.  Here are the first 4 in the series.

Best Practices of Collect

Best Practices of Processing

Best Practices of Organize

Best Practices of Review

The final phase, the “Best Practices of Doing,” will be recorded in early March.  It will be released for GTD Connect members first, then put into the public podcast feed some time after that.  If you like these podcasts, GTD Connect has over 110 recordings like these, with more added every week, that you can play on the Connect site or  sync to iTunes.  It’s a great way to learn coaching tips from David and the staff, listen to interesting interviews with GTD’ers (Evan Taubenfeld being one of the recent ones), watch the “Slice of GTD Life” videos and more.  Good stuff.  Check out the free trial of GTD Connect.

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The master key to clarity is maintaining a complete and current inventory of all your commitments and agreements with yourself. You need to capture, clarify, and organize them, so you can constantly review and reflect on the totality of your engagements with the world, so you can trust your choices about what you’re doing, moment to moment. -David Allen

Grab the free article on the 5 phases of Mastering Workflow.

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Dear David Allen,

Today marks the four-year anniversary of the day that I watched a taping of your Mastering Workflow seminar.  It’s the day that I started a journey from chaos and overwhelm to order and sanity.  Some thought that my GTD journey was just a phase, that it would be my “flavor of the month”.  They were wrong, and now they are wishing that they had the same level of relaxed control in their lives as I do now.

My excitement for GTD has never tapered off; in fact it grows over time as I frequent the forums and the articles at GTD Times contributing to and learning from other people’s GTD journeys.  GTD has enriched my life like no self-improvement program has ever been able to do.  On this, my fourth anniversary of living the GTD lifestyle, I offer you my most heartfelt thanks and appreciation for everything that you’ve done for me and others around the world.

F. Luke Funfar
Vice President of Communications
Savannah Green Homeowners Association

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We wanted to share this amazing letter from Kevin, who recently attended a GTD Mastering Workflow class with Danny Bader.  He describes what he did after the class, including a wonderful experience of connecting with his daughter.  For those of you feeling like you’re in “always on” mode in your work and personal life, Kevin’s story may be inspiring to you to see what’s possible…

[Read more →]

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Getting Things Done® is an approach applied to managing the commitments we make to ourselves, our colleagues, our family, community and the world.  An assumption many folks make as they inquire about bringing GTD to their organization is that the GTD workshop must be “customized.”  There is a big difference between the art of work (what GTD teaches) versus the work you do (your job).

People will tell us, “You don’t understand, we’re different.”  Well, yes…and maybe not.  We at the David Allen Company define “work” not as that place you walk into carrying your expensive cup of coffee/mocha java late’ (skim).  We define “work” as anything that needs to be different than it is.  So while your jobs may be different, that fact that all folks have things that need be different in their lives is not different. [Read more →]

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In this 30-minute podcast, David and his team talk about the critical “thinking” stage of GTD.  They share practical tips, personal examples and suggestions for the processing stage of mastering your workflow.  Listen now.

If you missed the previous episode in our GTD best practices series on Collect, you can catch it here.

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