Cindy recently participated in a GTD class at her company.  She sent along an email to her facilitator about her experience. With her permission, we’re sharing her letter with our GTD Times readers.

First of all, thanks for a great class!  I really enjoyed it.  You are an awesome instructor – very engaging and really good at demonstrating practical applications of the GTD concept.

I will admit that I was a bit skeptical about the GTD concept as I have taken time management courses before and was never able to make the concepts work in the fast paced/put out 100 fires every day work of IT training development/delivery and IT technical support.  I wondered how constructed the  responses from people having implemented GTD saying “GTD changed my life!” were.  [Read more →]

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Rev. Chip Granthan sent this letter along to the facilitator who led the GTD Public Seminar he attended in Atlanta. Chip was happy to have this shared with our GTD Times readers too.

I’d been trying to find the tool to bring clarity to my situation and had stumbled upon the GTD Coordinator® that Staples sells back in November.  I’d liked the layout, and had followed up by getting a copy of David’s book.

I’d read Getting Things Done 3 or 4 months ago.  I’d tried to absorb it and get my arms around it.  I picked it up about 6 weeks ago and read it again.  I’d gone online to DAC’s website, and had seen the information on the Atlanta seminar.  I’d downloaded the free materials and had purchased the GTD and OUTLOOK 2003 guide.  I’d signed up for the seminar, and in the interim I started actually processing my email the GTD way.  What a difference!  I started looking at the changes I needed to make in my office.  I am a stacker and a packrat. I’ve always known what was where in what stack, [Read more →]

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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 is the series:

Best Practices of Collect

Best Practices of Processing

Best Practices of Organize

Best Practices of Review

Best Practices of Doing

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.  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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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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David Allen is doing a webinar event next Wednesday, July 8th, hosted by Unbound Ideas.

In this 90-minute interactive webinar, David Allen will describe the strategies, tools and specific behaviors that dramatically upgrade individual and organizational productivity. In particular, he will focus on:

1. The 5 stages of control and the 6 horizons of focus necessary for personal self-management
2. How to get immediate control of “current reality”
3. How to keep track of the total inventory of your commitments
4. Why organizational issues are often personal process issues
5. Why it’s so challenging to change the simplest habits
6. How to continually self-consult to get back on your game

Register here.  David also does free events like this for GTD Connect members.  If you’re not a member, you can check out the two-week free trial, or join for by the month ($48) or year ($480).  If it’s not for you, canceling is easy. Really.

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