“Small Business Big Marketing” recorded this informative and entertaining podcast with David Allen.  It has some great examples of how GTD helps us all to get more of the productive experience more often.

• Achieving an “on” state of mind
• Getting back on the GTD wagon
• Summary of the five phases of mastering workflow

Listen now or download from iTunes.

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“Time management is really agreement management. At the end of the day, how good you feel about what you did (and what you didn’t do) is proportional to how well you think you kept agreements with yourself. Did you do what you told yourself to do? Did you accomplish what you think should have been accomplished? Wasting time only means that you think you should have been doing something other than what you were doing. Sleep is not a waste of time if you think you need it. Taking a walk instead of rewriting your strategic plan is not a waste of time as long as you think taking a walk is the thing to do at that moment. It’s when you wind up not having done that which you’ve agreed with yourself should be done that the trouble begins.”

—from David Allen’s article, “Time Management: What’s the Real Issue?”

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“I’m overwhelmed by the amount of email I have to handle.” Many people are dealing with this situation every day, these days. They’re trying to do more, in less time. Maybe they’re even having to do the work that others were doing before the economy changed, and so many companies downsized.

You may have heard the buzz about urban hipsters getting back to a simpler time by relaxing mentally in an idyllic, low-tech cabin.

But it’s not just urbanites who feel the pressure. People who commute from the suburbs, or work at home, or already live in a rural cabin are also looking for ways to get a break from the volume of work and personal input—email, voicemail, calls, meetings, and more. Anyone who lives on the grid needs an up-to-date method for productively managing life’s input, so there’s still time for reflection. Sound familiar?

It’s natural that people who are interested in being more productive look to GTD for solutions. GTD’s systematic approach relieves the stress, and makes the busy-ness of our modern lives sustainable. Like a cabin on a mind-like-water lake.

(Please note that the cabin site may load slowly. It has lots of pictures, and—ironically—lots of traffic.)

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David Allen on attention and daily activities.

Question: How do we know if the way we are handling our daily activities is right or wrong?

David’s answer: It’s not a matter of right or wrong—it’s simply, “Am I appropriately engaged with this and my commitments about it?” So you only need to pay attention to what has your attention. Only things that are not on “cruise control” are grabbing your attention. So you need to decide what you need to do about them, and park the results of that thinking, especially the next action required, in an appropriate place or with an appropriate person.

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David Allen notes that, “if you’re like most people, you’ve experienced a positive shift in your energy and enthusiasm simply by identifying what you want to do about a project, situation, or opportunity…” His essay in the latest Productive Living newsletter explores getting free by naming what has your attention.

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

GETTING FREE

One of the reasons the GTD approach can be so empowering comes down to a simple, primal dynamic: When something is named, it is known; and when it is known, its hold on us is released. When things we have allowed into our inner or outer world are appropriately and accurately identified, we feel curiously freed from them. It’s all about clarifying what things mean to us and sorting them in our world appropriately.

Do you have any projects that you haven’t identified as projects yet? Got anything you’ve been thinking that needs clarification, resolution, or looking into, that you don’t have on a Projects list yet, that you look at regularly to keep actions moving toward?

Subscribe to Productive Living. It’s free and sent about every 3 weeks. You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

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This post is from Chip Joyce, a longtime GTDer who also happens to work for David Allen Company as Director of Business Development in New York.

A principle of Getting Things Done is to habitually write down everything that has your attention. Writing things down can be done with pen on paper, or typing into a computer, or any method that externalizes the thought. The key is to get it out of your head.

Then you need to assess whether you are going to commit to doing something about what you’ve written down. If so, what is the desired outcome? What does done look like? And what is the next action to get to that point? Alternately, [Read more →]

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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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Dear David Allen: When you have a system and you have your list of things to do how do you deal with things that come up that just seem to be so pressing and immediate? How does one keep the composure of a GTD system with what appear to be emergencies?

DA: One of the prime reasons for a GTD system is to facilitate dealing with the unexpected and the unplanned. In those instances, you must have a complete inventory of your commitments, in order to be able to assess the relative value of the new input/circumstance, and allocate your focus appropriately. Probably 95% of my usage of my own system is to allow me to feel comfortable with a change of plans.

You want to keep your backlog of unprocessed stuff at a minimum, and an inventory of all possible actions close at hand, so you can optimally deal with surprise.

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We received this email from Paul, about his journey from chaos to productivity with GTD:

GTD has transformed (and I do mean transformed) my life.  From chaos and stress two years ago, I have found peace and order today, mainly as a result of implementing GTD across my life.

It occurred to me recently when watching one of David’s talks where he explained that we are all trying to operate in a digital world with a stone-age brain, that there are a lot of parallels between physical and mental exercise. We need both in this world we have created that evolution has not prepared us for.  In the face of this challenge it’s as though GTD and mindfulness are to the mind as cardio and weights are to the body.

Thank you for all you guys do.

Best wishes,

Paul

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“Use your mind to think about your work, instead of thinking of it.

Your mind does not remember or remind very well, compared to what a good system can manage.  What it does do well is review options and available information and then put together “how-tos.”  It’s not free to do that if it’s trying to remember and remind. Without an airtight system, it must work at a lower level than it should and becomes a misused resource.”

-David Allen

Excerpted from Ready For Anything

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