Seems there’s an eternal question about how being more productive can happen without adding to the Type-A personality syndrome of ever-harder, ever-more, ever-faster. Read my essay in Productive Living with yet another spin on that age-old issue.

It’s not about fast or slow.  It’s about how you’re involved, which is a much bigger context.  – David Allen

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Clear your head with the man himself…

This is an excerpt from a Webinar David did for GTD Connect, our online learning center.

Listen now (20 min)

We have hundreds of audio and video selections like this on GTD Connect, with more added every week.  Hook into the most active Getting Things Done community in the world.  Check out a free guest pass (no credit card required and we won’t nag you when you’re done!)

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In response to our recent Productive Living newsletter, a GTDer wrote to David Allen and said:

Please provide a less complex version of the basic GTD chart/system for me and the hundreds of thousands of organizationally challenged managers just like me who have tried and failed to maintain the GTD system. Simpler is better.

David responded:

I empathize with desire for the “GTD for Dummies” approach.  I suggest just not letting the visual chart get in your way… it’s as simple as:

Write it down
Decide what’s next about it
Park that somewhere you’ll trust you’ll look at as a reminder
Keep your head empty and your list(s) current

Hope that helps.

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GTD showed me how to bring balance back into my busy personal and professional schedule.  More specifically, I was able to customize the GTD workflow process to handle the crush of Emails I get from prospective students who want to join my martial arts studio.  Furthermore, I also customized the GTD Outlook 2007 “Waiting For” folders into a very easy to use “lead tracking” process – in a blink of an eye I can easily tell how many prospects are scheduled for Initial Appointments, Trial Lessons, and Enrollment Conversations.  I know when to follow up with a prospect by integrating my lead tracking process with my Outlook 2007 Calendar.  I am very happy to say that David Allen’s GTD system not only allowed me to bring balance back to my life, but it also showed me how to set up a very easy-to-use, trusted system for keeping track of my very busy sales cycle.

Michael Veltri is a 4th degree black belt in the Japanese martial art of Aikido.  He both lives and runs his martial arts studio in Washington, DC.

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For the most part, people who master the ability to stay clear and focus 100% on what most calls their attention, seem to be involved in what appears the most sustainable, long-term life- and career styles that reflect successful accomplishment.  -David Allen

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You can’t fool your mind.  It’s an expert on your current personal management system, and it knows whether you can be trusted to look at what you need to at the appropriate time.  It knows if you’ve decided what the next action should be. And it knows if there is a reminder of that action placed somewhere you will actually look, when you could possibly take that action. If you have not done any of that, your mind won’t let it go. It can’t. It will endlessly keep trying to remind you of what to remember. The mind is a loyal and dedicated servant, but it needs to be given the jobs it does well–not the ones that it mismanages.

- David Allen (from Ready for Anything)

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(The tool David mentions at the end is eProductivity for Lotus Notes. It’s what he uses personally to manage his projects and actions.  If you’re a Notes user, you can learn more about David’s setup in the free Webinar on April 28th.)

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Want to see more videos of David? Check out GTD Connect.

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“What I need is more real estate in which to think, and tools to facilitate the process. I need it to be systematized intelligently so that when I engage with it I’m stimulated, not stupefied.” – David Allen

David Allen was on a roll this month with his having space to think and create.  He talks about it in this video on GTD & Cloud Computing and in his latest column on Wired UK.  Read more…

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A new GTD’er asked: Once collected, how do you learn to trust the integrity of the system and not spend a lot of time trying to remember whether you put something down?

David Allen’s reply: Trust comes with consistent use.  The Weekly Review, plus reviewing the appropriate action lists when you have any time that you might able to do any of those actions, are the key.  Even after all these years, I still need to check in every once in a while to ensure that something is on there.  In the early stages, you’re best off just putting it on the list if it occurs to you.  It’s much less psychic pain to insert it twice than to have it slip through the crack.

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