Have you wondered whether goal setting works? The February issue of Productive Living has David Allen’s answer to that question.

“Yes, but not the way most people seem to understand goal setting. In my experience, the real value of defining desired futures is not so much in the world they describe, but the change in perception the process of setting goals fosters.”

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

THE VALUE OF GOALS

What we focus on changes what we notice. Our brain filters information, seeing one thing in a situation instead of something else, based on what we identify with, what we have our attention on, what we’re looking for—more or less consciously.

The reason for long-term goals is the permission they give us to identify with the greatest value we can so it changes our filtered perceptions. The future never shows up (have you noticed?—it’s always today!). But playing with it as a working blueprint can be a remarkably useful tool to see things (and how to do and have them) that you never saw before.

Subscribe to Productive Living. It’s free and sent about every 4 weeks. You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

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David Allen: Getting Things Done Interview – Getting your Startup Under Control: Business

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GTD Times reader Jenna contributed her ideas on how to adapt GTD to writing.

A Writer’s GTD Journey

About a year ago I was beginning to feel overwhelmed with my list of unfinished projects. I’m a writer and had about a dozen scripts, stories, and article ideas backlogged on my computer. Not only I was not completing any of the projects, I was adding new ideas every day. Each new idea, rather than filling me with excitement at the prospect of undertaking a new creative project, instead filled me with dread and anxiety because I felt like I was looking at corpses—great concepts that would never be brought to fruition. It was obvious I was falling apart. I needed structure, an actionable plan for organizing my projects. I stumbled across Getting Things Done and this is what I embarked upon:

Collect. Address the items that are concerning you. I made a list of all my unfinished projects. It was like an endless scroll.

Process. Make decisions about the value of these items and what you will add or subtract to them. I looked at each project and decided [Read more →]

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David Allen has developed this set of questions for completing one year and beginning the next year. Enjoy!

What have you actually finished, completed, and accomplished? If you haven’t made a list in the last year, I would highly recommend that you give yourself a treat and review the year that just passed and look forward to the year ahead.

When I go through these kinds of questions I like to consider my answers in several areas:

Physical
Emotional
Mental
Spiritual
Financial
Family
Community Service
Fun / creativity / recreation

Completing and remembering last year

• Review the list of all completed projects.
• What was your biggest triumph in 2011?
• What was the smartest decision you made in 2011? [Read more →]

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In a recent issue of Productive Living, David Allen says:

My essay this month talks about the wisdom of “the way out is through.” I hope it gives you some good direction on dealing with what may be dragging on your psyche and systems. Defining what you are not doing is as important as knowing what you are doing for stress-free productivity. Having things you’ve told yourself to do (implicit agreements with yourself), still undone, can be deadly to your confidence and energy if they are not appropriately managed by constant renegotiation with yourself.

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

THE WAY OUT IS THROUGH

Most of you reading this don’t even have time to finish to perfection your current set of projects, even if you stopped the world from giving you anything new, and you had several months or even years within which to do them.

It’s strange, but I work with people to define the work they are not doing.

There’s an old Gestalt theorem — the way out is through. Defining what we could do, and what we are doing right now instead — managing the triage strategically with ourselves and others, is a key component of managing ourselves and our workflow these days. You can only feel good about what you’re not doing when you know what you’re not doing.

There is no catching up. There is only catching on.

Subscribe to Productive Living. It’s free and sent about every 4 weeks. You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

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Have you wanted to get your kids or teens to use GTD tools? Then this webinar is for you. Join David Allen Company CEO and GTD expert Mike Williams and Senior Coach Meg Edwards as they discuss some fun and engaging ways to share GTD with kids and teens.  The live webinar is on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PST. 

This webinar is free for GTD Connect members.  You can sign up for a free trial membership, and when you log in, you’ll find the webinar information on the home page of GTD Connect.  You’ll also see an extensive list of previous webinars you can access in the archives. (Partial listing shown here.)

The free trial membership is easy to begin—just first name and email address—with no cost or commitment.

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Sometimes Christmas feels like an all-consuming project that sends us racing through malls, jumping from party to party, and being busy-busy-busy as we fill our time with lots of Christmas fluff.

I want something more than that, though.

I don’t want to have to “recover” from Christmas. I don’t want to start the new year eight pounds heavier. I don’t want my children focused only on the electronic gadgets they hope Santa brings. But everything I don’t want will probably become my reality–unless I take the initiative to implement what I do want.

David Allen’s Natural Planning Model seriously saves my sanity on everything from birthday party planning to creating new programs for my website, so this year, I decided to use the five steps of the Natural Planning Model to create a Christmas experience that is both magical and meaningful.

Step One: Defining Purpose and Principles

For this part, I sat down with my children and gave them the following prompts:

• What’s the purpose of this season?
• What do you want this Christmas to feel like for our family?
• Please finish this sentence: “I would be happy with any Christmas celebration, as long as . . .”

[Read more →]

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Fast Company featured David Allen this week, in their Leadership Hall of Fame series.

Does your company plan things correctly? Or are meetings unproductive due to poor planning? We continue our Leadership Hall of Fame series . . .

How Bad Plans And “Good Ideas” Ruin Meetings

BY David AllenTue Nov 1, 2011

When the “Good Idea” Is a Bad Idea

Have you ever hear a well-intentioned manager start a meeting with the question, “OK, so who’s got a good idea about this?”

What is the assumption here? Before any evaluation of what’s a “good idea” can be trusted, the purpose must be clear, the vision must be well defined, and all the relevant data must have been collected (brainstormed) and analyzed (organized). “What’s a good idea?” is a good question, but only when you’re about 80 percent of the way through your thinking! Starting there would probably blow anyone’s creative mental fuses. 

You can read the complete article here.

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Frazzled mind? This recent issue of Scientific American affirms what GTDers already knew. Proactive steps such as planning and delegating are the best way to manage stress.

Fight the Frazzled Mind:

Proactive Steps Manage Stress

A new study suggests that preventive, proactive approaches are the most helpful—and that our stress management IQ is painfully low

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Yes, you sure can.  GTD Times reader Angela wrote to share her format for tracking action items.

GTD has made a significant impact on my life, and I’m glad to share a specific technique that has worked for me.

I format my Action Items list in a spreadsheet. It’s really convenient to add items as they come in chronologically or during the processing of  ”in.” Then the items can be sorted according to context. This is easily done by just having three columns in the spreadsheet:

1) Context (errands, @computer,  etc.)
2) The item itself
3) Notes such as phone numbers, reference data, referral name, etc.

You can process “in” without wasting time inserting rows in order to put like items together. Just add more items at the bottom of the list. It is a simple procedure to sort the data by context, and BAM – action items are grouped according to context. 

[Read more →]

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