Thanks to those of you who responded to our poll about Outlook for Mac. Now for those of you who use Outlook on a PC – please cast your vote about which version of Outlook you are currently using.
This is helpful for us in our long-term planning for GTD Setup Guides.
We appreciate your help!
David Allen Company Education Team
David Allen was asked how much detail is needed when listing next actions. His answer gives a look at the psychology of GTD, and why it’s about more than the lists:
The purpose of having the granular next action on a list is to define what “doing” looks like and where it happens, so you can finish your thinking about what to do about the commitment (outcome, project, etc.) That said, another reason for the granularity on the action lists is to subvert the procrastination that potentially shows up because of a pre-conscious insecurity about success. As in, “I don’t want to step into something I don’t think I can control.” If the enormity of the next action causes you to falter, then it’s advantageous to define a smaller, doable chunk. For example, “draft plot ideas” instead of “draft great American novel.”
For more on this topic, see this excellent article in The New Yorker that mentioned David’s book Getting Things Done, and the value of the GTD approach.
For many people, a mobile list manager is a requirement for implementing GTD. To support productivity on the go, the lists must be accessible in real-time, showing your projects, as well as your actions sorted by context. There are plenty of third-party task applications for mobile devices that help to some degree with list management. The BlackBerry is a very popular choice among GTDers looking for a device with a built-in task app. In fact, David Allen Company has a Setup Guide specifically written so you can dial the BlackBerry in according to GTD best practices. If you’re considering a mobile device, this review at Notes on Productivity describes the functionality of the task app in the BlackBerry Torch. How do you think the BlackBerry stacks up for managing your lists the GTD way?
David Allen describes the difference between what you’ll find on a next action list and a to do list:
90+ % of the to do lists I’ve seen are incomplete inventories of still-unclear things. The Next Action definition (if you’re really getting down to having no ambiguity about the next visible physical activity required to move something forward), actually finishes the thinking you’ve implicitly agreed with yourself that you’ll do. “Mom” is an unclarified to do item. But when “Mom” is translated into “Celebrate Mom’s birthday with a party” as a project outcome, then “Call Sis about what we should do for Mom’s birthday” is a clear next action. Because “Mom” is vague, it still triggers stress when you look at it on a list. “Call Sis . . . ” triggers action and positive engagement.
For anyone who has tackled a science project, or any kind of project, here is a Community Contribution from April Perry
Tackling a 5th-Grade Science Project
My 11-year-old daughter came home with a huge packet of science project information a few weeks ago, and the entire family started feeling the stress. Before the world of computers and fancy tri-fold poster board, science projects were a cinch. I remember hunkering down at my dining room table with construction paper, some magic markers, and a simple sheet of white poster board. But today’s children have a lot more pressure. They need charts and graphs, digital photographs, and well-written hypotheses. It’s enough to overwhelm the children and the parents.
Instead of letting the stress get to me, I decided to apply the principles I learned from Getting Things Done and show my daughter that projects don’t have to give us headaches. Here’s what we did:
Step 1: We read through the packet of information and made a list of tasks based on context.
By popular request, here is a list of all of the FREE GTD resources offered by David Allen Company:
You will experience unnecessary mental fatigue and numbness in your environments and organizational systems by simply mixing up things that represent different agreements with yourself. – David Allen
For those of you who use Microsoft Outlook® for your GTD system, we hope you’ll tune in to our next webinar on GTD Connect. Senior Coach Kelly Forrister will walk you through the essentials of optimizing your productivity with Outlook. You’ll see examples of how to set up the Task lists for projects and actions, best practices for the calendar, email, and much more. Outlook 2007 will be shown, but most of what will be demonstrated will be universal to all Outlook versions, and applicable to all Outlook users.
Join us on Thursday, January 27th from 10am-11am Pacific Time.
Free for all GTD Connect guest pass, monthly and annual members. To register for the webinar, log in to GTD Connect and follow the link on the home page.
Most of the fancy features of most organizing software go unused, as do most forms and lines and boxes in most paper-based planners. Most of what’s out there to help is grossly overbuilt. Once you realize that you only need to define your projects with the next actions on them and keep track of all that in a complete but simple set of lists, you won’t need to bother yourself with much else. – David Allen
GTD Times reader Heather asked: I’ve been feeling really in the zone with GTD lately. I know what I need to do, the system is working, BUT the “waiting fors” are going to give me a stroke.
I use the Things for Mac application and noticed that consistently about 25-30 percent of my next actions are under the tag “waiting for.” I work on deadlines and am constantly having to call or email others to remind them to get me something. Most often the responses I get is, “Oh, I forgot,” or “Was I supposed to do that?” or “Right! Thanks for the reminder.” But I’m not their secretary or their mother.
How do I remain “in the zone” when so many of my next actions end up being “Remind Joe to do this” and most of my projects I can’t move on because of other people’s lack of organization and clarity? [Read more →]
