Let’s talk about the Horizons of Focus.  In my experience, this is one of the parts of the GTD approach that can take a little time for people to get their arms around. This is where priorities and perspective live. Whereas traditional time management approaches attempted to give people an ABC type coding system for defining their priorities, David Allen’s GTD approach has always been that priority codes are too simple for the complexity of most people’s changing lives, as the only measure of what to do. For example, assigning an “A” priority to something (or flagging is the popular method in email programs these days) could change with the next new piece of input you get. Plus, in my experience, people tend to get lazy with that code or flag without really deciding the next action. A flag, or #1, or lighting the email on fire still doesn’t tell you what your next action is. So is David saying to never use those? Of course not.  Just be sure that what you are marking as high priority has a a clearly defined next action and be willing to change that priority the moment your world changes–which it will. [Read more →]

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Many of you enjoyed the GTD & OneNote article contributed by community member Ryan Oakley.  Here’s another shout out for using Outlook & OneNote, from Ivar in Norway.

I am writing to you to tell you how brilliant I think it is to use Microsoft Office OneNote in my GTD system.  I’m from Norway and am employed in the public sector as a project manager for various ICT projects.

I read David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done” two years ago. Since then I have spent much time trying to find a good solution to the lists and project lists that fit my needs. I feel now I’ve got this to work, providing very much in terms of both time and money.  The ultimate solution for me has been using Outlook with Microsoft OneNote.  In Outlook, I have action lists that are categorized by place of execution, in good GTD tradition. [Read more →]

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This is a community contribution by Ryan Oakley.

For me, GTD has always worked extremely well for those small(er) tasks and projects.  You know – those little things that used to fall through the cracks but, with the help of GTD, are now easily tracked and moved on until completed.

These smaller projects don’t need much in the way of “project support material” (PSM) — maybe just 4 or 5 lines of information to keep close at hand to help finish the project.  For me, I have mostly used the “notes” section of a project task item in outlook for a good and easy place to put this type of PSM.

But…what about those larger projects?  Like a 2 week vacation to Europe (travel books, emails, reservations, tickets, list of things you want to do and see, things to pack, addresses of family to visit, etc.) or maybe that multi-million dollar project at work that has 8 months worth of project plans and 5 milestones, 247 emails, 156 page reports, bi-weekly meetings, and 7 team members (complete with collaboration).  Ahh!

My GTD system breaks down with that kind of complexity.  [Read more →]

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What’s out there for Lotus Notes users who want to sync To Do’s to their iPhone? Nothing.  As far as I know.  Believe me, I’ve searched for nearly a year. As a Notes user who was enchanted with an iPhone, I thought surely a To Do synching solution could not be far behind.  Nope. Nothing. You can sync Calendar and Email, but not To Do’s. It’s not a complete mobile GTD solution for me without To Do’s.

Because the iPhone was built without a Tasks application it means building not only a secure syncing solution, but a corresponding App on the iPhone. I thought Lotus would be doing that, but not from any releases I’ve seen so far.

A guy wrote to me this morning to ask what solutions are out there for this, as he’s about to roll out iPhones to their entire workforce. They use Lotus Notes and he’s been unable to find anything that will sync Notes To Do’s to the iPhone.  He asked if we are building it (no plans to.)

Has anyone heard of anything coming or available that will sync Lotus Notes To Do’s to the iPhone?  We’d love to hear about it.

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Having a total and seamless system of organization gives you tremendous power because it allows your mind to let go of the lower-level thinking and graduate to intuitive focusing, undistracted by matters that haven’t been dealt with appropriately. – David Allen

In other words…get a seamless, leakproof system for tracking everything you can’t do in the moment–personally and professionally.  And make sure you trust it more than holding stuff in your brain.

In our podcast series on the best practices of GTD, we’re moving on to the 3rd stage of mastering workflow: organize. Once you’ve collected and processed your work, then you just need to put it into places that you trust.

For those of you who want even more on this topic, the Getting Things Done book club on GTD Connect is just about to move to Chapter 7 of the book, which is all about organizing.  The book club is a great way to make sure you really “get” all of the pieces of GTD to put together a complete and intuitive system that makes sense for you.

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The better you are at using a tool, and the more you love the tools you use, the more effective they will be for your GTD system.  David Allen has said time and time again, learn at least the basic speed keys for the tools you use the most, so the tool is not slowing you down.

For those of you on Gmail, here’s a handy guide from Google for getting the most out of Gmail.  A few years ago, (before Tasks was added to Gmail), our coaches were working quite a bit with a client on Gmail and wrote this free article on using Gmail as a list manager.  For all of the GTD Setup Guides, click here.

One of the best tricks for enhancing your personal productivity is having organizing tools that you love to use. – David Allen

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In my last post, I challenged you to look at how much you’re choosing to sit in your email inbox versus work from your lists.  That sure seemed to strike a nerve of truth with some of you.  So WHY can lists start to repel us? Here are a few reasons why and some ways to resolve that:

• You know your lists are not current so you dread having to clean up while you scan (Done a Weekly Review lately?)
• You know there are things on there that require more thinking (Ask yourself, “Do I have all of the information I need to do this?” If not, you don’t have the next action. Get more specific.)
• You have things on your lists that you don’t think are your job (Get clear on your Areas of Focus & Responsibilities–what’s your job and what’s not)

[Read more →]

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I recently spoke with Dean Hering of Netcentrics about the Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In. We had a fun chat about how the product came to be and what it does these days for GTD’ers on Outlook. Listen now.

Right before the podcast, I Tweeted that I’d be speaking with him and I asked Dean some of the questions some of you sent to me (such as getting tech support, Office 10 release, how it interfaces with Toodledo and more.)

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We received a tremendous response to the podcast from David Allen & his tech team on finding the “Perfect GTD List Manager.”  Some of you were delighted that we continue to hold true to GTD being an approach that is “tool-agnostic,” applicable to nearly any tool you choose.  On the other hand, some of you were pretty vocal that you were upset that we still didn’t tell you which tool to use.  Fair enough!  We know there is a balance to give you between theory and application, and some of you would like some more direction on this. So David and his team sat down for further conversation on The Perfect GTD List Manager. This time, David actually does reveal “the secret” and it may not be what you think…

Listen Now

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One of the most common questions we get is, “Which tool should I use for my GTD lists?”  With the GTD approach, the tools you choose to manage your workflow are up to you.  Some tools are certainly more conducive to GTD than others, but among the ones that will work well, it will come down to functionality and personal preference.  That can make the choice for some people exciting…or daunting.  In this podcast, David Allen and his technology team talk about the phenomenon of list managers, what qualities to look for, what has a zero learning curve, the keys to really making it work and more.  There should be something here for everyone, no matter what your job, style, platform or inner geek.  LISTEN NOW

“There’s a strange paradox. You want it simple and it won’t be cool enough for you. And if you want it really cool, you’re gonna have to have discipline and sophistication of really understanding GTD to make it work and gain the power out of it.”  – David Allen

LISTEN NOW

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