For whatever paper filing you still have that hasn’t gone digital yet, here are tips from David Allen for setting up your paper filing system.

• Keep general reference files at arms’ reach.
• Have lots of fresh folders at hand.
• Avoid the unnecessary complication of color-coding your files.
• Label your files with an automatic labeler. This is faster for one-off labels than printing from your computer.
• Get comfortable filing even a single piece of paper that you might want to refer to later.

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David Allen's workspace

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The Atlantic’s Media Diet series asks well-known people how they deal with what seems like an overwheleming amount of stuff to read.  Here’s how David Allen responded when asked what he reads.
 

David Allen: What I Read

How do people deal with the torrent of information pouring down on us all? What sources can’t they live without? We regularly reach out to prominent figures in media, entertainment, politics, the arts and the literary world, to hear their answers. This is drawn from a conversation with David Allen, author of the New York Times bestseller Getting Things Done and founder of David Allen Co.

I have one of the more non-traditional schedules so the only thing I do regularly is wake up. And even that’s questionable. But the first thing I typically do is open my iPad to The New York Times, read an article or two on the front page and then check out the Dining & Wine or Business Day section. 

For magazines, I just love The Atlantic, and I’m not just saying that. I get the print edition and the digital version on my iPad and I often read each issue cover to cover. I also love The Week in print because of its expansive and in-depth take on the week’s events. Every so often I’ll get through The Economist but that’s usually only when I’m in travel mode.

Click here to read the full article.

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David Allen talks with Bloomberg about technology and email protocols. A great 5-minute overview about the frustrations people are dealing with around email and some ways to deal with it.

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Where is the majority of your Reference stored these days? In GTD terms, your Reference is your “non-actionable” materials. Do you keep them stored in digital or hard copy?

If you’re mostly digital these days, what works well for you about that over paper?

Or, if you’re mostly paper, what works well about that over digital?

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What’s your level of GTD expertise? No matter what it is, these interactive and concise 90-minute webinars will deepen your mastery of the GTD best practices. David Allen Company offers these on an “a la carte” basis, giving you the flexibility and affordability to choose just the ones that work for you.

Keys to Getting Things Done®
This live Webinar will give a fast & fun overview on the keys for Getting Things Done, led by a Senior Coach. Learn about the best practices and tools for managing the five phases of your workflow: Collect, Process, Organize, Review & Do. Experience a “mind sweep” and walk through the decision making model for moving your input from “stuff” to clear outcomes and actions. Get tips for setting up a seamless system. A great overview if you’ve been wanting a better understanding of the “big picture” of managing your workflow with GTD.

February 16
March 15
April 19

GTD® & Outlook®
This live Webinar will give a detailed overview of the best practices for implementing GTD in Outlook. You’ll learn tips for setting up and managing Outlook Email, Calendar, Tasks, and Notes to support a seamless GTD system. See a demonstration of processing email (No, “inbox zero” isn’t an urban legend!) See examples of Task “contexts” and suggestions about how to structure your project and action lists.

Includes complimentary copy of our GTD & Outlook Setup Guide to assist you in your implementation of the recommended steps.

February 23
March 22
April 26

All webinars are held from 11am-12:30pm Pacific Time (California). Each webinar is $49. If you are planning on taking both, Keys to Getting Things Done is recommended before GTD & Outlook to build the foundation of best practices before the practical application.

Questions? Contact us at webinars@davidco.com.

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People who are starting with GTD often ask how to handle delegation, especially when a “waiting for” from another person doesn’t get delivered as agreed. Here’s a question and answer with David Allen on this topic.

Question: I just finished the “Getting Things Done” book and I know the methods you have expressed will for sure help me! I was wondering if you can help answer one of my questions? For Actions, let’s say you have to delegate work to someone. If that person doesn’t do the work that they volunteer to, how do you act in a stress-free way which doesn’t decrease your productivity and efficiency as a person?

David’s answer: There’s no “system” that can answer your question. “Stress-free” emerges when you know you’ve made the decisions that you need to about something, and parked the results into a trusted system that will feed reminders and information back to you at the appropriate time and context. So you have to decide if there’s something that you need to do about the situation or not; and if so, what’s your next action? Then park that next action in the right place that you’ll deal with appropriately.

The main problem most people have with delegation is the lack of regular review, enough so that you will light a fire or check status early enough to be able to deal with the other person optimally. But you can’t make anyone do anything. You just have to deal with your own agreements with yourself about the situation.

Best,
David

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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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Many people have found this tip we share in our GTD & Outlook 2010 Guide to be super helpful for corralling the myriad of emails that need to be tracked as a “Waiting For.”  You simply need to create a rule in Outlook to copy delegated items to an @Waiting For Support folder (create that folder if you don’t already have one.) Here’s what to do:

1. Select Rules button from the ribbon

2. Click Manage Rules &  Alerts

3. Click on New Rule

4. Select Apply rule on messages I receive

5. Click Next

6. Check off from people or specific group. Then click on where people or public group is underlined and select yourself as the From contact (if you are not listed as a contact in your address book, you will need to create that first with the exact email address used by Outlook when you send email for this to work). Click OK. Click Next. [Read more →]

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A great way to kick off the New Year is with a review of GTD’s five phases of Mastering Workflow:

Collect

Process

Organize

Review

Do

For each area, ask yourself:

What’s working well for me in this area now?

What would I like to improve upon in the coming year in each of these areas?

How I could support myself more in that?

Acknowledge yourself for how far you’ve come. Be realistic in your commitments about where you want to be.  GTD is a journey…

Happy New Year!

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