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.
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?
Many people have asked for a summary of the GTD best practices that we share in our Keys to Getting Things Done webinars. Here they are!
Collect
Pay attention to what is grabbing your attention
Empty your head
Process
Make decisions when things show up, not when they blow up
Organize
Sort your inventory into trusted buckets with “clean edges”
Review
Keep current and “ahead of the game”
Doing
Notice how you choose to spend your time (Threefold Nature of Work)
Make trusted choices
What stands out for you as your biggest improvement opportunity in any of those areas?
David Allen on attention and daily activities.
Question: How do we know if the way we are handling our daily activities is right or wrong?
David’s answer: It’s not a matter of right or wrong—it’s simply, “Am I appropriately engaged with this and my commitments about it?” So you only need to pay attention to what has your attention. Only things that are not on “cruise control” are grabbing your attention. So you need to decide what you need to do about them, and park the results of that thinking, especially the next action required, in an appropriate place or with an appropriate person.
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.
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.
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.
“If it helps your business. If you can do business better, something there that is worthwhile and useful. I think a combination of underlying principles and practical applications.”
- David Allen, interviewed in Fast Company.
David Allen, Author of “Getting Things Done,” by Kevin Ohannessian in Fast Company
Has productivity changed as technology has evolved, from the utility of iPhones to the connectedness of Facebook? We continue our examination of the business book Getting Things Done with an interview of author David Allen.
Why do you think the book was so successful and resonated with the business world?
I think people were hungry for a model that was hip enough and current enough to deal with the kind of world everyone was in. Most of the other models that had to do with time management or personal organization or any of that all had good stuff, but most of it was way too structured for the speed and volume of change that people were dealing with.
You can read the complete interview here.
Someone new to GTD asked David Allen for advice on making GTD simpler to adopt.
David answered this way . . .
It’s hard to get it any simpler than this:
Any one of those elements without the others won’t really produce that much value.
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
Have your GTD lists become listless? David Allen explains the three common causes when we find we’re less interested and involved with our lists.
DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT
HAVE YOUR LISTS BECOME LISTLESS?
We’ve all had this happen. We create a set of lists of relevant items, appropriately categorized. We’re excited, we feel in control, our brains relax, and life is good.
Then, over time (and often not a very long time), the luster fades. We only look at the lists when our guilt overcomes our apathy; and we gird our loins, committing to some sort of review of them, just because we know we “should.” Then we begin to resist looking at the lists at all, even though we know it’s the answer to renegotiating our agreements with ourselves. Then we go numb to our system, or at least a part of it. The thrill is gone. We’re in productivity purgatory.
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.
David Allen Company has just released a new Setup Guide that includes great coaching advice for structuring a solid GTD system in Lotus Notes. Written by David Allen and his senior coaches, this guide explains how to:
Instructions in the Guide are primarily written based on Notes 8.5, with helpful references to differences in previous versions.
Read a free sample from the first few pages
