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 …
A group of dedicated GTD enthusiasts in Austin
One of the cool things about GTD is that you don’t have to look far to find other GTD enthusiasts in your community. From Meetups, to study groups, to book clubs and coffee chats, there are people into GTD all around the world. The Austin American-Statesman newspaper caught up with a group of GTD fans …
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Take a GTD & Lotus Notes class
For those of you looking for the best ways to implement GTD with Lotus Notes®, join the next Webinar class on GTD Connect, our subscription-based online learning center. It will be held February 4th at 12pm Pacific Time. If you can’t make the live event, the replay will be posted to the GTD Connect Media …
A project manager describes his GTD setup
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 …
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How to choose tools for GTD
Looking for a tool for GTD? The mistake we see many new GTD’ers make is expecting to find a tool to “do” GTD. A tool doesn’t do the thinking for you, it stores the thinking for you. So, then does it even matter what tools you use when it comes to implementing GTD? Sure. You …
David Allen on goal setting
David Allen was recently interviewed by Scientific American on goal setting. Do goals really work? Have most people already broken what they set just 3 weeks ago? LISTEN NOW (4 min) Like this podcast? Subscribe to our free podcast series. We also do frequent podcasts with David and the Coaches on GTD Connect®, our online …
Think Small Steps
A Community Contribution by Meghan Wilker Near the beginning of a new year, we often take stock of the big things in life. Am I happy at my job? Do I need to lose weight? It’s such a good time to take stock of — and clean up — major sources of stress and a …
GTD for Academics
A Community Contribution by Aeon J. Skoble, PhD. He’s a Professor of Philosophy at Bridgewater State College. I know that David Allen is interested in seeing how people in different sorts of professions use GTD, so I offered to share my experiences applying the methodology in a world that’s generally regarded as a different one: …
How to get to Inbox Zero
A new GTD’er wrote to David Allen and asked: My dear husband thinks you keep your Inbox to zero by not posting your email address on the internet and/or by having assistants respond to your email. I disagree. What say you? David responded: You keep your Inbox to zero by dealing with whatever shows up …
GTD & the Cloud
Whenever I’m on a plane and we fly through a cloud, I can’t help but think “Oh man, I hope this isn’t the one that has all my data in it…” Tony_D on Twitter. Eric Mack recently interviewed David Allen on his use of Lotus Notes, eProductivity and cloud computing. Hear what David thinks of …
How GTD can help with applying to college
I recently presented a seminar where a participant brought up the project of getting her daughter into college. Since that had been a project for me as well, I wrote to her about how I applied the “Natural Planning Model” to this project. For those of you unfamiliar with the Natural Planning Model, it is …
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Why do we procrastinate on the good stuff too?
A Community Contribution from Sarah From A recent article in the New York Times highlights new research on a fascinating phenomenon: the procrastination of pleasure. Not only do we avoid the tasks we dread, we also put off activities we enjoy. Redeeming gift cards, using frequent flier miles, and visiting hometown landmarks all belong to …
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GTD & OneNote
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 …
Using a Virtual Assistant
Jeff Widman, a man of many talents (including helping us create our GTD Facebook Fan page) has a fantastic article about using a virtual assistant. It’s a great read, with many useful tips & templates for a building and maintaining a successful virtual team. Here’s an excerpt: What I’ve learned from having a virtual assistant: …
GTD isn't just the "flavor of the month"
Dear David Allen, Today marks the four-year anniversary of the day that I watched a taping of your Mastering Workflow seminar. It’s the day that I started a journey from chaos and overwhelm to order and sanity. Some thought that my GTD journey was just a phase, that it would be my “flavor of the …
My dog ate my GTD book
Hello David, I was in the middle of reading and applying your book when I came home one day and found it like this. Yep my dog ate it on a day when he was bored because I was so busy I didn’t get him out for a walk. Did I mention that I was …
Year End Completions
The latest Productive Living newsletter included a great set of questions from David Allen on year end completions. It’s a great exercise to go through for completing 2009 and setting your intentions and directions for creating 2010. Here’s a sample of some of those questions: Completing and remembering 2009 What was your biggest triumph in …
How much can the brain really hold?
Your brain is a great place to have ideas, but a terrible place to manage them. -David Allen A key principle within GTD is creating a system external to your mind–if you want the system to be seamless. In fact, there’s a good chance if you’re trying to hold more than about 7 things in …
What is or isn't a project?
A computer programmer implementing GTD asked David Allen about projects: I’m confused about (and I’m sure you are extremely bored with this question, but from the books I couldn’t work out the answer) – how do you size projects? I’m continually having problems working out what is or isn’t a project – and getting lost …
Radiate efficiency
Elle magazine chatted with David Allen. Read some of the timely tips for refreshing your systems. One item that came up in my sweep was that for weeks I’ve been putting off answering a publicist’s e-mail asking if I’d write about one of his clients—my failure to reply is gnawing at me. My hunch is …
