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February 25, 2005
Mind like cat
Charles Staley sent me this great pic this morning - his cat Rocky does the Zen and the Art of In-Basket Maintenance thing...
Posted by David at 08:31 AM | Comments (2)
February 24, 2005
Brandon Hall
We've just spent three incredibly productive days with Brandon Hall, a leading expert in organization learning systems, and someone who's become a GTD champion (and good friend) in a short period of time. My brain is spinning a bit, but delighted to get his coaching and direction in where to take our stuff to another level in the workplace learning sphere... Thanks, Brandon!
Posted by David at 07:48 AM
February 21, 2005
Nice saintly quote...
Just opened a lovely note from a Catholic priest in Canada, which he sent to me while, he said, he was "devouring GTD." He wanted to share a couple of quotes from Josemaria Escriva, a recently canonized priest who founded Opus Dei.
"Order will bring harmony to your life, and lead you to perserverance. Order will give peace to your heart, and weight to your behavior."
"Your are untiring in your activity. But you fail to put order into it, so you do not have as much effect as you should. It reminds me of something I heard once from a very authoritative source. I happend to praise a subordinate in front of his superior. I said, 'How hard he works!' 'You ought to say', I was told, 'How much he rushes around!'
Thanks, Msgr.....
Posted by David at 04:09 AM | Comments (4)
February 19, 2005
My favorite news source
After doing some work with the Conference Board, I got turned on to their weekly news rag - The Week. It's now my favorite news source these days. Great to get weekly synopsis of the top stories and the best columns, reviews, etc. synthesized from U.S. newspapers. I just don't have the time for daily input, and once a week is about the interval I can feel like I don't have any really big holes in my current-events awareness. Perfect for the outside pocket of my briefcase, when I'm road-warrior-ing, too. They have an on-line version, but I still really like the paper-based format. Great between-the-lines updating tool...
Posted by David at 01:17 AM | Comments (1)
February 13, 2005
Clicker training
Kathryn and I have been proponents of clicker training since we ran across Karen Pryor's work a few years ago. Very powerful behavioral shaping techniques, based on almost totally positive feedback. If you haven't read Karen's book, Don't Shoot the Dog, I highly recommend it - even if you don't have dogs. It's great perspective on getting others to act in ways more your preference. Karen's been a client and champion of ours, is a really terrific person, and her techniques are nothing short of phenomenal. (She was a key dolphin trainer in her early years - "you can't put a choke chain on a dolphin!") Also a great friend of ours in Ojai, Liz Harward, our local animal-trainer/breeder resource, invented a digital clicker that Karen now sells, for those of you who are really into it.
Posted by David at 12:54 PM | Comments (6)
February 11, 2005
Toronto project (and foodie alert)
Finished a day in alpha testing of a simulation training for GTD, partnering with a world-class simulation training designer, Don Jones, with whom I've been in conversation for years about this possibility. His Toronoto-based company, experience it, inc, is working with us to create a one-day simulation of the GTD experience. I sort of grew up in the training world in the experiential personal-growth milieu (was a facilitator for Insight Seminars for several years). Wondered if GTD could ever be translated into that kind of event, and I think Don's the guy. He designed the simulation training that Boeing has used for years for all their senior leadership. And we've been putting our heads together now for several months, getting serious with this project. He's got a global corporation as a client right now that is interested in piloting the program, so we've got a great laboratory. Cool stuff. I actually participated as a newbie today in our little alpha test, and it was fascinating to see what we might be able to pull off in a short period of time, with the right environment and context. Stay tuned.
And, for those of you keeping lists of good restaurants in cities you may frequent from time to time, add Reds to your list for Toronto. They're the high end of a large Canadian restaurant chain, but worth trying. Their Australian rack was the best I've had anywhere (and lamb is my bellwether dish for trying restaurants). Great wine list, etc.
Posted by David at 04:49 AM
February 10, 2005
Charles Staley interview
Had a great hour-long interview yesterday with Charles Staley. He's been a reader and advocate of GTD for many months now, and asked me to contribute a teleseminar session with his clan of followers. Have to admit that my own physical conditioning program has slid in priorities over the last months, so I'm looking forward to exploring Charles' approach, which I hear is really very cool....
Posted by David at 07:52 AM
February 07, 2005
Virtual travel day
I was all over the U.S. today. It's called a "radio tour" in the book trade - my publisher hires a firm that arranges a series of "drive by" interviews with radio stations (mostly AM) daytime talk shows, and I just sit at the phone all day (starting at 5am Ojai time - most are on the east coast). So today I held forth of the 6-minute key-to-life stuff - let's see, in Toledo, Tampa, New Hampshire, Minneapolis, Montana, Cincinatti, BC (Canada), Ohio NPR, Miami, and Pittsburgh. What's interesting, when I've done these over the years with my books, the people who actually heard me on the radio while driving wherever, and just "got it", and connected into the GTD thing. Real time forerunner of podcasting, obviously...
Posted by David at 05:46 AM | Comments (4)
February 06, 2005
Our merry tech/marketing band
Finishing up a weekend of team-bulding, thinking, creating, as we're in the process of developing our abilty to take our education and ability to nurture our relationships with our growing global network to some great new levels...
Robert, Chirill, Ludmila, Greg, Rick, Eric (and me of course...) Picture taken by Kathryn, Chief Operating Officer Extraordinaire...
Posted by David at 01:37 AM | Comments (4)
February 05, 2005
Chirill at lunch
Wow. We're in a Major Tech Meeting for David Allen Company this weekend at my house. What horsepower! For instance, a master programmer from Moldova, who we're lucky enough to have now on our staff - Chirill Trescencov. You'll be seeing more, no not seeing really, but experiencing more of his handiwork in the next few months.
Posted by David at 03:12 AM | Comments (5)
February 03, 2005
Fabulous book on anti-procrastination
Just finished a great book on dealing with the evil god called Resistance - avoiding doing the things that are really the most meaningful to us. The War of Art. Sent to me by my friend Joe Polish at Piranha Marketing. I highly recommend. Careful, though, you may (if you're like me) feel like someone just read your beads. By the guy who wrote The Legend of Bagger Vance - Steven Pressfield.
Posted by David at 04:25 AM | Comments (3)
February 02, 2005
ASTD Conference in Vegas
I gave the keynote this morning at the ASTD TechKnowledge Conference in Las Vegas. Session was opened by Tony Bingham, CEO of ASTD, with a very good overview of the strategic place of training and skill-building now, in the new post-recession world. If all his surveys quoted are valid indicators (can't fault the sources), looks like gangbusters for real education delivery for knowledge workers in the coming years... I had a great time, seemed to go over well, reminding people of how some of the real process issues organizationally translate back to personal process issues of mid- to senior-level people, and that those can be dealt with. Of course, a la GTD....
Then had a fruitful cup of coffee with my friend Mike Flanagan, now VP of consulting services of Intrepid (formerly LGuide), a champion of our stuff, and a great friend-of-the-court to us as a resource for info about that whole big world of distributed education...
Back in Ojai, and it was a gorgeous sunset...
Posted by David at 05:04 AM | Comments (2)
