January 20, 2006

An additional message-leaving tip

After my "tip" in my latest newsletter about leaving and repeating clear call-back info on voicemails, a couple of people wrote me an additional tip, which I hadn't considered, but which makes tons of sense: Leave your call-back number first thing in the message, so in case they need to replay it to get the number (after they've gotten a pen) they don't have to listen to the whole message again. Live and learn.

Posted by David at 09:21 AM | Comments (5)

January 05, 2006

Great quote for the new year...

Rob Ryder, in my network, just emailed me a reminder me of this great quote, very appropriate to new beginnings for ourselves...

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we un-consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we feel liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

--Nelson Mandela, 1994 Inaugural Speech, written by Marianne Williamson.

Posted by David at 11:25 AM | Comments (6)

December 20, 2005

Blog spam stuff - FYI for regular readers and commenters

Just an FYI that my folks have installed the MovableType blog spam filters, which every once in a while park some real comments on the side until I can read and unlock them (esp if they include links). So, apologies to those every-one-in-a-while cases in which your comment might have taken a few hours to get posted. We'll just have to pay that price for now, to keep down the blog spam traffic that is even finding creative ways to bypass the key code entry gateway.

Posted by David at 12:18 AM | Comments (2)

October 22, 2005

Another Guardian piece

David McCandless, who writes a tech column for the Guardian, just published a piece on his experience with GTD. Seems we're heating up in the UK...

Posted by David at 02:14 PM | Comments (11)

October 09, 2005

I'm a card-carrying nostalgic foodie

Just got my new membership card to Slow Food, the international movement that was catalyzed by a McDonald's being opened at Rome's Spanish Steps.

I'm using a quote from the founder in my RoadMap seminar:

To be slow means that you govern the rhythms of your life. You are in control of deciding how fast you have to go. Today, you might want to go fast, so you do. Tomorrow, however, you might want to go slow, so you can. That is the difference.It is useless to force the rhythms of life. If I live with the anxiety to go fast, I will not live well. My addiction to speed will make me sick. The art of living is about learning how to give time to each and every thing. If I have sacrificed my life to speed, then that is impossible. Ultimately, 'slow' means to take the time to reflect. It means to take the time to think. With calm, you arrive everywhere. - Carlo Petrini

Posted by David at 10:44 AM | Comments (2)

September 24, 2005

Shapes

How nice to wake up at home today, on a hazy cool morning. Really appreciating my wonderful environment in Ojai. Couldn't help noticing and loving the great "bones" of our coastal live oak trees, which just got a major trimming last week.

My cottage office under the oaks today...

Posted by David at 01:35 PM | Comments (3)

September 03, 2005

Deer golf

Spent an hour yesterday at the Brentwood CA Sotheby real estate office, fielding questions and chatting with a number of folks who had been as a group to the first Santa Monica RoadMap seminar, then playing golf with my old buddy, Nick Segal, who manages the office. Golf is certainly one of those things that truly makes no sense, especially now for me. So, that makes it (sometimes) the absolutely perfect thing to do.

En route to London with Kathryn tonight...

Intruders on the green...

Posted by David at 04:06 PM | Comments (1)

August 12, 2005

I'm doing a Microsoft Leadership Forum Aug. 18

As a way of promoting their Web meeting tech, Live Meeting, Microsoft is running a series of free webinars with business "names" (can I be a "name" and a pretty face?). I'm scheduled for August 18, if any of you care to sit in on a one-hour session of "GTD Light" and its implications in organizational process.

I've done several webinars before, and the MS guys walked me through theirs this afternoon. Have to say, it looks pretty good, given my experience with some of the other stuff out there.

Posted by David at 04:38 PM | Comments (13)

June 30, 2005

Man on a mission (for mission statements)

A great blog about mission statements being collected by someone in my network - Jeffrey Pritchard. He sent us an email recently asking for ours (mission statement), and it was fun finding out about and surfing his site.

Posted by David at 11:34 AM | Comments (16)

June 23, 2005

Pubbing vs snubbing after hours...

Conducted another one-day session yesterday for Managing Directors for the same company as last week in London, this time in Manhattan. Nothing particularly noteworthy (same issues, same interests). But I did have a fun conversation with a couple of their folks who had spent time both in the UK and NYC - about the "pub" culture vs the "NY grind." I was commenting how much I really like London in the summer - the pubs just open their doors and (though it's illegal I understand) all the after-hours crowds just ooze out into the streets and for the long daylight evenings it's really quite a buzzing social event around the neighborhoods. There is a little bit of that in the U.S., but nothing like the Brits. The "I'm working then leaving" thing seems to be an American city syndrome, particularly true in New York. Obviously exceptions to all this, but there was consensus that pubbing in the UK was a unique institution, quite different than on the Yank side of that pond...

Posted by David at 12:12 PM | Comments (5)

June 14, 2005

Blog spam - Chapter 2...

Thanks to Robert and Chirill on our team, we've implemented our own version of CAPTCHA for this blog this morning, so you'll see a code to type when you add a comment. I've turned off the "Approve Comments" function, so they should post right away. If you do notice any spam blogging in other comments here, let me know. Thanks!

Posted by David at 09:48 AM | Comments (10)

June 02, 2005

Dealing with blog spam

My apologies to those who have commented here in the last few days and haven't seen your posting. I had to turn ON the "approve comments" function a couple of weeks ago, because blog spam was pouring in, and I realized RSS was just spreading it further. And, being off line on own spiritual retreat for three days, plus etc etc... didn't get a chance to "approve" the last week's worth.

Not sure what to do about all that spam stuff - it's too labor-intensive to keep having to block IP addresses (I've blocked 150 so far, but the "loans, poker, and enlarge" sources seem to just go send from new ones!) and delete comments, so I'm either going to have to have a staff person do that, or just nix this whole game. Hopefully not the latter...

Posted by David at 10:56 AM | Comments (20)

May 20, 2005

All the news that's fit...

Got interviewed today by a nice guy (Matt Creamer) from Ad Age today for a new rag they're doing for CMO's (new term to me - Chief Marketing Officer). He's a GTD convert, wanted me to chat about productivity issues etc. But in answer to his question about "What media do you watch regularly? How do you get your news?" my reply was that I don't do anything regularly... well, I do check news, and here's how I do that:

NY Times front page is my Web home page. Most days that's the best I can do to stay at least a little bit tapped in to the world. But my weekly read is The Week. It's the absolute best in terms of overview of the world for the week. And monthly I read The Atlantic, as I've mentioned several times blogging. It's just the premier source of info and perspective on culture, politics, sociology, and the arts for me.

NPR is my favorite ad hoc current-events candy, is great in the car, en route wherever, and sometimes unpacking in a hotel room, through the web.

The Week and The Atlantic are paper-based. I just like the touch and feel and pace and personal ergonomics (not the word I'm looking for, but you get what I mean) of the physical magazine. Easier as I move around, to fill the spaces, among other things.

All newspaper editorial writers do is come down from the hills after the battle is over and shoot the wounded. - unknown

Posted by David at 07:33 PM | Comments (3)

May 19, 2005

How things really get done around here...

If you ever wonder what makes the David Allen Company really tick...here's the secret weapon.

(Rarest of rare circumstances: I was at our new office digs [107 W. Aliso, Ojai] this morning, all the folks on our office/admin/client services team happened to be there at one time, I happened to have my camera).

Anne Gennett, Elisabeth Vernand, Marian Bateman, Andrea Gleysteen, Kathryn Allen, Mary McDaniel

None of us know all the potentialities that slumber in the spirit of the population, or all the ways in which that population can surprise us when there is the right interplay of events, both visible and invisible. - Vaclav Havel

Posted by David at 02:15 PM

May 08, 2005

A real salon in Minneapolis

A terrific coffee house has recently been opened by a very dear friend of mine, just south of downtown Minneapolis - the Elliott Park Atelier. Shar Kanan used to be my office manager in a previous incarnation of my consulting business (she hired my wife Kathryn into the company before we got together)! Shar's recently opened the Atelier - a hip and happenin' spot - bringing all kinds of people and culture together in a self-revitalizing community (as only Shar can).

If you're in the area, do yourself and them a favor - stop in and say David Allen sent you...!

Scenes from Elliott Park Atelier

Posted by David at 12:41 PM | Comments (2)

May 03, 2005

Men at work...

Eeeks. Incredibly creative, intelligent folks moving projects forward for the mission of the company...without me!

Slice of life - this afternoon in my office:

Greg Fisk (Webmeister/graphics/media/content craftsman); Robert Peake (standing - CTO, PHP guru, CRM developer extraordinaire); Jason Womack (GTD master teacher in his own right, fellow geek/gadget/gear head).

Posted by David at 09:26 PM | Comments (2)

April 28, 2005

Flowers in California

A friend of ours just sent this picture, "taken by a friend of a friend." It's the wildflowers in bloom right now on the Grapevine, which is Interstate #5 going north from L.A. toward Bakersfield. Wow. Thanks, Nancy, and to whomever the person was who snapped and sent..

Posted by David at 04:14 AM | Comments (6)

April 21, 2005

Hey, who knew about approving comments?

My apologies, for those of you who have submitted "Comments" on the new format. Didn't know that I have to "approve" them. (I did, btw). Robert's now going to set it up so they're auto-approved (so, go easy on the razz's etc., OK?) Thanks.

Posted by David at 04:36 PM | Comments (6)

January 27, 2005

Ah, the salon...

I don't have time to blog. (And I lie, if you haven't noticed). Just couldn't help myself tonight after connecting somewhat serendipitously with the Scobleizer and Buzz Bruggerman and a great crew of post-blog-conference  folks I got to hang with two nights ago in Seattle, for dinner. I was there doing a seminar for Robert's division of Microsoft. It was one of those great evenings of 6/10th of a degree of separation... You know WHO? wow, how cool...  And, reminded again that this blog world is a fascinating one. It is a virtual version of the "salon", of which I've always loved the idea and experience. I have to give Buzz the title (at least pro tem) of SalonMeister. Nice evening, dude, thanks.

And for Robert (and others who may not be as vocal as he was about wishing I would blog more), may I just run the apology for now that I'm trying to find my own voice in the medium. It's not like I don't get a chance to share myself, verbally and otherwise, with lots of folks. And most of the time I am aware of many other things as higher priorities for my creative time. Also, much of what I have to share will best be served contained and integrated into a different context. But this medium is a unique frame that draws out its own kind of pictures from its participants. Indeed, There's nothing like the salon. Nostalgic memories, hanging out at the Cafe Odeon in Zurich, at age 18 (as an American Field Service exchange student there in '63-'64), with the ghosts of Jung and dadaism...

Posted by David at 05:58 AM | Comments (3)

September 07, 2004

My Web guru

To be complete, for those who've asked about the image/look/feel of the David Allen Company, many kudos go to Greg Fisk. Seven years ago, Greg took my seminar and after the first break began to describe what he considered unique and how it should be imaged and positioned. He, along with Eric Mack, created our first site, and Greg now still maintains it and has done all the hard work on the back end of ensuring that the functionality as well as the design were right, as we've grown and matured. With eight kids and retreated away in North Dakota, Greg still is right there all the time and a major resource for us.

Posted by David at 09:41 AM

August 08, 2004

My Office

A friend asked to see a picture of my office, so as long as I snapped one this morning, thought I'd share it with the rest of the kinky voyeurs who have asked...

Posted by David at 11:06 AM | Comments (19)

July 30, 2004

The greatest catalog for reading

I've been meaning to put a note for summer readers, that if you don't already get it, the Common Reader catalog is truly a delight. It's one of my getting-older kind of fantasy fun things - to browse this lovely little catalog of books with its interesting comments about the entries. I've loved getting this catalog for quite a while, then discovered that the editor, Jim Mustich, is a GTDer, and has come to my public seminars, who then included GTD in the catalog, though it is not usually the kind of books in their inventory.

Posted by David at 05:42 AM | Comments (1)

March 27, 2004

My nephew in the blog world

Just an FYI about why I have a link to Scott Allen's blog. Yes, "Allen" is relevant - he's my nephew. We only really connected a few years ago, and I found out that he's seriously into KM (knowledge management) and had a reason to connect with GTD, in addition to me being his uncle...! Scott's a cool guy, has an interesting similarity of DNA with our Allen blood line of querky creative folks.... He and his wife Jayne are also champion swing dancers in Texas. Which puts him up there high on my charts as a productive guy!

Posted by David at 01:09 AM | Comments (1)

March 18, 2004

Welcome to my salon...

Hmmm. As I just came up for air from a blitz in the last 24 hours, Eric let me know that 3500 people have hit this blog, hundreds have signed up RSS. Wicked cool.  
So let me see if I can make a little more of at least a 40,000-ft comment about why I think I'm going to like this format, at least as best I can, late here in my office behind my house. As Eric has mentioned to some of you already, we did a version of blogging seven years ago when he and Greg Fisk (my webmaster) collaborated in setting up my site to begin with. I wanted an arena to share my schtick, connect with others of like (and unlike but complimentary) DNA, and, basically have my own salon, my own breakfast club. I think people are basically a pain in the ass except for three things: emergencies (keep to a minimum, please), option development and brainstorming, and warm human contact.

Of course, a great portion of my definition of a successful life is how much I get to do the latter two. things. Hanging out with engaged and engaging people, sharing about cool stuff, is my idea of a really good time! So with space and time compressed to almost virtual, I figure this is a great way to play.

I's another reason I started publishing my newsletter five years ago. With an initial send to 2000 people, this last one (that went out today) went to over 50,000. So there seems to be at least a modicum of interest in the world according to DA. But volume is not required - I just like sharing stuff that might add value to others and myself in the process.  

I want to make it clear from the start, however, that I'm not making any commitments how frequently this may show up or how deep (or shallow) the content might be. I guess we'll see, and I'm already hearing my own self-awareness sharpen to the fact that the more I don't care that people are listening, the freer I'll be and the more fun I can have. I suppose everyone reading this has some experience already with whatever the organic viral process is that's spinning out through the blogging form, and I look forward to learning from all of you.  Thanks already, and in advance.

David

Posted by David at 08:51 AM | Comments (13)