February 13, 2006
GTD on the rise...?
GTD made #1 in this month's Business Week bestseller list, as well as making it to the NY times bestseller list of advice paperbacks. Interesting, that it's now five years after its publication... Probably some coincidence of good PR (American Way article didn't hurt), plus... well, I don't really know. Maybe the world is waking up to the need, and the possibility it can be addressed....
Jason snapped this in ORD today...
Posted by David at 08:25 PM | Comments (25)
February 01, 2006
ClerGTD....
I've always been heartened when I've heard of the positive effects GTD has had for the clergy. One of the most inspiriing seminars I've ever given was for all the senior Navy chaplains, at the Pentagon. So dedicated in their work, and so hungry for anything that can help. Reminded of this tonight by a lovely e-mail from down under:
I am writing to express my appreciation for the book, 'Getting Things Done'. Recommended to me by one of my church apprentices, who in turn had it recommended to him by 'hacker' friends on the web, I have found it to be an enormous blessing in my minsitry and church life. I find that our committee meetings and diaries are now far more oriented towards our goals as a church. I thank God for providing us with the genius of commonsense wisdom found in this little book, the authors of the books of Proverbs would be proud! Regards, Mikey Lynch, Pastor of Crossroads Presbyterian Church, Hobart, Australia.
Posted by David at 06:45 PM | Comments (22)
January 15, 2006
GTDing in the far reaches
My friends from my presentation at the Air Force college sent me this pic taken in Afghanistan - as they do what they can to ingrain self-sufficiency and security in the local population (and hopefully get our folks back home asap). Maybe GTD is at least making a small dent...
Posted by David at 07:20 PM | Comments (5)
January 12, 2006
GTD through the Salesforce.com app et al
Ismael Ghalimi, the CEO of Intalio, just posted an informative blog about his application of GTD within a Web 2.0 application environment. He's much more knowledgeable than I am about the various tools and components he's using to customize his system, so I can't comment yet with much experience about how he's doing it, but it seems he's put the various pieces together nicely.
Posted by David at 11:10 AM
Interview in IEEE rag
This interview (just regular GTD stuff) emerged from a fun evening at dinner with physicist-turned-journalist Stephen Cass at IEEE's Spectrum magazine in New York. I got to play like I was a seriously real geek, peeking into that world with him. The photo shoot was fun, too, maybe because I had laryngitis and felt awful... you know, one of those times when you just give it up and get a little crazy...
Posted by David at 12:42 AM | Comments (3)
January 11, 2006
Making stuff manageable - really just kid stuff?
Tim Noyce, a senior ING consultant, just shared this with us:
Just a fun thing. You can do a simple sort of GTD really early in life... I made tidying up bedroom floors a lot less stressfull by teaching my two oldest sons (5 and 7) to put EVERYTHING they could not immediately put away (i.e. Lego goes straight in the lego-box) in a crate. When the floor is clear, it is much, much easier to take things out of the crate one by one and put them away. It makes it much less daunting for them as they often got overwhelmed by the mess that a couple of hours of play creates.
Indeed, defining work makes it a lot easier to get it done.
Posted by David at 12:11 AM | Comments (7)
January 08, 2006
Priorities moment to moment...
Our seminar leaders met last week to do some editing and fine-tuning of the GTD support materials, and Jason shared an anecdote that was one of those spur-of-the-moment great responses to a perennial seminar question: But how do I structure priorities in the system? His answer reflects a great example of why our lives are so complex with so many variables, any structured system that you felt you'd have to abide by, moment to moment, would be insufficient and create undue constraints. Here's the gist:
If your cellphone rings while you're doing something else, and you notice who the caller is, how many things are you likely to consider in your decision to answer it or not. If you decide not to answer, and in a minute they call again, how many other things go through your mind about whether to answer it then?
Simple situation, but not really...
Posted by David at 02:11 PM | Comments (4)
January 06, 2006
Speaking of good quotes, God, and GTD...
My buddy Andrew Whaley passed this one on, that I hadn't read before:
The enemy often tries to make us attempt and start many projects so that we will be overwhelmed with too many tasks, and therefore achieve nothing and leave everything unfinished. Sometimes he even suggests the wish to undertake some excellent work that he foresees we will never accomplish. This is to distract us from the prosecution of some less excellent work that we would have easily completed. He does not care how many plans and beginnings we make, provided nothing is finished. - St. Francis de Sales
Posted by David at 12:00 AM | Comments (7)
December 23, 2005
Power of the Someday/Maybe list
A recent e-mail from someone in our network - another great example of the more-than-meets-the-eye syndrome of GTD:
Hey David,Never underestimate the power of the Someday/Maybe List
A quick note to share with you something that happened to me a couple days ago. During my weekly review while reading through my list of someday/maybe items one of them popped-up crying for attention. Typically I breeze through this section but on this day for some reason I really focused on what I why this item was there.
The one liner read "SEAT Mary inquiry". Right there I sent a 12 word email (under 2 minutes) to a colleague of mine in Boston that read: Did Mary ever send the SEAT information we discussed back in August? A domino effect followed. He contacted Mary, she wrote back to both of us and now after a few emails I have a summer intern, a new tool to improve the direction of my program and the possibility of a nice fat grant down the pipeline. All of this because of a single item that kept waiting for its moment to shine. I am glad I caught it.
What I have learned is that things are not necessarily what they seem. This small pebble ended up doing a big splash in the pond - by the same token, big boulders might end up being small menial things hence the need to constantly evaluate our aim. I had a tendency to label the "someday/maybe" list as trivial and unimportant - now I think of it as an incubator of great ideas that are waiting to shine. You don't plant bulbs in winter, there's a time for everything. I digress. Happy ho ho, - Azur Moulaert - Burlington, Vermont
Posted by David at 12:00 AM | Comments (5)
December 18, 2005
Bigger games, better frames...
Spent big part of this weekend with Steve Kowalski, a great "friend of the court" to us, leading Anne, Marian, Kathryn and me through discussions to upgrade our own understanding of how best to communicate and collaborate with larger organizations around the cultural and strategic issues that GTD supports. With the successes we've been experiencing in that arena, we're being asked more and more to help frame our work for larger corporate roll-out possibilities, and it's great to have people like Steve in our camp to better negotiate those often murky waters. (Steve's head of learning and development for a major biotech company).
Thinking at the fire...
Posted by David at 05:26 PM | Comments (9)
December 03, 2005
Midwest cold and fun mention of GTD in a blog...
Catching up on email this morning in very cold Dayton, Ohio, where I finished a seminars for the U. Dayton's Executive Development Program. Earlier in the week did an IMS (Institute for Management Studies) session in Detroit, with 170+ people, including lots of Daimler Chrysler folks. Now I'll be off back to Ojai, which one always appreciates after being in the cold Midwest (little moron?) (That's a joke, folks, please don't send hate mail from the Midwest - it's really a lovely place).
One of my staff forwarded me this link to Bill Peschel's blog. I don't know Bill (I don't think...but you never know!) but I like his style...
Posted by David at 06:47 AM | Comments (6)
October 27, 2005
Outcome thinking rocks!
Love it when we get this kind of feedback. Simple as it is, just training ourselves to think about what the outcomes we are working toward really are - really - is something that doesn't necessarily show up by itself... [This is from my insurance agent - great guy, runs the Carroll Insurance Group in Westlake, CA.]
David - As we have discussed in the past, so much of what you teach goes beyond productivity and GTD. Here's a true life example: Earlier this year, I was working on a new business launch with a team of people that were all new to me. We were discussing a critical aspect of the project that I thought we all understood. At the end of the meeting, almost as an after thought, I asked "So, how will we know that we've accomplished our goals? What will this look like when we're done?" They replied "Well, we'll know we're successful because we'll have X, Y, and Z in place". The only problem was, I thought that the project required A, B, and C. Turns out that, after two hours of conversation about the same project, we were operating under entirely different assumptions. It took us another hour, but everyone finally got on the same page. The point is, had I not asked this key DavidCo question, we would have had a major trainwreck that could have severely impacted the launch of the company. Thanks David! - Patrick Carroll
Posted by David at 07:23 PM | Comments (2)
October 06, 2005
Nice description of the our RoadMap focus
Got a nice e-mail from Mike Flanagan, VP at Intrepid Learning Solutions, a long-time GTDer and informal coach to us in the e-learning space, regarding the dual emphasis needed for control and clarity I've been attempting to frame with my new seminar.
RoadMap emphasizes the need to balance process with perspective. When you're getting started with GTD, it's easy to be all process all the time--mastering all of your tasks but perhaps losing sight of the big picture. The result is that you become a runway level whirlwind, but you never really take off. By making vertical engagement part of the process, the RoadMap model helps provide the clarity and creativity that can get lost in the next action shuffle.
Thanks, Mike. I'm going to incorporate that "process with perspective" phrase into the GTD lexicon!
Posted by David at 08:45 PM
October 01, 2005
According to the Guardian...
New article on me/GTD just out in the Guardian. It was apparently the cover story in the newly launched "Business Sense," the Guardian's monthly guide to new technology and thinking for small to medium-sized businesses.
The reporter, Ben Hammersley, a delightfully charming chap who did the London RoadMap seminar with us (wearing his classy black bowler the whole time), said that he had come across my book and one weekend while his wife was away on a trip, he just read Part II and "followed directions." Everything wound up in a huge pile in his living room, which he cranked through, and when his wife came home she was amazed by how many things had gotten done around the house. Ben said he was basically in stun mode for a few days, but well worth it!
Posted by David at 11:58 AM | Comments (3)
September 12, 2005
GTD and a culture
Wonderful anecdote I just received from one of our favorite clients - Kevin Wilde, the Chief Learning Officer for General Mills. We've been collaborating with Kevin and his terrific Organization Effectiveness team to integrate GTD into their culture.
Just encountered something you might find interesting ... As you know, we're two years into the GTD journey here at General Mills. With you and your great team's help, we have trained nearly 2,000 employees. It's exciting to see us reaching critical mass now and starting to realize the benefits we imagined. So here's a pleasant surprise we didn't expect: A GTD grad who told me today she just transitioned to a new job and it was the smoothest handoff and the most powerful start-up she ever had in her career. Reason? The successor and predecessor are GTD practitioners! As the two leaders sat down to turn over the role: - the resource and project files were in great shape, - the various job-related task lists and @agendas were used as a discussion guide, - the levels from runway and above were used to set start-up priorities and understand overall job charter.So the new leader is off to a great start. And the predecessor can move on to her new role having brought terrific closure to the old job. Now that's "Getting Things Done." - Kevin Wilde
Posted by David at 08:41 AM | Comments (2)
September 06, 2005
GTD and "body projects"
People have always seemed at least slightly bemused in seminars when they see some "body project" on my list - fix this, finish up that, replace this, etc. But today I was inspired in a slightly unsettling way by someone who really has one. Kathryn and I had lunch here in London with a dear old friend and very senior professional who's been a champion of GTD and our work for years, who's dealing now with a rather rare form of cancer. He mentioned that one of the great things about the GTD thought process that's made a huge difference to him is in being able to relate to the cancer as a "project." There's so much negative mystique about cancer, apparently, that the more one can view the illness as simply something to be dealt with, with actions to be taken, the healthier it is for the psyche (and who knows, then, how much for the body?)
A savvy and awesomely sobering perspective, to be sure.
We are coming to understand health not as the absence of disease, but rather as the process by which individuals maintain their sense of coherence (i.e. sense that life is comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful) and ability to function in the face of changes in themselves and their relationships with their environment. - Aaron Antonovsky
Posted by David at 01:54 PM | Comments (3)
July 29, 2005
Lunch with Lew, the AquaJogger guy
Had a lovely lunch today with Lew Thorne, the CEO of AquaJogger. Lew contacted me a while ago - he's an avid GTDer (he had both my books with more underlines and highlights than anyone I think I've ever seen!) His son lives in Ojai and is getting married today, so he happened to be in town and looked me up. Lew's in his 60's, but still runs hurdles (something about those Eugene, Oregon folks...!) The AquaJogger looks like a great device for non-impact training in the water. He's still in ramp mode, looking for a way to leverage the product and brand now that it's proven itself. Delighted to hear how GTD impacted his ability to get it off the ground.
Me and Lew Thorne today
Posted by David at 03:13 PM | Comments (2)
July 20, 2005
Gotta share a testimonial...
We get testimonials of all sorts, all the time, but this one last night from a CPA, Brian Scott, was particularly cool...
I just wanted to spend 2 minutes or so telling you how your book, Getting Things Done has helped me already. I began reading the book, and also installing your system. On the day when the desk drawers were emptied (July 13, 2005), I found three vouchers from Delta Airlines totaling $150.00. They were set to expire July 13, 2005. I could not believe the vouchers were found on time instead of late. So I went to Delta ticket counter, and purchased two tickets for myself and wife, and used two free tickets for my daughters. To make a long story short, I got the tickets for our wedding anniversary two months early. I was able to save money, all of our seats are together on both flights, and we are flying at the hours we really wanted. My wife will not have to nag me about where we are going for our anniversary, and I don't have to think about it everyday until it was set up. Your system has already changed my life. I am so excited about the future, it seems like this was one of the missing links. Also, I would have never in the past had the time, nor energy to fire off an e-mail to a writer of a book.
Reminds me of the time several years ago when Kelly Forrister on our staff was coaching someone and they found thousands of $ worth of stock in a drawer they didn't know they had! (Would be great if we could just work for a piece of the action...)
Posted by David at 09:37 AM | Comments (4)
June 22, 2005
Richard Leider and the big picture stuff
Lovely to share a stage again with Richard Leider last week at the Conference Board event. His message about living with meaning from your uniqueness bears hearing regularly. Interesting stuff from my notes:
- Elders, when asked how they would live their life differently if they could do it again, consistently said:
1. They'd be more reflective
2. They'd be more courageous, living more authentically
3. They'd work harder to understand their own personal bottom line (purpose)
- Two-thirds of the people in history who have lived over the age of 65 are alive today.
- $1700 of what we pay for every GM car goes to fund the retirement of 400,000 current GM pensioners, 300 of whom are over 100 years old.
- Isolation is the new poverty.
--------
Richard and I are the same age, and hopefully we'll cross paths some more. Nice to see that his Inventure Group has done so well with such a valuable but potentially "squishy" topic for the buttoned-down boys.
Posted by David at 01:17 AM
June 19, 2005
Tracking rote projects vs complex ones
On a call this morning with one of my clients, he shared something as an aside that he was doing with his project tracking in Outlook, which I thought might be useful for some people. He says he has a number of projects that are straightfoward - linear sequences of obvious next steps. Do A then B then C, etc., without much variance or detail (projects like "Set up baseball game event with the kids" and "Replace the tail light on the van.")
He codes those just as the next action, ("Call the service department") but puts two carats at the end ">>" with the outcome. then he just moves it to the next action lists as it moves forward until it's done. That way he keeps his "Projects" category as such discrete for those projects that need not-that-obvious, more detailed, or creative thinking. He says it's easier for him to review where he's at, keeping those kinds of projects separate. He can still filter and see the simple projects, but makes sense to keep the "Projects" list one that gets more of the 10,000-ft attention.
Might be useful to make that distinction. If any of the rest of you try that out, or do something similar, let me know.
Posted by David at 08:37 AM | Comments (5)
May 26, 2005
Handling this-week-due projects...
Got an email this morning from a fan, who still had a good question for me about managing "vertically." It's a common one from a lot of folks who get into GTD, so I thought I'd share it, and my response...
"Once I've brainstormed a project, gotten clear on the outcome, and created my first action, things work great if the project is long term and I can dedicate the necessary time in a weekly review and the necessary space in my file cabinet for support materials. But when I have a project that needs to be done in less than a week and that doesn't merit the creation of a project support materials folder, I can't get the project off my mind for lack of a trusted method of getting the project done."
My response: I've never found any particular tool or model for daily review of project actions, simply because every project has a different level of granularity that it might need to stay on track. The general perspective on this is to use all the action lists and weekly review to primarily feel comfortable about what you're NOT doing, while you're spending most of the week on that project that's in your face.
Posted by David at 07:12 AM | Comments (10)
May 23, 2005
What, indeed, is "GTD"
Because of seemingly ever-expanding number of GTD-related discussions, ads and blogs, I wrote up an "official" definition of "GTD."
I am asking that if any of you are using "GTD" in any way in your materials you include a link to that page, so it will minimize any confusion or ambiguity about what you are referring to:
http://www.davidco.com/what_is_gtd.php
The trademark for "GTD" is in the final stages of the approval process, and we will be publishing some guidelines about it; but for now we would appreciate you helping us out in that regard. It was nice of some of the folks at the DavidCo Forum to already start the process.
Posted by David at 03:33 PM | Comments (14)
May 14, 2005
Irreverence hard at work...
I'm starting to collect best practices for avoiding getting things done (AGTD). Two of my favorites are FreeCell (which comes with Windows and is particularly numb-brain-friendly) and GO - the Japanese board game - for which I use the computer program Goliath, created a while ago by Mark Boon. I learned GO when I was 17, have played it off and on over the years, and as software got a lot faster, the AI folks were finally able to create a computerized version that's not too bad (it's more intricate in options than chess). (Not sure if it's still available but a quick Web surf gave this address). GO is not quite as good for escaping if I'm really toast, because it does require a little mental horsepower, but the white and black stones are so pretty...
So if you have any favorite avoidance toys and tricks, add to Comments or forward to me. I'm collecting.
"If you don't know what you're doing, any gadget will do." - David Allen
Posted by David at 08:09 PM | Comments (19)
May 10, 2005
Macs and GTD
Apparently there's a rapidly growing awareness of GTD in the Mac community. Mention in MacWorld this month, and emails like this I got last night...
Getting things done in OS X
Hi David, I just wanted to tip you about my blog post about getting things done on the new Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). I guess you're a PC user, but maybe some of your friends use Macs. Thanks for making such a great book. =) Oyvind Solstad
Norway's on line with GTD, too... cool.
And FYI, our CTO, Robert Peake, is a serious Mac head, as is Jim Rider, our creative director, plus a couple of others on staff. Hopefully we'll dispel rumors that we're not Mac-friendly... I'm actually jealous of people who are bidigital...
Posted by David at 06:35 PM | Comments (9)
April 27, 2005
Nice review of the Add-In in PC Pro
Just got forwarded a review of our Outlook Add-In in PC PRO. Nice words words from Ian Betteridge - thanks!
Posted by David at 08:11 PM | Comments (1)
January 30, 2005
Web-based self-management?
I'm investing heavily right now in people and systems to build in highly leveraged support mechanisms for people who want to stay connected to black belt and beyond, in our game. We're adding a whole top-end component to the business this year that will offer those kinds of tools. As I'm still in r&d mode, I'd love to hear from anyone who has actually used any Web-based stuff for personal- and/or organizational behavior change, and what your experience has been. Good, bad, ugly... doesn't matter, it's all good fodder for us right now.....
Posted by David at 04:45 AM | Comments (28)
August 30, 2004
GTD on Business Week bestseller list
Just got a message from Penguin that GTD is #6 on the Business Week bestseller list, and it's been on the list for the last five months. Who knew? Cool...
Posted by David at 08:49 AM | Comments (7)
August 24, 2004
"Stuck" vs. GTD - Keith Yamashita and a FastCo poll
Was just browsing the new Fast Company mag tonight and saw them publish the result of their reader poll they took about the most challenging state of "stuck" - inspired by Keith Yamashita's consulting and writing about getting un-stuck (p. 14). 41% said "directionless," 24% said "overwhelmed," 17% said "battle-worn," and 16% said "alone." Noteworthy that the two biggest stucknesses are generally cured by a sufficient dose of GTD. Fun to note, too, that Keith is a GTD champion (he took a seminar in Boston with me years ago), helped us get a look-and-feel for my first book, and is one of the most creative and intelligent folks I've ever run across. He puts that to good use in his work with corporate culture (like, the real thing). His new book, Unstuck: A Tool for Yourself, Your Team, and Your World is a great read and manual.
Posted by David at 05:23 AM | Comments (1)
March 18, 2004
My Paperback in China
Hey, got back tonight and in my in-basket was the new Chinese paperback edition of Getting Things Done.
Maybe it'll have something to do with the future of the world...
Posted by David at 08:57 AM | Comments (9)
