January 20, 2006

A contributed addendum to newsletter essay

Nice contribution from Bruce Morehouse in Maine, re: my recent newsletter essay about GTD and karate similarities:

David's comment about karate resonated particularly well with me. I'm 47, and have been pooping along in karate for six years. His analogies are all spot on, but there's one big one that I think he missed: Thinking about it doesn't count! I don't progress when I decide to work at it, I only progress when I DO work at it. If I think about practicing my katas, IT ACTUALLY CREATES OPEN LOOPS. If I practice my katas, my flow and moves get better and it closes the loops ("I really need to practice, no I really need to practice, if only I were more disciplined, etc.) If I think about getting on the rowing machine, I get the double negative of NOT getting in shape and of creating MORE self recrimination about getting in shape (multiple open loops!). Get on the machine, get in shape, feel better, loops closed.

Indeed, as someone said, knowledge can be gained from being around smart people; but wisdom is not attained by simply being around the wise.

Posted by David at 06:08 PM

December 16, 2005

The sport of "mind like water"

David Teten, co-author (with my nephew Scott Allen) of the Virtual Handshake, just sent me this Wikipedia link to Parkour. Pretty cool to create an art form of the most inexpensive and efficient urban navigation!

Posted by David at 08:58 AM | Comments (1)

December 14, 2005

To sleep, to dream, or...?.

Had a recent GTD seminar participant write me with this comment:

"Spent more than half the night awake as the next layer of lurking 'stuff' all came flooding to the surface once the first mass had been better organized! Didn't even know this latent demand was there - waiting to find a slot."

I've noticed over the years that when people get the first real GTD "hit," they either sleep better than they have in a long time, or they don't sleep at all, because of all the pent-up creative energy it uncorks. What's amazing to those of us who coach people with GTD one-on-one, is the wide range of effects this process can have. I'm sure at some point the science of attention will be much further developed, and this will all seem rather mundane. Until then, tally ho...!

Shed, as you do your garments,

your daily sins,

whether of omission or commission,

and you will wake a free man,

with a new life.

- Sir William Osler

Posted by David at 08:25 PM | Comments (4)

June 10, 2005

It's all about pruning...

Decompressing from a nonstop day on this cool Ojai evening, pinching the new growth off the ends of a couple of my bonsai, I'm catching the seed of what's got to be another major theme to understand and hone and, well - prune. Editing is where the action is. Many an author and screenwriter I've met confirm this.

So, what's the life/work equivalent of that germ of creative truth? Creativity is. Can't help it - anything alive grows. But that growth can take on meta-natural proportion when it is facilitated...by what? Pruning. Take the sentence down to half its words. Cut the dead wood out of your team. Unhook from the non-mission-critical projects.

The first thing is to have something to prune. Then, it's the ever-graceful dance of taking away that which is growing haphazard to allow the essence of the life form artistry to unfold and come to conscious expression. Or something like that...

(To be edited - ed.)

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun. So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself. He threshes you to make you naked. He sifts you to free you from your husks. He grinds you to whiteness. He kneads you until you are pliant; And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred heart. - Kahlil Gibran

Posted by David at 12:50 AM | Comments (6)

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)

September 20, 2004

Tickled fancy...

...productively doing nothing in Paris this week!

Posted by David at 03:22 AM | Comments (4)

April 28, 2004

Putting things on "pause"....

What are your "pause buttons"? I was on stage with Beverly Kaye this morning in Phoenix, and she mentioned a wonderful little trick that we all do, but probably not enough. She said, "What do you do to put the pause button on, so you can just stop and reflect about what you've been doing (like, this week) and what you want to be doing (like, next week)?" I reflected on what my own "pause buttons" were, and was heartened that I was able to come up with quite a few. A hot bath, pruning my trees, a nice dinner with my lady and friends, a good massage, a good movie, playing GO on my computer, to mention a few. These are real doing-nothing-with-a-vengeance kind of things that interrupt my patterns and give me very different kinds of zones to get into. I also do spiritual retreats at least once a year, sometimes more, and those are a biggee in this regard.

My a-ha is that I could use more of that pause that refreshes during my weekly review, or perhaps once a month, that's neither a completely think-of-nothing space nor a totally operational kind of debrief like my weekly review. Writing in my journal comes close to what  I think I need more of, but it's still not exactly what I saw I could use. There's still a place to develop for myself for a kind of self-reflection about how things are going...perhaps mapping to what I consider "20,000-ft" thinking - the checklist of areas of focus and interest in life and work. Hmmm. And I teach this stuff...!

Posted by David at 09:22 AM | Comments (4)

March 26, 2004

Martial artist becomes martial artist

I was copied today on one of the many fun kind of emails from participants in our seminars that we get - "The seminar I participated in at Deutsche Bank  was very informative and Ana Maria was excellent! 20 Minutes into the training it hit me like a ton of bricks. For I'm a 3rd degree black belt, training now for 14 years, but I forgot to apply my skills to the corporate world. I want to thank you and especially Ana Maria for the rebirth of the beginners' mind. Domo Arigato!"

Posted by David at 12:29 PM