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September 28, 2006

Starting Small

Even though organized is just one piece of the GTD system, it's often one that brings great satisfaction. I don't know anyone who doesn't get some sense of completion and freed-up attention from having an organized space.

I spent 5 minutes this morning deleting some of my browser bookmarks. I'd gotten a little overzealous lately on creating bookmarks for websites that interest me. That list had grown to over 2 pages and every time I tried to get to the ones I use the most I had to wade through a long list. It became an annoying drag on my system. They had become the electronic equivalent of books on my night stand that I "might" like to read. I whittled the list down to a third of what it was. What a simple, easy thing to do and it wasn't on any to do list.

Next time you find yourself with a weird window of time, see what you can do to free up your attention from something that's been nagging at you. Clean a file, delete or archive some old email, get rid of those unused icons on your desktop, enter a business card that's been hanging around into your address book or donate the 67 soy sauce packets from your desk drawer to the kitchen.

Get organized doesn't have to be an all-day, rainy Saturday adventure. When is the last time you really felt like doing that anyway when that opportunity showed up? 5 minutes here and there can make a great difference in the space and your attention right now. Start small.

Posted by Kelly at 03:54 PM | Comments (3)

September 26, 2006

Stepping back

I've been watching my workflow lately and noticing that simply getting up and leaving what I'm doing does amazing things for my clarity when I come back.

I can have days where I churn away on all sorts of things on my laptop. Some of it is very productive and other times it's just "snacking" on more input and not getting completion on anything of value. When the latter starts showing up, I've been noticing that if I get up and walk away from my computer to get water, go for a walk, or take a stretch, I have a much fresher perspective when I come back than if I had sat there trying to chew through something over and over again.

It's funny, I didn't really connect this until I started doing Sudoku puzzles. I can stare at a puzzle trying to figure out solutions and come up blank. If I leave it even for 5 minutes, then come back to it, I see something that I did not see before.

Posted by Kelly at 02:56 PM | Comments (4)

September 25, 2006

GTD and Notes...coming soon!

For those of you anticipating the release of the GTD and Lotus Notes guide, it's still in the works, but not quite done. We're working on final touches now. These things always seem to take longer than I think they will! I'm really happy with the way the document came out and I think you all will be too.

To my awesome beta testers--thanks for your patience. I'll notify you by email when it's done. I don't know exactly when that will be, so it's probably safest to say soon.

Thanks.
Kelly

Posted by Kelly at 02:48 PM | Comments (2)

Why do you maintain your lists?

My experience with GTD is that it puts me in a place of maximum productivity, clarity and freedom to get things done.

I often get asked/challenged in seminars, "Don't you spend a lot of time maintaining all of this?" People will see my lists, of which there are many, and assume it takes more work maintaining the lists than it is to do the work on the lists.

My typical response is, "Yes, of course it takes time to maintain this, but GTD saves me more time than not doing any of this." If I didn't have any lists, I'd likely be re-hashing, re-looking, regurgitating the same stuff over and over again because there would be no trusted place to show me my current work in any logical way.

Over the years, even as my life and work has become more complex, my maintain time now is as streamlined as possible. It's certainly gotten easier for me as I've built trust and consistency in my systems. I have as many lists as I need, but as few as I can get by with.

I don't maintain the lists because I like maintaining lists. I do all of this because I know what's on the other side of this for me: freedom. It's like exercise. I don't go to the gym because I like walking on a treadmill. I go to the gym for what I get out of it: vibrant health and fitness.

If you've had some experience with what GTD is all about, why do you do it?

Posted by Kelly at 08:56 AM | Comments (5)

September 22, 2006

It's easier than you think

You've probably heard by the now that getting your Inbox to zero on a regular basis is one of the Holy Grails of GTD. Why? Because it takes less effort to work from a place of zero than to keep things in your Inbox. Unprocessed emails are a drag on your time and attention just like stacks of unprocessed paper on your desk. It forces your brain to keep re-looking, re-evaluating and re-question what it has already seen.

I did a coaching session recently and tackled this email challenge. This is an extremely successful company with highly-skilled staff dealing with lots of volume, particularly email. The person I coached was convinced that getting email to zero (and getting it back there regularly) would never happen. I knew it wouldn't be that hard. And I knew she'd get so much value experiencing zero and getting to the reality of what the actionable ones really were among a sea of so many sitting there.

We started with about 700 in the Inbox. She processed out the non-actionable backlog first. Then we looked for the obvious ones to delete or file (sorting by date, sender or subject makes this easier.) If that's only a few dozen or few hundred, it wont be take long to do that. If you're dealing with thousands (87,000+ in the Inbox is my standing record with a client so far) then it's probably not realistic or a good use of your time to go through those individually. Consider creating a folder called Archive or Old emails and park any that you feel confident you don't have action embedded in there. Then what you're left with is current action. Park those in an Action email folder and/or capture your next action on a list.

After processing out the backlog, she was left with an astonishing 7 actionable emails that were parked away in the Action folder. Inbox was empty. She had never seen In at zero
and was elated. That whole process took less than an hour and she felt like she had a trusted place to go back to for Action.

Give it a try. I bet you'll be amazed to find it's easier than you think.

Posted by Kelly at 10:05 AM

September 18, 2006

Calendar vs. Action lists

I often get asked in seminars, "What goes on your calendar versus action lists?" Here are two easy guidelines for working with these two critical pieces of your GTD system:

- If needs to be done ON a specific day or time, put it on the Calendar
- If it can by done BY a specific day or as soon as you can get to it, use Action lists (Tasks, To Do's etc.)

If you look at my calendar on any particular day, it doesn't often have a lot on it. It doesn't mean I'm not getting things done, it just means that only those things I consider expiring at the end of that day would get put on the calendar as either an untimed event (what Outlook or Notes calls an "All Day Event") or on a specific time. Anything else would be put on an Action list.

When I look at my calendar, it gives me an absolutely trusted view of what HAS to happen today, as best I know. So when fantastic new opportunities (or problems) show up, my calendar is where I'll look first to see what that's going to affect and may need to get renegotiated. A huge benefit of using the calendar this way is that I don't have to carry over a daily to do list from day to day. Tasks is my ongoing list of actions, not the calendar.

Posted by Kelly at 05:39 PM | Comments (8)

September 11, 2006

Perspective + Control

I took a little mini-vacation this weekend to Colorado. I love the mountains and air quality compared to Los Angeles. I also love what a little break like that can do for me to unhook from the daily grind. I was appreciating my own relationship to GTD, being a student of this going on 15 years now. I appreciate how the Weekly Review gives me perspective and control to feel good about what's not getting done when I take breaks like this. There's nothing worse than trying to go on vacation when the unknown loose ends are nipping at my ankles. The Weekly Review allows me to get some perspective on where I've been and where I'm going and also gain control over my runway/actions level so I know what won't get done while I unhook.

Here I am on a hike with the beautiful Rocky Mountain National Park in the background. This was about 9,000 feet, so I took the opportunity to rest my lungs as much as take photos!

Posted by Kelly at 11:44 AM | Comments (1)