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January 29, 2007

Here, there and everywhere

I've had quite an interesting month of travel. I spent the first week of this year at a wonderful University in Atlanta doing a seminar for the faculty, followed by some 1:1 coaching with some of the senior administration. I love doing seminar/coaching combinations because I get to see firsthand what people do with GTD after a class. Everyone seems to take away and implement slightly different pieces of GTD. While some people really embrace getting their email under control, others tackle their paper files and piles. I've had people tell me that the ONLY thing they did after the class was to get a P-Touch labeler or Levenger notebook and that changed their life!

After Atlanta I went to Missoula, Montana to do a two-day GTD seminar for a wildlife foundation. What amazes me sometimes is that no matter what the organization, job role or location, there's something in GTD for everyone. In fact, sometimes non-profit organizations resonate with GTD the most since they are used to working with limited resources and getting things done with less effort/time/expense is key.

This week I'm off to New York City for a class I'm doing specifically for administrative staff at a Wall St. financial services firm. With the short cycles that admin staff typically have, some of the organizing pieces we suggest for email and paperflow tend to be a little bit different.

My husband and I even managed to take a little vacation in Key West, Florida this weekend. Here I am at the southernmost point in the continental U.S.:

And in my copious spare time, we are moving into a new house next week. I swear, I couldn't do a fraction of what I get done, with as little stress as I have, without GTD. It's not just a system for me, it's a way of life.

Posted by Kelly at 03:28 PM | Comments (5)

January 22, 2007

Email Etiquette Tips

I was presenting a seminar today in Missoula, Montana and we were talking about email etiquette as it relates to productivity. Here are some of the highlights that I've personally gotten value from over the years:

*Reserve the To: field for who has the action, everyone else goes in CC: (if you've ever received an email with 14 of you in the To: field and you could all take action so NO ONE takes action you'll get value from this one.)

*Use a code such as "NNB" in the subject line for quick messages back and forth to tell someone there's "Nothing New Below" in the message body. This makes processing email based on subject lines alone a snap.

*If the subject line changes, change the subject line. The overly-used "Checking In" might have been a great subject line 8 emails ago, but it might not have anything to do with the current thread.

*Don't cc: God and the world. I find that people tend to be overly generous in sharing information on email. Consider that every email that someone gets take 30 seconds to process on average. Is this worth their time? If you're not sure, ask them if they want to be cc:d on that kind of stuff.

*If you're getting emails that don't relate to your current areas of focus, interests etc. let the person know. They may not realize you don't need/want to get cc:d on that.

One of the most comprehensive lists of email etiquette that I've seen lately was put out by ITSecurity.com. They've also got some great tips for eliminating spam. Both worth a read, in my opinion.

Posted by Kelly at 08:34 PM | Comments (5)

January 17, 2007

Moving faster

One of the things I've gotten great value from over the years is learning the speed keys for the key programs I use. David Allen has said that learning speed keys (and improving typing speed) will make you about 4x faster over using the mouse.

For example, in my Lotus Notes mail, Ctrl+M creates a new mail message from anywhere in Notes. I'm often in a database and need to draft a quick message. Ctrl+M saves me about 3 key strokes. For Outlook users, your Mail shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+M. In GMail, the letter "c" will compose a new message if you're in your Inbox and have shortcuts turned on in Settings. For Entourage, Command + Option +N will launch a new email.

Last summer our staff got ActiveWords software installed on our computers at the request of David, who is a big fan of that application. To fully disclose here, it looks like we now recommend this product in our online store, although that's not why I am a fan of this cool product. I recently started using it and have found it very handy for taking a few of my shortcuts even a step further. For example, with ActiveWords, I created a little script to not only engage the Ctrl+M shortcut in my email, but it auto addresses the To: field. For example, my "JFo" shortcut in ActiveWords automatically launches a Notes email form and fills in the address field with my husband John's email address. I also created a script for creating Tasks in Palm Desktop. By activating ActiveWords on my desktop (Ctrl + space bar) I can add things to my Palm Desktop Task lists without having to open up Palm Desktop, go to Tasks and click New. I simply use the keyword "todo" in ActiveWords, no matter what I'm in the middle of on my computer, and it brings me to the exact place I need to create a new Task. Great for on-the-fly capture into my system.

I'm sure I'm not even using ActiveWords or the shortcuts in any of my programs to their full capacity. In fact, even with a program like Lotus Notes that I've used for more than 10 years, my husband was over my shoulder the other day and saw me clicking to get to the Replicator page and then clicking the Start Now button. He said ever so lovingly and neutrally, "Why don't you do Alt+blah+blah....it's SO much faster?"

Yes, we are the GTD super-geek couple.

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

January 12, 2007

GTD is not just about getting organized

One of the easiest things to get out of GTD is to feel more organized, yet getting organized is just one of 5 key phases for mastering your workflow. Cleaning up your space and organizing it may bring short-term relief, but it may not bring long-term trust if what you've organized doesn't even scratch the surface of what your work is and what has your attention. There are actually 5 phases of GTD for mastering your workflow with best practices within each:

Collect - Gather everything that has your attention in all forms it comes to you (your own mind, from others, by hard copy, into email etc.)
Process - Make decisions about it ALL asking, "What's the outcome I'm looking for?" "What will be true when I'm done with this thing?" Knowing what done will look like gives you clear direction to then ask, "What's the next action?"
Organize - Create a trusted system and set of lists that will show you what you need. If you're setting up lists, there will be 4 key action buckets to view your work: Projects/Outcome, Actions, Calendar and Waiting For.
Review - Review it all regularly (about every 7 days) so that you are clear, current and creative in all of the ways you want to be. This weekly review is also one of the best things you can do to build confidence in your system.
Do - Choose what you can do with the greatest level of trust and intuition in the moment knowing that what you're choosing from represents your total work, with all actions decided, organized in a place you trust and have reviewed regularly.

Posted by Kelly at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)

January 10, 2007

What's your quit point?

I was asked a phrase this morning in an exercise class that's been intriguing me: "What's your quit point?" During physical exercise, it's easy to convince myself to quit when I get tired, especially if the place I'm going is further than I've ever gone before. That further point can be subtle in a sport like yoga (pivot my foot one inch to the left) or obvious in running (run one extra mile.) Learning to recognize my quit point in whatever I'm doing gives me the power to move beyond what I think I can or can't do. It can become like a game where I win no matter what.

What are the quit points in your workflow? Here are some typical ones I've certainly been guilty of at times:

- Opening an email, scanning it and closing it because it just seems like too much to handle right now. If I'm really feeling clever I'll mark the email as unread or print it, as if that will somehow bring divine inspiration about what to do.

- Doing the Inbox shuffle with hard copy stuff looking for the easiest ones and throwing the rest of the stack back into In.

- Trying to plan a project in my head based on one thought, idea or meeting and reacting with next actions rather than leading with an outcome.

If I'm really applying GTD, no matter what I'm dealing with often takes less time, effort and brain power to figure out what to do than I think it will.

You need to think about your stuff more than you think, but not as much as you're afraid you might. - David Allen

One of the most valuable GTD keys for this is the Fundamental Process with any input:

What's the outcome? What's the next action?

Deciding what to do doesn't mean I need to do it in that moment. If my quit point is to close an email because it seems to unclear, overwhelming or vague, do I need more information? Am I clear what the outcome is? Is this part of my job? Am I trying to rush through my Inbox without giving things the proper attention they deserve? What would support me best here in this situation?

Coming back to that Fundamental Process demystifies whatever I'm dealing with. Two simple questions I can use no matter how complex something seems.

Posted by Kelly at 12:46 PM | Comments (1)