« August 2007 | Main | October 2007 »
September 25, 2007
Join me on a podcast about GTD
I'm doing a 30 minute podcast about GTD tomorrow at noon EST ( Wednesday, September 26th) with the women over at The Sassy Ladies. The call is open to anyone who would like to listen. To register, sign up for their email newsletter, and they will email the call-in information to you.
Posted by Kelly at 10:29 AM | Comments (5)
September 22, 2007
Mind like Scooby
You've probably seen the David Allen NoteTaker. Well, check this out. I was doing a seminar for an aerospace company last week and a participant gave me the ultimate note taker wallet:
I laughed, picturing myself in a client meeting pulling out my furry Scooby Doo note taker to capture an important thought. Hey, why not? Might as well have fun with your gear!
Posted by Kelly at 09:29 AM | Comments (1)
September 19, 2007
You don't DO projects
There's a best practice in GTD that will drive your entire system: You don't do projects, you do next actions.
Ever wonder why some things sit on your lists and you never seem to get them done? You know the ones that you snarl at every time you can your list? If you're like most people, you probably think it's not getting done because you're procrastinating. You may not be procrastinating on it at all. There's a good chance that what you've got listed is not your next action, or it's actually the name of a project, so some part of you keeps skipping over it because what you're seeing is not actually what you need to DO.
When I go in to coach people on GTD, they'll often pull out one big list that they've been calling their To Do list. Scanning down the list with them I can tell what they've got is a jumbled mess of Project names, next actions, future actions, reminders, waiting for's, someday/maybe items and bits of reference. The first thing I'll do to is suggest they rebuild that list into the following distinct buckets:
Projects - a master list of your desired outcomes that require more than one action step
Next Actions - your very next actions (project related or not and includes only the next actions), sorted by context
Waiting For - actions waiting on someone or something else
Someday - things you might somehow, someday want to do
Calendar - for the actions that require a day or time
Reference - non-actionable information you just need to hold on to
My projects list is one of my most trusted lists. It tells me all of those multiple step outcomes I am tracking toward completion. That includes anything from:
Replant the garden
Submit the 2008 budget
Publish an article on GTD & BlackBerry
I look at the Projects list about once a week in my Weekly Review. Day-to-day I'm primarily working off of my Next Actions lists, Waiting For list & Calendar (what GTD calls the Runway.) Another thing that's valuable about having the Projects list vs. Actions is that when I mark things off as Complete on the Actions list, I've still got the safety net of the Projects list to remind me that I still have a bigger outcome I am tracking. Then I go ahead and capture the very next action on my lists.
Scan whatever represents your "To Do" lists. Anything on those lists that you've been calling an action, but it's really a project? You might find it'll unstick itself if you separate those two from each other.
Posted by Kelly at 01:26 PM | Comments (11)
September 14, 2007
Becoming Master & Commander of your Inbox
While GTD can apply to nearly any tool you use to manage email, I wrote an article addressed for you BlackBerry(R) users out there. It's about how to become Master & Commander of your Inbox. It gives some good tips & strategies for getting email under control again and a few different ways to do that, GTD style.
Posted by Kelly at 01:02 PM
September 13, 2007
Walking a little lighter
I received this great testimonial from a participant about the power of GTD Mindsweep:
"I am already doing things with a "lighter step" this morning due to the psyche lift from the mindsweep of the last few days. Things are a little easier and I am being more productive already."
In seminars, I usually give the participants about 8 to 10 minutes for clearing their head, with a couple of guidelines:
*Write down what's got your attention.
*Write as much as you can, as fast as you can.
*Don't organize or analyze it, just collect.
*Let your brain bounce between personal and professional agreements. Follow it wherever it goes.
*Don't commit yourself to doing anything with what you write down yet, just collect at this point.
*This is not a To Do list yet since you haven't decided what your next action is, it's just a "Stuff" list.
It's amazing what a short period of time like 10 minutes can do to unlock in your psyche, if you give yourself the freedom to let go of it from your mental To Do list. David Allen has always said that writing it down puts you in control of it. It's hard to corral it when it's stacked like a mental sticky note on top of hundreds of other ones that are begging for your attention.
People often ask me how often I clear my head. I do a Mindsweep as often as I can and at least once a week in my Weekly Review. These days, keeping things in my head as my only reminder feels weird. So does leaving the house without some kind of collection tool to get stuff out of my head, like a paper pad or my PDA.
If you haven't given yourself the gift of clearing your head lately, take 5 minutes before you end your day today or when you start your day tomorrow and do a Mindsweep. I bet you won't regret it.
Posted by Kelly at 01:57 PM
September 04, 2007
Beaming your business card
Years ago, when I did my e-newsletter & web site called Palm Mastery (which some of you may remember) I used to share tips & tricks for using Palm handhelds. I've been using one since the early "Pilot" models and use a Treo 650 these days. While some has changed, much of the OS has not, and there are a few tips & tricks I still share with people that still make it a fun and useful device. Here's one:
1) Create yourself as a contact in your address book with whatever information you would share publicly.
2) Then choose Menu>Select Business Card. Your Palm will ask:
"Make this name your business card?"
3) Tap OK
A business card icon will show up at the top of your record:
What that means is that your record will be deemed your electronic business card. That is the record that will be beamed to another Palm user when you select Menu>Beam Business Card or hold down the Contact button (if you have one.)
Funny story around this. A good friend of mine did this beaming trick, but forgot he had put his key information like his ATM pin# in the "note" field of his own contact record. He was at a Comdex show happily beaming his business card to people not realizing he was also beaming this information in the note field as well. Whoops.
Posted by Kelly at 04:05 PM
Chatting about the Tablet PC
I did a podcast with my tech buddy Eric Mack about the new Tablet PC. Eric's been using one for a while and was showing me some of the cool features. Will be Interesting to see if more laptops take a swing in that direction. Give it a listen if you're interested.
Posted by Kelly at 03:53 PM
