June 21, 2008

@BrainToast

It's 4pm on a Friday. You want to keep cranking through stuff (at least until the boss leaves) but you know you're mentally fried and know you really don't have any business doing important things or talking to important people. That's a perfect time for a context called @BrainToast:

Posted by Kelly at 11:35 AM | Comments (13)

April 23, 2008

Sun, Fun & GTD

I'm doing a public Getting Things Done class next week in Newport Beach, California. Here's your chance to master your GTD skills, as well as pull "learn to surf" off of your Someday/Maybe list!

Posted by Kelly at 10:26 AM | Comments (4)

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 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 | Comments (0)

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)

November 27, 2006

A bird's view

I spent last week in Utah, near the amazing Zion National Park. On Thanksgiving Day we took a hike up to one of the peaks where I got a chance to look down on the valley. We climbed about 1,000 feet for this hike. If you look closely you can see the tiny dots of cars down below.

I was also off email for 6 days--always a great experience for me to disconnect from the world that way. Sure enough, despite hundreds of emails upon my return, nothing was so urgent it couldn't wait or be covered by someone else. When I'm in busy mode it can be hard to convince myself sometimes it's OK to unplug. But I don't think there's ever been a time where I've regretted when I have gone off-line and given my brain some breathing room from the day to day grind.

Posted by Kelly at 02:44 PM | Comments (5)

October 18, 2006

View from above

One of my joys of traveling for David Allen Company is seeing the world from 37,000 feet in the air. There's something about seeing things from that perspective that is relaxing for me. I was flying into Seattle the other night and caught this photo of the sun setting on my Treo:

I've got a busy few weeks of travel coming up. I'll be going to San Diego, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle and Vancouver. I love the travel aspect of my job. It's fun to be able to go to different places each week.

Happy travels...wherever your travels lead you.

Posted by Kelly at 08:56 AM | Comments (1)

July 16, 2006

The art of relaxation

We had 5 days of David Allen Company meetings last week. I caught a photo of David on the last evening after the meetings were done, enjoying some well-deserved time on the golf course:

We've got some great stuff in the pipeline coming up. I'm so jazzed to be a part of this team and having the opportunity to share GTD. It's great stuff and more to come....

Posted by Kelly at 03:52 PM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2006

Summer Nights

I love New York City in the summer. I'm here for two days working with a client on Wall St. Here's a view looking across the river to New Jersey.

I encouraged my group today to take time to implement GTD after the seminar. If you've tried, you know that a really thorough collect, process and organize can take a couple of hours, if not a couple of days, to really get complete. Carving out time, especially if it's quieter during summer holidays and vacations, can be a fantastic opportunity to get some semi-uninterrupted time in the office to get yourself setup.

Posted by Kelly at 06:52 PM | Comments (0)

April 02, 2006

Meeting with Oz

Someone asked me recently if we get much access to David Allen. It made me laugh, thinking of him behind a curtain like the Wizard of Oz. Today the delivery staff met at David's house. Here he is as I know him best--the kind of guy who enjoys the finer things in life, like hanging out with his dog on a sunny afternoon:

Posted by Kelly at 07:08 PM | Comments (3)