June 20, 2009

The Nuances of Inbox Zero

I had an "ah-ha" moment yesterday, I think. The GTD workflow diagram, walks through a few key questions. The very first one is "What is it?" Before you even get to asking if it's actionable (yes or no) and then what you're going to about it (delete/do/delegate/defer), you need to figure out what it even is. Sounds simple and obvious enough, but I think skipping over that one question is what has so many people fusterclupped (my technical term for being confused and stuck) about getting In to zero. They skip that step, leave the email in the Inbox assuming there's some kind of action, but in reality, they haven't even given themselves time to assess the nature of the input, much less decide what to do about it.

That "What is it?" question is the assessment before the decision. That's the time where I'm giving myself the time to actually give some careful thought and consideration to what I'm dealing with, such as:
- What is this email asking me to do?
- Is this even part of my job?
- Am I in the To: field or CC:?

People ask me all of the time how I get my Inboxes to zero every day (or nearly every day.) Here's what works for me:
- I give myself enough processing time
- I've gotten really fast at the "assessment" step
- I have a simple clear model to know what to do with something after I assess what it is
- I'm really clear about my current 20,000 areas of focus to know whether something is my job or not
- I'm really current with my projects & actions to know if I can/should say no or yes

I'm going to do a webinar this summer on GTD Connect showing real examples of this with my email. In the meantime, I hope this helps to bring light to some of the nuances with processing.

Posted by Kelly at 09:44 AM | Comments (3)

May 28, 2009

Best & Worst Practices of Doing - Final

This is the last post in my series on the Best & Worst Practices of GTD's Five Phases of Mastering Workflow. Hope this has been useful for you all. If you're just joining this thread, here is what we've covered so far:

Best & Worst Practices of Collect
Best & Worst Practices of Process
Best & Worst Practices of Organize
Best & Worst Practices of Review
Best & Worst Practices of Do - Part One
Best & Worst Practices of Do - Part Two

In part three of Doing, I'll talk about the Horizons of Focus. In my experience, this is one of the parts of the GTD approach that can take a little time for people to get their arms around. This is where priorities and perspective live. Whereas traditional time management approaches attempted to give people an ABC type coding system for defining their priorities, David Allen's approach has always been that priority codes are too simple for the complexity of most people's changing lives, as the only measure of what to do. For example, assigning an "A" priority to something (or flagging is the popular method in email programs these days) could change with the next new piece of input you get. Plus, in my experience, people tend to get lazy with that code or flag without really deciding the next action. A flag, or #1, or lighting the email on fire still doesn't tell you what your next action is. So is David saying to never use those? Of course not. Just be sure that what you are marking as high priority has a a clearly defined next action and be willing to change that priority the moment your world changes--which it will.

What David Allen does encourage people to do is trust their gut/butt/hunch/intuition about what to do. A clearly defined set of projects and actions, with any relevant information captured for your longer term goals, vision and direction will be your best coach when deciding your priorities. GTD helps define your priorities through 6 Horizons of Focus:

50,000 - Life Purpose
40,000 - 3-5 year Visions and Strategy
30,000 - 1-2 year Goals and Direction
20,000 - Areas of Focus and Responsibilities
10,000 - Current Projects
Runway - Current Actions

The best way I know of to work with these 6 levels is to go with where my attention is. I don't find it often works to assign myself to go map those out perfectly, especially 30-50,000 levels. They will get subtler the higher you go up in your focus, but they will all help in choosing what to do.

Will knowing your 50,000 tell you exactly which email to read or meeting to go to? Probably not. But it will probably bring to the surface if you're in the job you want. Play around with them. See where your attention goes. David's new book Making It All Work goes into lots more detail on Horizons of Focus and seems to have cleared up some of the mystery around that for people who read and implemented GTD.

Hope this helps,
Kelly

Posted by Kelly at 05:32 PM | Comments (1)

April 29, 2009

Are you repelled or attracted to your lists?

You won't trust your system if you are repelled by your lists. In fact, if you know you have old, unclear, outdated, repelling things on your lists now, you will resist putting new stuff on to them--even if that new stuff is a clearly defined next action that makes you leap for joy at the thought of doing it. Don't believe me? Think about the last time you went grocery shopping and were putting away the food in your fridge. Find anything funky and weird in the fridge? I bet you did some clean up (whether you planned on it or not) to get rid of the old stuff, before you wanted to put the new stuff in.

I had a friend come to me recently asking how to work with his lists. His job changed entirely, within the same company, and he was having a hard time putting new items onto old lists, but still needed to go through those old lists one last time to see if there were any nuggets to pass along to the team he left. I suggested he move that old stuff to "un-categorized" to process as new or just move it all to a new category called "To Review " and treat going through those as a next action. Or, I said he could just declare them complete and archive them. (BTW, I am not a fan of purging/deleting for the sake of completion. That can often create even more stress for people. You're better of at least archiving them for the safety net of being able to retrieve them at some point.)

You know how often I update my lists? As often as I can. Any chance I get I am marking things complete, moving things around and adding new items, so that my lists stay fresh, current and appealing. If you wait to only do that during your Weekly Review, there's a good chance something will spoil before you get there.

Posted by Kelly at 05:24 PM | Comments (7)

April 21, 2009

Ready for change

When I'm at my worst, my system needs to be at its best. When stress/change/conflict/challenge is upon me, I don't want to be thinking about my system. More than ever, those are the times when my system needs to be rock solid, leak-proof and absolutely clear about my next actions and outcomes if I want to stay productive. I want to have a place to drop stuff into and get stuff out with as little effort and thinking as possible.

I've said it before, and it's worth repeating: if you want a GTD system that will actually stick, don't create a list manager for yourself that you would only feel like maintaining when you are at your best. A simple system, as long as it matches the sophistication of what you need to track, will shine. Time and time again, over the years, I have seen people create elaborate list managers and GTD systems that require so much thinking, detail, criteria and cross referencing, that they can't maintain it as soon as stress or change hits them.

These past two months have been some of the most stressful times in my life. My job was completely redefined (although bigger and better) and a family member passed away. Through it all, a few things from GTD kept me sane:

- Weekly Reviews every few days, especially if I was going to need to unhook and hand-off at a moment's notice
- Daily mind sweeps
- A projects list to drop in new problems and challenges that included outcomes such as "Resolve", "Look into", "...Up & Running"
- Extremely hard edges on the calendar so I knew exactly what had to get done on any day and quickly renegotiate as needed
- Checklists to remind me of the obvious when my brain wasn't always firing (like a travel checklist when I had 4-hours notice to buy a plane ticket and get to the airport)

Almost no one likes change done to them. Almost everyone likes change done by them. - Carol Kinsey Goman

Posted by Kelly at 11:07 AM | Comments (3)

April 04, 2009

Best & Worst Practices of Doing - Part Two

I'm nearing the end of my series on the Best & Worst Practices of GTD's Five Phases of Mastering Workflow. Hope this has been useful for you all. If you're just joining this thread, here is what we've covered so far:

Best & Worst Practices of Collect
Best & Worst Practices of Process
Best & Worst Practices of Organize
Best & Worst Practices of Review
Best & Worst Practices of Do - Part One

In part two of Doing, I want to talk about GTD's Criteria for Choosing. Let's say you're staring at a big list of next actions. Hopefully they attract more than repel you. So, how to choose?

Best practices: Making balanced, trusted, intuitive choices about which to do
Worst practices: Driven by latest & loudest and emergency scanning

Here are some guidelines for choosing:

Context - if you are not in the right place, near the required tool, or have access to the person you need, you can't take that action. That will narrow down your choices.

Time available - How much time do you have right in this moment? If you only have 10 minutes before you bounce to your next meeting, that's a different choice than the times where you've got a large chunk of time to choose what to do. I'd say due date will play a factor here too sometimes (just be sure to watch out for the syndrome of ignoring the "undated masses").

Resources - what's your energy like? Brain toast or high-performance brain? Is it Friday afternoon and you're fried or just getting fired up? Intuitively, the choice will be different based on how you know you'll use your time the best.

After those three limiting factors, then you're going to factor in Priority. What?? Priority is last? How can that be? Think about it. Context has to be the first limitation. It doesn't matter if something is "high priority" if you are not in the context to do it (unless you get yourself in that context). You also can't make time appear out of nowhere, unless you start renegotiating. And, if you won't intuitively want to choose something that you know you won't have the brain space to tackle.

So how do I know my priorities? Ah, the golden question. Only you know your priorities. GTD helps you define where your attention is with the Horizons of Focus. But ultimately, no system will tell you what to do. Only YOU know what to do based on how you have captured what has your attention, made decisions on all that, organized those answers in a place you trust and then reviewed them on some kind of regular basis so you trust they are current based on what's important to you personally and professionally. Then, doing becomes a matter of trusting your hard-wired intuitive judgment. If you do it any other way, it cannot be sustained. If intuition is too fluffy of a word for you, call it something else: your knowing, your heart, your gut, your instinct. It's that part of you that just KNOWS that you're making the best choice and just does it.

Next up, more on the Horizons of Focus.

Posted by Kelly at 04:05 PM | Comments (6)

March 05, 2009

Best & Worst Practices of Doing - Part One

By the time you get to Doing, you have already decided what you are going to Do. Now it's a choice of which you are choosing to Do.

Best practices: Making balanced, trusted, intuitive choices about which to do
Worst practices: Driven by latest & loudest and emergency scanning

The Three-Fold Nature of Work - How to spend your time and energy:

- Doing Pre-Defined Work - picking from your existing work on lists and calendar
- Doing Work as it Appears - choosing to act on what shows up (Doing an email, rather than processing an email)
- Defining Work - processing your Inboxes (most people need at least an hour a day just for processing)

There is a unique balance for each of these 3 that will be different for every person. We all need time in each. For example, someone in a client-facing role would naturally need to be ready to "Work as it Appears." A project manager might need to spend more time doing "Pre-defined Work" to keep the project moving forward. It's a balance.

Universally, I can tell you that the majority of people we work with spend far more time Doing Work as it Appears than they think they should (latest & loudest), and not nearly enough time Defining Work as they know they should (hence, bloated Inboxes and feeling buried.)

Next up, I'll talk about Criteria for Choosing.

Posted by Kelly at 10:54 AM | Comments (1)

February 05, 2009

How to know what your priorities are

I know some people have been waiting, with great anticipation, for David Allen to tell them the secret to knowing their priorities. It's in the GTD book, but some people don't want to believe it can be that easy and were waiting for David to unleash the special, secret coding system in his new book so that their GTD system would finally tell them what to do.

No system will tell you what to do.

It's your heart, gut, butt, instinct or intuition (pick the word that resonates with you the most or offends you the least.) That is what is ultimately making your decisions. And how can you trust that?

Put the agreements you make with yourself and everyone else, in a place you trust and review it regularly.

Bottom line, you are the one deciding whether or not to spend time with your kids or read that report on the weekend. Or, whether you should call the client or call your dentist. The more complete the inventory of your choices, and how that maps to what's important to you personally and professionally, the easier and faster that decision will be.

Posted by Kelly at 06:09 PM | Comments (5)

January 30, 2009

Best & Worst Practices of Weekly Review

Moving on to part four in my five-part series on the best and worst practices of GTD: Mastering Workflow. Next up is the glue, the elixir, the special sauce of GTD--the Weekly Review stage. David Allen calls the Weekly Review, in particular, the critical success factor. It's a key to stress-free productivity and it's probably one of the pieces of GTD's approach that people avoid the most, yet it can often reap the most benefits.

Bottom line, if you don't have a systematic and thorough approach to reviewing your work, you'll never break free from the busy trap of thinking you need to be thinking and worrying about your work all of the time.

On the flip slide, there is a magical quality to the Weekly Review in that it actually saves time, energy, focus and attention on what you need to be thinking about, by giving you a systematic and trusted approach for reviewing your personal and professional commitments, so you can trust that you are making the best choices about what to DO (part five of this series!).

Unfortunately, avoiding regular reviews (certainly even lightweight daily reviews and thorough weekly reviews) means your action reminder system gets out of date and starts leaking. How do you know that? Your brain starts taking back what it let go of because it doesn't trust you're on it and seeing it when you need to. You start waking up in the middle of the night with the gnawing sense of anxiety that something fell through the cracks. You start getting into the busy trap of doing work as it appears, rather than working from your pre-defined work, because you know it's not current anyway. Out of survival, your brain starts trying to do a review of your commitments ALL OF THE TIME, 24/7 because it doesn't trust you're going to do one. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Best Practices: Reflect on a complete, current, and consistent inventory of your commitments--on a regular basis! A weekly review ensures your projects, calendar, and next action lists are clean and current.

Worst Practices: Letting your system get so far out of date it dies, or feels like a major effort to bring it back to life. Telling yourself you don't have time to do a review. Setting up the Weekly Review as a recurring appointment on your Calendar, then not showing up to your own meeting (good way to erode trust in your commitments).

Tips & Tricks for Weekly Review:
Although I've talked mostly about the Weekly Review, you will likely have different types of reviews:
-On a daily basis, the two key parts of your system you probably need to review are your Calendar and Next Action lists.
-On a weekly basis, we recommend as thorough a review as you can of all of your projects and actions. If you want the official GTD Weekly Review checklist, go to pages 184-190 of the GTD Book.
-On a monthly basis, you're likely going to want to look at your 20,00 / Areas of Focus to make sure you're giving attention on to those areas.
- On a yearly basis, you're going to want to review any higher level goals, visions, strategies in your personal and professional life.

-Most people need about an hour for the Weekly Review, sometimes more, sometimes less. Depends on your work and what your past week has been like. Give yourself a time limit if you're afraid of how long it might take. Just get as far as you can.
-Do it in an uninterrupted space.
-Acknowledge yourself for doing. Rewards work!
-During the Weekly Review, resist the temptation to Do what you find, unless it takes less than two-minutes.
-Do at least one, if you've never done one before, to have a reference point for the experience to help get yourself motivated to do another one.
-Any day works, although Friday seems to be the most popular day for most people.

If you've been one of those people who has implemented most of the GTD approach, but haven't gotten the Weekly Review down as a regular habit yet, you're not alone. It's no wonder our Weekly Review set is one of our most popular coaching tools.

It takes effort, but the rewards on the other end are sweet. Don't rob yourself of the value of GTD by doing the work to Collect/Process/Organize, but never stepping back to review and reflect on where you've been and where you're going.

Posted by Kelly at 09:29 AM | Comments (3)

January 08, 2009

5 Ways to Get Better at GTD

Happy New Year! I hope this will be a wonderful new year for all of us. To kick off this year, I am sharing 5 ways to get better at GTD.

1. Don't use your mind as your reminder system. This is probably one of the hardest things for people to get and master with GTD. It's an essential best practice for stress-free productivity.

2. Empty your Inboxes on a regular basis. Yes, empty, process, decide down to zero on a regular basis. Why? It's easiest to maintain your work when you get to zero on a regular basis, than it is to leave anything in your Inboxes where your brain keeps trying to reprocess it and have attention on it.

3. Get all of your commitments into a trusted, seamless system that attracts you more than repels you. One hole in the boat can make it start to tip, and eventually sink.

4. Review your projects and actions regularly so you trust what's in there so you can make trusted choices about what to do.

5. Get REALLY good at clarifying the next action. This practice alone will transform workflow. Is the next action really the next physical, visible step you need to take? Do you have all of the information you need?

How are you doing with these? Do you see any improvement opportunities?

Posted by Kelly at 09:25 AM | Comments (8)

November 25, 2008

Plowing through email

My email Inbox is at zero at least once a day. It takes me about 60-90 minutes of processing time each day to plow through it.

When I tell people that, they run a few critical assumptions on me:

- She doesn't work at my company
- That must be ALL she does all day long
- She can't really be reading any of it
- She must get a lot of spam
- She must not get a lot of email
- She must not be very busy

Of course, I'm not in your world, your job, your Inbox. But how about considering this instead: I have a seamless process for handling it with the least amount of effort as possible. I've written about that process in a couple of previous articles, if you're interested:

Becoming the master of your email Inbox
Digging out from an email landfill

It doesn't matter if you get 10 emails a day or 800. I've coached people on both ends of the spectrum, and I'll tell you, stress can show up however many you get. You'll never plow through to the Holy Grail of Inbox Zero unless you give yourself a clear process (the GTD 4D's works wonders) and the time (most people need about an hour a day just for their own processing time.)

Posted by Kelly at 08:12 AM | Comments (8)

November 24, 2008

Best & Worst Practices of Organize

Moving on to part three in our enthralling five-part series on the best and worst practices of GTD: Mastering Workflow. This week we're on to Organize. Often a crowd-pleaser, organize is where you get to decide where to put things. If you're at all familiar with GTD you know that David Allen does not tell you which tools to use--GTD is tool agnostic--so those choices are up to you. Not saying all tools, software programs, paper planners work seamlessly with GTD, but where you organize your stuff is up to you. GTD gives you the best practices of how to organize, not where.

There are 5 key "buckets" to consider when organizing your work:

Reference - no action, you just need to hold on to it.
Someday/Maybe - no current action, but you want to incubate it for possible later action.
Projects - a list of your current outcomes that require more than one action to complete
Next Actions - one list or sorted by context, to manage your physical, visible next steps (project related and not)
Waiting For - actions that require you to track that you are waiting on someone or something.

In the GTD workflow diagram, Organize is the outer ring, after you've processed it.

Best Practice: easily retrievable in clear categories
Worst Practice: unclear Stuff, confused piles, and lists

Tips & Tricks for Organize:

- Keep it simple. The number one problem I see with the majority of list managers out there (sorry, but especially the ones that self-deem themselves "GTD-friendly") is that they are too complicated and anything but friendly. Too many features actually can cause stress, not reduce it. Read my post on What Makes a Good GTD list manager.

- Pick an action list manager that attracts you more than repels you. You should like your total-life reminder system in order to be motivated to use it.

- Make your system portable. If you're tracking "@home" next actions on your work computer, and don't have that list with you when you are home, the system will fall apart. If you can't sync to a handheld, printing your electronic lists works just fine.

- It's got to be at least as good, or better, than keeping it in your head. Otherwise, why would your brain want to let go of stuff? Your brain has to know there's a better tool to do the job or it won't let itself get fired from trying to be your To Do list.

- Know your style and choose around that. If you're not an electronic person, let go of the idea that an electronic list manager is going to manage your life. If you're a paper person, go with a paper planner. Don't force yourself into something that doesn't match your natural style and creative expression.

- Let go of the idea that there is a perfect list manager out there, if that's stopping you from diving fully into GTD.

Your list manager isn't the only thing to consider with organize. There's also your desk setup, your hard and soft-copy filing, your tools on-the-go, your project support etc. Short of repeating what's in the GTD book, let me leave you with this: How easy is it for you to clear your head and put it into trusted places you know you can easily get your hands on again when you need it? That's the key to organize.

Next topic will be the ever-important critical success factor of Review. Ahhh...the elixir...the special sauce...the glue that keeps this all together.

Posted by Kelly at 09:30 AM | Comments (11)

November 03, 2008

Best & Worst Practices of Process

This is part two in a five part series on the best & worst practices of GTD: Mastering Workflow. This week we're covering stage two: Process. Also known as the decision-making, defining or clarifying stage, this is where you are making decisions about the "stuff" you've collected in your Inboxes. There are a few key questions that get asked when you are processing something:

Best Practice: make decisions about your stuff when it shows up
Worst Practice: make decisions after it blows up

Here's the big, obvious best practice of Process: You're going to have to make a decision eventually, why not make it with the least amount of effort and attention when you first handle it? I'm not talking about intuitively holding on something before making a final decision (should I do this or not?)--there are times when holding off on making a decision is the best thing to do--I'm talking about those decisions that don't go away just because you close the email and go on to the next one.

Tips & tricks for Process:

- The biggest improvement opportunity I see with people around Process is giving it enough time. It takes about 30 seconds, on average, to process each piece of stuff/input you get. If you get 60 emails a day, you're gonna need 30 minutes just to Process it. It won't get to zero on it's own. Most execs I coach need about an hour to an hour and a half per day just for processing.

- Get super clear on your next action. The clearer the better to reflect your very next physical, visible step. If you capture you're next action as "Talk to Bill" but you know you need to update the proposal before you can talk to him, "Update the proposal" is what goes on the next actions list, not Talk to Bill. If you really need to capture Talk to Bill as the next sequential next action, store it with project plans, just not the next actions list.

- Don't give more time to things than they deserve. If you can complete something in less than two minutes, handle it when it first shows up.

- Decide before you organize is a good rule of thumb. If you haven't decided your next action on something, organizing it into a neat pile won't free your mind of it. Your brain will just have a neater pile to stress about.

Next up...best & worst practices of Organize.

Posted by Kelly at 08:41 AM | Comments (7)

October 22, 2008

Best & Worst Practices of Collect

Merriam-Webster defines Collect as: to bring together into one body or place. In GTD terms, it's the point of entry where all of your "stuff" lands in your trusted Inboxes, to be processed.

As with all of the five phases of GTD: Mastering Workflow (Collect>Process>Organize>Review>Do), Collect has best practices and worst practices:

Best practices: out of your head, into leak-proof locations, clean edges between collect and organize
Worst practices: in your head, spread all around, blended with reference and what's already been decided (collect is not organize!)

Tips & tricks for Collect:
- Create a trusted Inbox for your desk to capture hard copy stuff. Even if you think you're paperless, you're not.
- Create an "In" folder for when you're on the go between home and office, away from your desk in meetings, traveling, etc.
- If people try to hand you something, redirect them to the Inbox (your chair is not an Inbox!)
- Keep your Inboxes reserved for new incoming stuff only--it's too easy to go numb to your Inboxes when it's an amorphous blend of new stuff, reference, waiting for's and next actions items.
- Use your Inbox yourself. It can be a fantastic way to bookmark your own brain when you get interrupted.
- Have as few Inboxes as you can get by with, but as many as you need
- Get an Inbox for each person in your house (creates clean edges for who owns what and handles the mundane "business" of personal workflow)
- Get an Inbox for each person on your team, in your department....in your company
- Walk around with a collection tool wherever you go, so that when something pops into your head that has your attention, you've got a way to collect it other than in your head

Believe it or not, Collect is often where people have the biggest improvement opportunity. In my experience, people often don't even have a trusted Inbox, or if they do have an Inbox, they never process it. Or, people collect in so many places, it's like a scavenger hunt to find where they left it and process becomes a daunting task, leading people to handle latest and loudest instead because it's often simply easier to find. Or, one of the most common ones I see is blending collection with the stuff they've already processed and organized. If people really got how much time that wastes, because it causes them to re-look at what they've already decided, they would never blend them again.

Next up...best & worst practices of Process.

Posted by Kelly at 08:40 AM | Comments (9)

September 30, 2008

How often should you check email?

One of the most common questions I get as a GTD instructor is how often to check email. I usually answer, "It depends." This usually annoys the people who wanted to be told really clear boundaries OR delights the people who don't want to feel bad that they think they check it too often. Here's why I say it depends.

By its nature, processing email is one of the 3 ways we spend our time. It's what GTD calls "Defining Work" time (p.50 of GTD book.) We all need time to process new inputs. How often you should check email is hugely dependent on other factors, like:

What's your job? If you are in a service or sales role for example, you'll stress yourself and miss potential opportunities if you impose unrealistic limits on how often to check. If much of your work shows up on email, you probably need to stay pretty close to what's showing up in your Inbox. If you are not in this kind of customer facing position, then you may not need to check as often. You'll know best.

What are the company guidelines? Does the company expect a 15 minute turnaround time or 15 day? Big difference. Whenever I facilitate that conversation in companies, it's amazing to hear the difference in understanding even among people in the same jobs and on the same team. Guess where many team conflicts stem from--simple misunderstanding like this over guidelines.

Are you checking to avoid doing something else? I'm certainly guilty of this one. Send/Receive does not disappoint for bringing something potentially easier and more interesting. By the way, this then moves into doing work as it appears.

What's your pre-defined work like? If you're constantly checking email and not looking at what's on your lists, there's probably an opportunity to step away from the Inbox more often to tackle what else your job requires you to do.

I do one big sweep of my email, bringing my Inbox to zero, once in the morning and once in the evening. And then I'm snacking on what shows up during the day. Some days, I'm in my Inbox a ton. Other days, if I have a bunch of meetings, that morning and evening time is critical to bring it back under control. Your job may be different though.

Hopefully this has given you some food for thought. Now go check your email. Maybe something more interesting showed up while you were reading this blog.

Cheers.

Posted by Kelly at 03:17 PM | Comments (3)

August 11, 2008

Two reasons why we procrastinate

We all do it: kick something around on our lists (if we were even brave to put it ON a list), curse it, skip over it and try really hard to ignore it. Yet, we can't let it go. The longer it lingers, the guilt and stress builds or the opportunity is simply missed. Sound familiar? Good, join the club, you are like everyone else on the planet who procrastinates!

Is it necessary to eliminate procrastination to be effective in your personal and professional life? Not necessarily. Sometimes a little breathing room on something is exactly what I needed to get more clarity that I didn't know I needed on it. But it is helpful to know some strategies for unsticking your stuff, especially if it's something you really need or want to do now. There are two primary reasons why we tend to procrastinate:

1. The outcome is not meaningful enough to you
2. You don't have a clear next action

Now, think of one thing you are procrastinating on. If you had to go take action on that right now, do you have all of the information you need to take that action? If not, you haven't nailed the next action. Back yourself up to a clear next action. Go more microscopic in your next action if it feels too big or complex. Now, the outcome. What images do you hold when you picture yourself finishing that thing? Failure? Boredom? Jail? Out of control? Painful? Good chance that outcome is not only not meaningful enough to you, you're not picturing a successful outcome. Procrastination will pounce on that like weak prey. Reshift your outcome to a finish line you see yourself winning. Yes, it's that easy.

Posted by Kelly at 04:56 PM | Comments (4)

August 01, 2008

GTD & Outlook 2007

For those of you working with Outlook 2007, you might want to get the new GTD & Outlook 2007 whitepaper. We overhauled the previous Outlook document with new tips, tricks and strategies for maximizing Outlook for your GTD system. You'll also find new instructions for setting up categories in 07 (although customizing your tasks view has stayed exactly the same.)

Note: If you have the GTD Outlook Add-in for 2007, the Tasks setup is done automatically when you install the software, so you don't need to buy the whitepaper for that purpose.

Posted by Kelly at 10:48 AM

June 07, 2008

GTD & personality types

While GTD may not be for everyone, I think there's something it in for anyone. In fact, it's often fascinating to see the range of people who are attracted to GTD. In any given month I can be doing GTD classes for Baptist camp directors, Wall Street brokers, software engineers, admins and actors. You would also be amazed at how people implement GTD and what they find valuable. I've had incredibly technical people decide to keep their lists on paper. I've had artists love the system because it helps them be more creative and wanted to keep their lists online. I've had power planners have major "Ah-ha" moments from working with the less linear part of their brain doing something like mindmapping, during Natural Planning Model (p.54 of the book).

Someone recently wrote to me and asked:
David has occasionally made reference to Myers Briggs personality types and I wondered if anyone has worked out whether some of the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicators) fit better with GTD than others.

For instance, I'm an ISTJ and GTD comes naturally to me. My wife is an ENFP and it doesn't come at all easy to her. When we did the GTD-Q analysis (A GTDConnect feature) she, not surprisingly came out as a Visionary/Crazy Maker and I came out as a Captain/Commander. We make a great team!!

But I wondered if, in your coaching experiences, you'd ever used MBTI and whether you've seen any tie-up with willingness or aptitude to GTD?

My response:
Good question. I have not seen any formal review of GTD and types, although we've all encountered the differences in coaching and seminars. Our staff has gone through many assessment tests so we are both familiar with them and know how to work well with each other and our clients.

Some types will be more attracted to tracking than others. Even within tracking, some will want a less linear system than others. Some will want to do more planning versus just diving in and doing. Specific to Myers-Briggs, here are a few resources I have found interesting:

Out of Time: How the 16 types manage their time and work
Type Talk at Work

By the way, according to Myers-Briggs, I'm an ENFJ and my husband is an INTP. We couldn't be more opposite in that respect and we work fantastically together!

I think personality type tests are interesting, if they are used in the spirit of learning who we are and how to leverage our strengths. I've also seen them help people relax and accept some part of themselves that they previously had been pressuring themselves to change. If you tend to be a crazy maker, then enjoy being a crazy maker!

Posted by Kelly at 10:20 AM | Comments (2)

May 30, 2008

Those burning GTD questions...

This week I'm going to open up the lines to anyone who would like to ask me a GTD question. I've been working with this methodology for a long time and I'm happy to share strategies for getting clarity on what might be stuck for you.

Anything not quite making sense for you?
Wondering where something gets organized?
Have anything you're just not sure how to process?

This window won't be open for long so fire away while you can!

Update on 5/31: Thanks for the tremendous response. The lines are now closed :) I'll be posting some of my answers (in generic form/no names mentioned) on my blog in the coming weeks. Thanks!

Posted by Kelly at 11:53 AM

May 19, 2008

GTD on the Go....

People often ask me how I manage traveling 3 weeks out of the month and still stay on top of my stuff. It's pretty simple: my systems go with me. There is almost no difference for me to be at my home office in California or sitting on a train to New York (as I am right now.) There are a couple of key things that make my system work, almost whenever and wherever I need to get stuff done:

* My lists all sync to a handheld. I never need to boot up my laptop to see my project or action lists. If you don't have a handheld, print your lists--works just as well. Don't make it hard to access to your stuff.

* I have a broadband wireless card for my laptop to process email anywhere I can find a signal. A fact probably surprising to some of you--I do NOT do email on my handheld. I wait until I can get to it on my laptop. So much easier for me to properly process and it means I'm not always ON, since email doesn't stop coming in.

* I generally don't book meetings the first morning I'm back from a trip, knowing I'll have my hard copy Inbox to process, expense report to do, unpacking to get to, etc.

* For any hard copy stuff I might need, I use plastic folders to transport that. My traveling folders include:

In (collects receipts and anything an Inbox would)
Actions (pending actions)
Waiting For (support for items I'm waiting on)
To Office (things to get filed or handled back at my office or anything an Outbox would)
Nice to Read (just that--no love lost if I don't read it)
Travel Support (a collection of things handy for travel: maps, airline employee recognition cards, envelopes etc.)

These take up about an inch in my briefcase and always have anything I'll need on my trip.

And perhaps the most important key for me:
Just like when working from my home office, I guard my time to allow at least an hour a day to process email. This is key. Backlog is no fun.

Posted by Kelly at 02:14 PM | Comments (5)

April 27, 2008

Rolling up your hoses when you're not fighting fires

We were in a staff meeting the other day discussing some of the finer points of David Allen's 3-Fold nature of work. Part of the Doing phase, the 3-Fold nature describes how you spend your time:

Doing Pre-defined Work (choosing from what's already processed and organized on your lists and calendar)
Doing Work as it Appears (responding to latest, loudest and new opportunities)
Defining Work (your own processing and reviewing time)

Everyone has a mix of all three of these choices. It won't necessarily be an even split of your time and attention. Depends on your job, and frankly your personality. I often like to do bite size chunks of doing work as it appears to stay interested and engaged in something that's taking more mental effort. It's a balance though and only you will know if you are in/out of balance with any of these choices.

If you think about it, even someone whose job is about doing work as it appears, like a fireman, is still working on being ready for the fire while they are not IN the fire. In fact, their ability to deal with that fire effectively requires them to have spent time getting their gear ready so that they can move quickly.

It's no surprise, whenever I cover this module in a GTD class, the majority of the participants find themselves spending more than than they think they should in Doing Work as it Appears and not nearly enough time in Defining Work. The tricky part about it is that each of these phases can really affect one another as well. The less time you give yourself to define your work, the less defined work you have to choose from and the greater the tendency to do work as it appears.

Do any areas of 3-Fold nature seem out of balance to you? Anything you can you do to shift that?

Posted by Kelly at 12:30 PM | Comments (6)

April 10, 2008

What makes a good GTD list manager?

Having a total life reminder system is a key to GTD and a trusted list manager to track projects and actions is one of the first choices for people to make when implementing the system.

Unfortunately, some of the programs out there that are trying to be "GTD list managers" miss the mark not by what they didn't include, but by what they did include. Some of them build in too many convoluted features, that in GTD terms make the whole thing more complex than it needs to be. Not saying you can't get value from some of those programs, but you'll be watering down the simplicity and elegance of GTD if you force yourself into using every feature that some of them include. If you get what the core components should be, you can usually get creative at customizing or ignoring what will end up being a drag for you down the road. So what makes a good GTD list manager?

Key features to look for:
* Sorting lists by context - many programs have a "category" feature that will easily support this.
* Ability to assign a due date - not forcing it on all of them, but allowing it for those that need it.
* Portable for on the go access - can be synched to a handheld or printed.
* Easily accessible - less than 60 seconds to get something in/out.
* More attractive to you than repelling - you've got to like the system you're entrusting your brain to.
* Doesn't force priority codes - if you know GTD, you know that forcing priority codes is old news and rarely accurate anyway.
* Place to capture additional notes - attached to an item to capture relevant info related to the item.
* Ability to search and sort in various ways.
* Robust enough to handle all of your stuff.

Is there a perfect GTD list manager out there? Probably not. But lots of them will work just great if you keep it simple and stick to the core features that work, without you thinking about how to make it work. It becomes seamless and like second nature to you.

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.
- Charles Mingus

[KF 4/27: You'll will find comments below from people who are suggesting and promoting software products to do GTD. Please know, since it may not be obvious in their post, some of these comments are posted by the seller of that software with the direct intention of getting you to buy that product. Since I don't have the time or inclination to test everything people are suggesting, nor do I want to block comments on my blog, please just use your common sense when checking out software people are recommending through my blog. Thanks! Kelly

Posted by Kelly at 04:29 PM | Comments (25)

April 05, 2008

Dealing with interruptions

Interruptions are a fact of life in every job and in every company. It's one of the most common things people tell me drags on their productivity. Formany of us, our jobs require us to handle work as it appears, so the only choice really becomes to get better at managing the interruptions. I received a letter from someone recently asking me for advice on this topic:

My day generally consists of interruptions, and interruptions to the interruptions... I get critical items referred to me in the hallway on the way to handling another interruption... How do I keep track of all this and avoid the mental "stack overflow" involved?

Having "collection tools" on hand all the time is critical. Studies show the average adult can only hold 7 things in your "working memory" at one given time (+ or - 2 items.) That's not much and from what you describe, your working memory gets pinged constantly. Most people do these days with not only interruptions from others, but cell phones going off, new mail notifications, instant message, etc.

- Walk around with a small pad and paper in your pocket at all times to collect this stuff in a place other than you head. Seriously, go low tech with this. Pad and pen. If you want David Allen's version of this, it's in our online store.

- Don't be shy in telling people, "Hey, can you send me an email or leave me a voice mail about that?" If it's really important to them, they will. That way, you can process it on your own time.

- Treat yourself to what David Allen calls the Mindsweep as often as you can, and at least once a week in a Weekly Review process. Sit down and just clear your head. Your head is an Inbox, just like your email, paper and voice inboxes, so you've got to empty it on a regular basis along with the others to avoid that "stack overflow"
and get to stress-free productivity.

- Make sure you've got a physical Inbox (tray or folder works great) to capture your incoming stuff at your desk, especially when you need to reroute your brain quickly onto something else. For example, if someone interrupts you and it's something you've got to take, "bookmark your brain" about where you just were on a piece of paper and drop that into your inbox. You'll not only be more present with the person in front of you, since your brain won't trying to hold on to that place you just were, but you will also have a trusted place to go back to (your Inbox) to pick up where you left off.

- Take yourself offline sometimes when you really need to get stuff done. It will be easier for some of you than saying "No" to the interruption. Turn off email notifications. Go offline on IM programs. Even close your email Inbox if you keep getting distracted by new mail pouring in. Close your door, if you've got one.

Consider this: every interruption you take trains other people about how to work with you. If they know they can drop something on you at the last minute, they'll have no reason to think that's not the way to work with you next time as well. Are there any interruptions you are getting that in retrospect, could have been handled a different way? Good opportunity to do some retraining with those around you.

Posted by Kelly at 07:03 PM | Comments (3)

March 24, 2008

Getting GTD off the ground

If I had to guess what the biggest challenge people have with GTD, it's not maintaining the system, it's building it. And you might feel that the task of building it seems daunting and undoable, given the world doesn't really slow down because you've decided to take time for yourself to get this thing off the ground. I doubt your colleagues are sitting back saying, "Hey, let's not send emails to him or pull him into this meeting. He's really trying to get his work defined and his GTD system built." Not likely. So right off the bat, unless you've got two days of uninterrupted time to dedicate to the building phase, as David suggests in Part Two of the GTD book, you're more likely going to build it in stages. It will take longer, but a great system can be built in stages.

1. Choose a list manager to track your projects and actions
2. Get a good reference filing system built for your non-actionable stuff
3. Get In/Pending/Out buckets/folders/trays to be able to move things through the system.

Once the constructing is done (your house is built), then you're in populating mode (move your stuff in.) Get everything from all of your collection buckets, processed and organized into your new system. Look for the major places you have stuff coming in. Likely the big "stuff" piles to go after first are your head, email, paper and voicemail.

In my GTD classes, I suggest people setup a project called "GTD Up + Running." Then assess and draft a simple project plan to capture all of the potential next actions to get the system fully setup. If you think doing this in pieces is going to work best for you, pick one or two to start that will give you the biggest payoff to get under control and add that to your calendar or next actions list or just go do it. Then move your way through your project plan until the system is up and running. I bet it will take less time than you think.

One tip on choosing a list manager: Don't let the quest of finding the "perfect list manager" stop you from getting GTD off the ground. Consider that there is no one perfect system. Nearly any list manager can be adapted to work with the GTD model, from spreadsheets to paper planners to corporate programs you're already using for your calendar and email. Choose one you like and you know you'll actually be attracted to use.

Posted by Kelly at 02:44 PM | Comments (13)

February 26, 2008

Handling meeting notes

Someone recently asked David Allen for his best tips, tricks and processes for handling meeting and conversation notes.

Since this is a common question we tend to get, I thought I would share David's reply:

"I process most meeting notes into our custom contact manager database. That's where I track most everything that's worth tracking. Sometimes I just put a small note in the notes field of my tel/add for the person, if it's just like on this day we did this and that...

The real question to ask yourself is: What's the purpose of the notes? Only with a clear answer to that do you know how much detail you need to keep, and where and how you should keep it.

Many times I just keep my handwritten notes in their file, in my general reference files.

There's no clear black and white delineation about information, if it's just information that "might be useful" at some later time. Always a judgment call, weighing the payoffs and the prices."

Posted by Kelly at 10:19 AM | Comments (13)

February 20, 2008

GTD is for anyone, but those techies sure love it

While GTD's popularity seems to span across generations and professions...it's the techie groups that seem to be especially drawn to it. Perhaps it's due to the "open source" nature of GTD that allows people to engineer their own list manager. We don't tell you what tool or program you need to use. If you understand what builds a great system, there's tremendous freedom in what that looks like to make GTD work.

NPR explored this topic yesterday in a feature about GTD and it's appeal to the technology world. Running time 4 minutes.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19105832

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

February 12, 2008

It's either actionable or it's not--there is no gray zone

There are two forks in the road when you process an email: it's either actionable or it's not. Yet time and time again people tell me that they get emails that they think fall into this mysterious gray zone. It's the email from a coworker/customer/friend that implies action, but it's not an action they want to take. Yet their standard won't allow them to delete or ignore the email because some part of them thinks they should be doing something about it. Guess where the stress tends to show up? In the gray zone that gets created from the "shoulds without a decision" about this kind of stuff. Does receiving an email automatically create an agreement just because it landed in your inbox?

I was coaching someone recently who had tons of emails that fell into this gray zone and her reaction was to simply file them into a Reference folder. My role, when I'm a GTD coach, is to be vigilant with (and for) people when they are processing their stuff. I noticed that when she moved something into the Reference folder, she said "I'll get back to that someday," but she didn't track that action anywhere. So did she really let it go? Of course not. She still has an implicit agreement to do something about that email, so filing it away just moved it to a less obvious place.

I received an email recently that could have easily fallen into that gray zone if I let it. My first reaction was to delete the email but I knew the person would be expecting my reply. And they would have every reason to expect my reply because I've handled this kind of thing in the past, even though I don't consider it core to my job. So I can't blame them for sending it, I've trained them that it's OK to send that kind of input to me until I tell them otherwise.

One of the most powerful aspects of GTD, in my experience, is the part about agreements. What am I doing to create, promote or allow the input I am receiving? What's the agreement I am making with everything that I collect? Is there anything I can do to better communicate when my priorities and interests shift so I stay clean, even when things land in my world that I don't want or think I should do? Am I clear about my Horizons of Focus (runway-50k perspective) to know if this is my job to handle? There lies the simplicity and freedom in working GTD. Pay attention to what has your attention and agreement.

This all may generate more questions than answers, but I thought it was worthy of a blog post. I'd love to hear your input on this (no implied agreement! just for those of you who want to...)

Posted by Kelly at 08:34 AM | Comments (11)

January 15, 2008

Balancing proactive vs. reactive

Someone recently asked me, "How do you manage your day so that you are proactive versus reactive? I assume you have lots of people/projects pulling for your time -- how do you stay focused?"

Here was my response:
There's always a blend of proactive versus reactive in everyone's day. The best mix of those will be different for everyone, based on what your job and personal life require. In the GTD book, this is described as the 3-Fold Nature of Work (p.50). For me, I build in plenty of my own proactive time so that when I do get pulled in new directions, I'll be ready for that and my own work won't suffer. I give myself my own defining work time in the morning and evening just to collect, process & organize. Many days I'm reacting to things I had no idea would show up--which is not always a bad thing. It's a balance and an intuitive judgment call that only you know works or not.

I'm guessing interruptions are a big part of you not staying focused as much as you'd like. Get rid of the easy ones like turning off the email notifiers for every new email. If you're working with people who are pulling on your time more than you like, then set boundaries. People are likely interrupting you because you've trained them it's OK to do that. If you work in a culture of interruptions, you've got a bigger challenge to deflect the interruptions without offending and alienating. Give people options. For example, if someone comes to your door and says, "Got a minute," and you really don't, give them a time you can chat. If you get a project delegated to you that will blow your other priorities out of the water, it's up to you to decide whether that's a good thing for you or not. Communication is key. There's a good chance that when someone delegates something to me, they don't have a clue what else that affects. It's up to me to know what will not get done, if I say yes to this new thing coming in. Having my project and action lists current definitely makes it easier to change directions and shift priorities more easily. Then it's just a balancing game.

For more information on this topic, grab the free article from our online store.

Posted by Kelly at 03:40 PM | Comments (2)

January 03, 2008

David Allen gives the keys to GTD on YouTube

A few months back, I had the pleasure of accompanying David Allen to Google where he presented the keys to GTD to a standing-room only crowd. It was a fantastic talk and it's now available on YouTube:

The Matrix of Self-Management is great stuff and will be new to many of new.

Enjoy!

Posted by Kelly at 09:39 AM | Comments (9)

December 03, 2007

GTD Live

If you have never been to a live GTD seminar, I highly recommend checking one out. No matter what your implementation has been, they can be a great way to bring your GTD system and mastery to a new level. I've been a student of this model for over 15 years and I still hear something new each time I sit through a seminar as a participant. As your life, job and interests change, so can your system. For you Connect members out there, there's a great David Allen video clip on Connect around "The Subtle Levels of GTD" that's worth checking out about how GTD evolves for you over time.

There are two flavors of live seminars you can attend:

GTD RoadMap - Taught by the man himself, David Allen. A great class for getting an overview of the whole picture of GTD.

GTD Mastering Workflow - Taught by GTD staff presenters, like me. A great hands-on class.

We tend to describe the difference between the two seminars as:

The Mastering Workflow GTD seminar, is very tactically oriented - how to get quick control using the fundamental thinking process and the five phases of workflow mastery. The RoadMap will include a condensed version of that material but will focus more on the whole picture of the self-consulting process, including prioritizing from multiple horizons, applying the core productivity principles, and making change stick.

Posted by Kelly at 08:55 AM | Comments (7)

November 04, 2007

The 2AM Worry Club

Any of you in the 2AM Worry Club? You're sleeping peacefully and your inner committee wakes you bolt upright in bed to remind you of something you missed, need to do, should have done, need to track down or have to figure out. With reasoning out the window, some part of you wonders if maybe your boss/coworker/client is up too and you should just call? Sure! They'll just love that.

In my experience, the reason that happens is that in the mind's effort to be a loyal servant for feeding the conscious brain incompletions, it has no idea that 2AM is not the best time to be thinking about that thing. So for lack of a better choice, it thinks it should worry about it to at least make some progress on it. Next time, try writing it down. It's hard to organize it in your brain on a mental "not now" list when that's not how your brain is designed to work. Consider that it's your brain's job to feed you what it thinks is not complete. Writing it down is a way to bring it to completion, at least temporarily.

If I wake up with something on my mind, I write it down and leave it in a place I know I'll see when I get up in the morning. My mind lets it go. It doesn't mean I've solved the issue or problem, but it's off my mind. In the morning, I look at what I wrote and ask two questions: What's my desired outcome with this thing? What's the next action? Those answers go into my system: Calendar, Projects list, Action lists, Waiting For list or Someday/Maybe. Simple as that.

I'll often name something a Project that I'm just trying to get some clarity about. The Waiting For list is also brilliant for those 2AMers where I'm waiting to hear about or get resolution on something. The weekly review ties it all together to give me consistent review of all of these lists and to reinforce the idea that it's OK to let it go.

Do you have any 2AM kinds of things grabbing your attention? What would you call the project around any of that? What is your next action or is there anything you are waiting on?

Posted by Kelly at 04:51 PM | Comments (8)

October 21, 2007

The belt that keeps the pants up

For as hard as travel can be--I log about 100,000+ air miles per year--there is one huge benefit: I get long stretches of uninterrupted time to get my system clean & current. I relish a cross-country trip where I don't have any new input coming in and can do those things that if I were in my office mode doing "real work" I probably wouldn't as easily take the time to do. I'll do things like clean out old stuff from my laptop, get to my nice to read stuff, process my paper and email inboxes to zero and most importantly do a Weekly Review.

If you've been around GTD for a while, you know that this time for your own processing, especially the Weekly Review, is really the belt that keeps the pants up. It's what David Allen calls your Defining Work time. And, it tends to be one of the harder habits to create, despite that part of you who knows how great it would be to have total confidence that your stuff is clean & current and you're doing what you want and need to be doing.

If you don't have built-in time like I do on a plane, here are some other things I've heard can work to create that time for yourself:

* Come in before anyone else or stay later than everyone else. Not always a fun one, but sometimes it's the only way to plow through stuff.
* Block your calendar for your own processing time. I heard of someone going so far as to put "Meeting with CEO" on her shared calendar so people wouldn't overbook the time.
* Do your Reviews in a place you know you won't be interrupted, like a local coffee shop, at home or in a conference room.
* Give yourself a goal you can win. If some part of you is staying you need 2 hours of uninterrupted time to do a Review or get your Inbox to zero, and you can't remember the last time you had that kind of time, well then you're setting yourself up to fail. You'll never "see" 2 hour windows of opportunity. Pick a smaller chunk of time. I figure 15 minutes of focused review time is better than nothing. Clearing out 100 old emails from your Inbox is better than nothing.

In order for me to be able to do this virtually anywhere, my system is pretty portable. I have a couple of key folders that are always parked in my travel briefcase:

In
Action Support
Waiting For Support
Nice to Read
Out

I also sync all of the lists on my laptop to my handheld so that I can be updating my lists whenever I feel like it, and don't have to be chained to a laptop. If a handheld is not your thing, print your lists.

Of course, there are plenty of times too when watching the world go by at 20,000 feet is the best use of my time, and that's OK with me. The lists will still be there.

This is a view looking down on beautiful Santa Barbara, California.

Posted by Kelly at 12:53 PM | Comments (4)

October 04, 2007

You either trust your system or you don't

In my opinion, there's no middle ground: you either trust your system or you don't. In many GTD seminars I do, after seeing my lists and all of the things on them, someone in the audience will comment, "What if your system crashes and you lose everything?" I have backups. My desktop synchs to my handheld and it's also all regularly backed up onto a USB drive. It's also all password protected with multiple layers of security, thanks to our IT group. Some will take that further and say, "Well, what if you lose those backups TOO?" Sure, and what if the sky falls down and a woman is elected president. Oh, the drama of what ifs!

Here's what I think is the real underlying issue: if you've never tasted having nothing in your head and having it all in a total-life reminder system, it's nearly impossible for your brain to think there is a better system. It's one thing to empty your head and decide what you're going to do about that stuff. But if your brain doesn't trust the decisions are going to get parked in a place better than holding it in your "Psychic Ram," it won't let go. Your brain has to trust that the place you are keeping your lists is as good or better than your brain.

I encourage people to do whatever they need to do to create a system they trust. If you have any nagging doubt about what you're putting on your lists and choosing to keep it in places that are not as foolproof (like your head or scattered notes), I would say you have an opportunity to shore up the leaks. For some people that's knowing there is a backup. For others, it's about the privacy issue--who will see what I put on my lists?

Whatever is holding you back from creating a trusted system can make a difference in your success with GTD.

Posted by Kelly at 02:26 PM | Comments (6)

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 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.

Read the full article

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

August 31, 2007

Being selfish with your time

One of the things I hear from people all of the time is that they are so yanked around by other people's fires, crisis & priorities, their own processing time takes the biggest hit. I hear stories all of the time like:

* An 8 hour day used to be the norm, now 10 hours feels like leaving early.

* Zero in "In" used to be a regular occurrence, now there's backlog that would take days to process.

* So many back-to-back meetings there's never a chance to even download what happened in the last one before dashing off to the next one. Meeting notes to be processed are piled up in a 1/2 dozen notebooks.

* Filing? Are you kidding? The "To File" pile is knee-high.

* We HAVE to read our email during meetings just to stay on top of it.

The best strategy I can share about getting in control again is to be selfish with your time. If you are in a shared calendar environment, there's a good chance open spaces on your calendar are considered free game. And I doubt anyone else is holding back from booking a meeting with you so that you have some quality "review, get clear, get current, stare at your belly button and figure out your priorities time" instead of coming to their meeting. If you want that, it's up to you. Now, I know this is easier said than done. In some of your environments, the volume and demands for your time coming at you like your face is in front of a fire hydrant. That's even more reason to be vigilant about carving out your own processing time. Remember, processing is different than doing. Backlog comes from the unprocessed too, not just the undone.

* Consider blocking your own calendar for meetings with yourself. I know many people & teams that do this just to create some protected calendar time for processing email at the beginning and end of day. A good guideline for how much time you need is about 30 seconds to process each piece of input you get (paper or digital). For most people that comes out to about an hour to hour and a half per day for their own processing time.

* Don't accept meetings that start the moment you walk in the door, before you've had a chance to process email. Otherwise, there's a good chance your attention will be on what's lurking in email and not on the meeting. I think this is why so many people process email during meetings. Being a presenter of meetings, I can tell you I can spot a BlackBerry user in a seminar from across the room. They are barely "there". If what's going on in email is really that important, is it really a good idea for you to be in that meeting anyway?

* Consider delegating some of the things that are choking your system--like filing. If you can't delegate this, then get your filing system to a place where filing something will take you less than 2 minutes and no more.

* Give yourself buffer time between meetings. Some companies will end meetings 15 minutes before the hour to allow transport time for people to get to the next one. Not to mention letting your brain decompress before it has to shift gears.

And, the best thing I know for getting back in control is the Weekly Review. If you haven't done one lately, how about giving it a whirl?

You need to spend quality time, detached from the daily grind, thinking about, getting control of, and managing the daily grind.
- David Allen

Posted by Kelly at 11:02 AM | Comments (12)

August 02, 2007

Stop digging and start climbing

We've all been there: I feel stuck so I might as well get busy doing something...anything...so I at least feel like I'm at least making progress. Email is wonderful for this. Send/Receive never fails to distract me into a busy trap. It grew up on the same farm as procrastination. I'm not saying plenty of valuable work doesn't show up in email, but I think anyone these days can relate to getting stuck in the infinite loop of email rather than doing what we know we should be doing instead. Just because it landed on email doesn't mean it's your job.

How do you know that what you're doing is the best use of your time, talent & attention? We've all had our internal tap on the shoulder (or kick in the gut) telling us, "HEY, YOU! You know you're not doing what you're meant to be doing!" Trust that. I don't know about you, but I'd rather get those reminders from my own internal monitoring before my boss does.

One of the best GTD tools I use to keep myself on track with doing what I'm meant to be doing is in what David calls the Horizons of Focus:

50,000 - Purpose (why are you here, what's important to you?)
40,000 - 3-5 year vision & strategy
30,000 - 1-2 year goals and direction
20,000 - Areas of responsibility, focus and interests
10,000 - Projects
Runway - Current Actions

Specifically, the 20,000 foot level defines your areas of responsibility, focus and interests. Most people tend to have 5-7 "hats" that they wear professionally and personally that make up the 20k level. That doesn't stop things showing up on the runway level that demand my attention, but it sure makes it clearer to know what to take on as next actions and projects. It's pretty simple for me, when I get something that doesn't map to something for me on the 20k level, such as "Present GTD classes", there's a good chance it's not a priority for me and it's easier to say no. Or, it's an opportunity for to get even clearer about what my 20k level is since it does change.

I'd suggest sitting down and mapping out your 20k level, especially if you've been wanting more clarity on your priorities. Make two columns: Work and Personal. What areas are you measured by in your job? What are the roles you play personally? That's the kind of stuff that makes up your 20k level. See if that makes a difference in some of the things on your Projects and Action lists. Would you choose anything different? Would you let go of anything?

Posted by Kelly at 04:08 PM | Comments (5)

July 28, 2007

It's not about the lists

I've heard David Allen say that many people miss the real purpose of making lists in GTD. You don't make the lists to only do what's on the lists and nothing else in your life. You create the lists so that the lists take your attention off that stuff so that you can REALLY do what you want to do. And then do that with 100% of your focus, attention and creativity.

There's a comfort zone I found works for me and my lists where I have as few lists as I can get by with, but as many as I think I need to slice and dice my stuff in a way that makes it manageable. And, they change from time to time, if for no other reason than to just change the look to get me excited about them again. (It's kind of like new running shoes--it's amazing what that does to get me motivated to get out and run.) My current action lists, all managed in Palm Desktop software, are:

Projects
Someday/Maybe
@Calls
@Errands
@Home/Office
@John
@Laptop
@Boss
@Waiting For
@Wherever

An easy way to figure out which context lists you need is to look at the people, places and tools you need to do your work, personally and professionally. That will serve as a good starting point.

The magic, motivation and purpose of the lists for me is that I can have the freedom to do whatever I want to do (whether it's on the lists or not) without feeling the pressure to only do what happens to be top of mind or top of the pile. In the middle of a chock full week of GTD classes, I snuck in a play day in San Francisco for my birthday. If I didn't have my lists and trust that they were current and everything on the lists could wait, I wouldn't have had nearly the same experience of relaxation and joy.

Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work. - Gustave Flaubert

Posted by Kelly at 09:23 AM | Comments (4)

July 03, 2007

Undercommit and overdeliver

Thought I'd pass along this great piece of advice from David Allen on getting started with GTD:

"My suggestion is to get at least a small "cockpit of control" set up as physical work space, and clean at least the desktop; and start from there. One step at a time. Take one pile at a time. One project at a time. Use the framework from the book, but don't overwhelm yourself with the idea of doing it all at once."
- David Allen

It can get overwhelming to think you need to do GTD all at once. Start small. Undercommit and overdeliver (as one of my favorite mentors once taught me) with tackling your implementation and mastery of this. You'll get benefit from any piece of GTD you implement, so I suggest start where you can experience a win for yourself. Then expand out from there.

David has said it can take 2 years to become "Black Belt" with GTD. Might as well enjoy the road along the way!

Posted by Kelly at 11:15 AM | Comments (4)

July 02, 2007

Describing GTD

We've all been there. You meet someone new and they ask the proverbial question, "What do you do for work?" The easy part for me is that by saying I teach a class called Getting Things Done it's usually self-explanatory. Lots of people have heard of David's book or have their own idea what that phrase means (work/life balance, time management, productivity, get organized etc.) This person was intrigued and asked, "If you had to give me a few tips for how to get stuff done, what would you suggest?" In a few sentences I walked her through the core of GTD:

- Collect and download everything that's got your attention, especially the stuff you're holding on your mind.
- Decide the very very next action you need to take on any of those.
- Organize it into a few key buckets:

a list of your outcomes (Projects)
a list for the things you need to do (Next Actions)
a list of things other people owe you (Waiting For)
a list of the things you might like to get to (Someday/Maybe)

- Look at it all on some kind of regular basis to make sure it's still current (Review)
- So that you can always trust you are making the best choices (Do)

By the way, for those of you who've been wondering how to explain or get someone else up on GTD, you might find this is a good way to share what it's all about. I always try giving people the core concepts without getting tangled into what tools they would use to do any of this. I let them choose that because at the end of the day, everyone has a different style of how they want their system to look. I compare it to choosing what house you want to live in. Everyone has a different style. If you really get what GTD is all about, there's a tremendous freedom about where you want your lists to live--from a stone tablet to Outlook and everything in between.

I was flying home from a class I did in San Francisco last week and the guy next to me pulled out a copy of GTD. I was all excited to talk to him about it but he tucked the book in the seat pocket in front of him and proceeded to sleep the entire flight. I guess he needed sleep more than GTD!

Posted by Kelly at 10:40 AM | Comments (6)

June 25, 2007

Getting Things Going

Someone asked me recently in a seminar, "I have this big list of things to do, but how do I get myself to actually DO it?" Wouldn't it be nice if this were all about just organizing stuff? There does come a time when you want to do it. Here are a few tips for getting things moving, especially for the ones that have seemed stuck:

1. Define what done looks like. A clear outcome does wonders for getting motivated to get going.

2. Define what doing looks like. Pick a clear next action that you physically, visibly see yourself doing.

3. Pick an easier next action. Often things can get stuck when the next action is too big. Pick a smaller step to get the ball rolling.

4. Ask yourself if you have all the information you need to take the next action you chose. If not, the action you chose might not be the very next action. Back yourself up until you get to the very next step. That will help.

5. Does this still need to be done? Have you reviewed this lately against some of your other priority levels lately? Just because you capture something on a list doesn't mean you end up doing it. Priorities, interests, standards and resources shift and so will the things on your list. It's OK to renegotiate the agreement.

6. Can it be delegated? Can someone else do this for you?

7. Can any of the things on next actions move to Someday/Maybe? Does it all need to be done now?

8. Carve out time for yourself on your calendar to take action. Sometimes seeing it as a "hard landscape" meeting with yourself to work on something helps.

The beginning is the half of every action.- Greek Proverb

What's worked for you to get things moving?

Posted by Kelly at 08:27 AM | Comments (3)

May 24, 2007

The GTD Bellyflop

Does this sound familiar?

You read the GTD or took a class with one of us. You loved it, you got it, you were inspired. You had a month of bliss where your head was clear, your lists were current, your files were lean and mean and you were living the Productive Experience.

Then you ___________ (fill in the blank):
- went on vacation
- got a giant problem or project dropped in your plate
- had a bunch of urgent stuff show up
- got interrupted more than usual
- got sick
- got bored

As a result, your lists started to get out of date, your inboxes got choked up and you started waking up at 2am thinking about all the stuff you need to do. I heard someone describe this recently as the GTD Bellyflop. It happens to all of us. In fact, the Productive Experience that David Allen describes does not mean you are always in control, relaxed, inspired, focused, getting things done and have current system to maintain it all. Could anyone really maintain that productive experience ALL of the time? Not likely. In fact, sometimes it can be good to get out of control to have the reminder about what that was like and why that doesn't work. If you were once in that Productive Experience, it won't be hard to get back to it because you have a reference point. It's kind of like exercise. Have you ever been in great shape? If you get out of shape, it's not as hard to get back in shape because you know what that was like and what you need to do to get there.

The easiest way to get yourself back on track with GTD and to that Productive Experience is to do a Weekly Review. Carve out an hour for yourself to get as clear & current as you can. Update your lists, process your Inboxes down to zero, scan your projects list to make sure you've got all of your next actions captured, do a mindsweep to clear your head. Any and all of those can get anyone back on track.

It's natural to have starts and stops with GTD. Give yourself a break if you've been holding yourself to a standard that you will never be out of that Productive Experience. Really, it's OK to have the occasional bellyflop.

Posted by Kelly at 09:13 AM | Comments (3)

May 14, 2007

Catching fleas

Trying to manage incompletions in my head is much like trying to catch fleas on a dog. One second I feel like "I've got it!" and the next it's gone. Regardless of how important it is, the mind can only seem to manage a certain number of open loops before one of them is bound to fall through the cracks and get replaced by something else.

One of the keys to GTD is getting your head clear. I regularly do the GTD Mindsweep process (page 113 of the GTD book). Sit down and empty your brain of all of the "stuff" you've got your attention on. Put it down on paper or digital--whichever is faster for you to collect it. Don't analyze or organize it, just collect whatever pops into your head and allow yourself the freedom to add stuff to the Mindsweep without any commitment to doing what you write down. I bet you'll be amazed at what shows up. You might find walking around your office or living space will also trigger different things for the Mindsweep than staying in one place. Do it however long you want. You'll probably start to find a natural point where you'll feel like you've swept most of the mental post-it notes out of your brain.

Then, when you're ready, decide what each item means to you, if anything. I'd walk myself through these 3 questions:

1. What is it? Is it actionable?
If no, it's either trash, Someday or Reference.
If yes, it's likely a project with a next action or simply a next action not related to a project.
2. If it is a project, what's the desired outcome? Write that on your Projects list.
3. What's the very next action? Write that on your Action(s) list.

...then on to the next one. This may actually go faster than you think. I tell people to expect about 30 seconds per item to walk yourself through those questions. The Mindsweep is one of the 11 steps suggested in the Weekly Review process. I find I often do it more often than that because I just love the experience of a clear head. I can't say I've ever looked back after clearing my head and said, "Damn, I wish I didn't do that." I bet you won't either.

Get a purge for your brain. It will do better than for your stomach.
-Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Posted by Kelly at 03:53 PM

May 03, 2007

Stuff is stuff is stuff

Here's one of the easiest things to keep in mind with GTD:

Stuff is stuff is stuff

It all gets processed (decided) the same way. No matter what. Whether it's a voice mail, email, thought in my mind, scratch piece of paper in my Inbox, drive by delegation from someone, it all gets processed by asking, "What's my outcome? What's the next action?" That should be good news to you. It becomes like a game of objectively looking at your stuff and asking those two questions.

How it is organized will vary, but even that can be consistent enough that it becomes like second nature. For example, I have two folders in my email Inbox to organize my actions that have already been decided: "Action" and "Waiting For". I have two plastic folders that serve the same purpose and are called exactly the same thing.

For me, it all gets tracked in one central place: my Palm Desktop lists. I prefer the simplicity of going to one set of lists to show me all of my work. That means, whatever is in the Action or Waiting For folders, the action that represents has been captured on one of my lists. (By the way, other people don't necessarily do it this way and choose to have the folder be the reminder. It's personal preference.)

Posted by Kelly at 09:42 AM | Comments (2)

May 01, 2007

Can people "get" GTD in a seminar?

I was chatting with a reporter this afternoon who is doing a feature article on David Allen. I was sharing with him what my job is at the company (coach and seminar presenter.) He asked an interesting question, "Do people really get GTD in a seminar? Don't they need to experience it (KF: meaning back at their desks)?"

People do get to experience GTD in the seminar. I love that about our classes. I mean, who wants to hear just lecture for 2 days? Within the first hour of a GTD class we get people into the Fundamental Process where they see the power of getting stuff off your mind (collect), decide what it means (process), and park it in a place your brain trusts you'll get back to (organize). The cool thing about GTD is that you can do that at anytime, with anything and it'll probably take you less time than you think. Read Part One of the book and you can get value right away. The whole game is outlined in the first 81 pages.

In one of my seminars for a high-tech company recently, I set the participants loose in the room to process and organize their mindsweep lists. They had a chance to setup their lists in the class and get a real taste of GTD with their work. About 10 minutes into it, a participant shrieked with delight and said, "This is the best day of my life!"

There you go. Power of GTD at its best. I love my job.

Posted by Kelly at 06:11 PM | Comments (3)

April 30, 2007

Managing Project Actions

We just posted a podcast I did with David Allen on managing project actions ala GTD. I wanted to do this podcast with David because it's one of the most common questions I get in seminars. If the outcome gets tracked on the Projects list and Action steps get listed on the context-based GTD Action lists, then what about all of the project parts/notes/ideas that fall in between those? Where do actions get parked until they go on the Action lists? Learn what David likes to use for organizing and planning projects.

http://www.davidco.com/podcasts/play/12.html

If there's a particular GTD topic you would like featured as a podcast, please let me know by adding a comment to this post. I may be able to snag David for another one.

Posted by Kelly at 11:09 AM | Comments (6)

April 09, 2007

Taking the rocks out of your shoes

Anyone got a filing cabinet that repels you more than attracts you? Check out my new Coach's Corner article about the world of filing cabinets.

http://www.davidco.com/coaches_corner/Kelly_Forrister/article75.html

Enjoy!

Posted by Kelly at 12:21 PM | Comments (4)

March 29, 2007

Building your GTD house

Last count, there were something like 60+ software programs based on GTD. Add another several hundred, if not thousand, web sites chewing over GTD and all the options for implementation. With so many choices, it can become overwhelming to build the "perfect" GTD system. And, you'll never hear David Allen say one product/tool/list manager is the only way to do GTD. Wouldn't that be nice actually? It would simplify things for all of us! Choosing your system comes down to your personal preference and some people find themselves faced with the paradox of choice.

At a bare minimum, a GTD system would have 4 primary action lists/views: Projects, Actions, Waiting For and your Calendar. If you set out to find a good list manager to bucket these primary lists, that's a good place to start. Here are 4 tips for building your GTD house:

1. Start with what you know. Yes, there are a ton of options out there for making your life faster and easier, but if you've got to spend time learning the tool before you can easily work the system, start with a tool you already know. Lots of people start with paper lists for this reason. That alleviates the immediate pressure of mastering a new software program. If you go digital, make sure the program you choose doesn't overcomplicate things. I go for speed, not complexity. It's one of the reasons I've been a fan of Palm Desktop all these years. It stays simple enough while giving me room to manage a sophisticated set of lists.

2. Populate your system as thoroughly as you can and review it regularly. The best way I know of for my brain to trust my lists (more than holding it in my brain) is for my lists to become like my second brain. Nothing is not worthy of the lists (repot orchids or update the workbook--it's all on the lists.) If it is an agreement I've made, it's in my system and my brain trusts it's OK to let go of it knowing I'll see it in any daily or weekly reviews. Remember, the brain doesn't necessarily know the difference between buy shampoo and finish performance review. To your brain, they are just incompletions that the brain will lob over the fence to get your attention whenever it thinks your free (not necessarily when you can do anything about it.)

3. Make your system portable. If you don't have a way to sync your lists to a handheld (Palm, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile device) then print them on a regular basis. Downloading stuff from your brain only works if you can access the lists you need, when you need them. If you're at the hardware store on a Saturday and your lists are back at your office then you've trained your brain that off-loading your actions is not a good idea. Same thing with sitting in your boss's office and your Agenda items are buried in a list or folder back at your desk. Having your lists with you will also give you more chances to take advantage of weird windows of time for adding to your lists as well. Nice to capture buy shampoo the first time it comes around, rather than the 10th.

4. Give yourself time to make it a habit. Good or bad, a habit takes about 28 to 32 days to get created. I suggest picking a list manager and trying that consistently for about 30 days. If you find it's not a good fit, then switch. At least you would have given yourself a chance to get the basic moves down with it and see if it matches your style.

I was watching this bee outside my office window this morning, as he considered his choices with my Stargazer Lily.

Ah...if only life were that simple!

Posted by Kelly at 11:05 AM | Comments (9)

March 16, 2007

Actions that get uglier by the day

Procrastination fascinates me. I love looking at it like a scientist to figure out why I procrastinate on some things and not others. I've got one right now that's been on my lists for 5 weeks, and it's not getting any prettier. I was in a two-day meeting and took 16 pages of hand-written notes. I need to review the notes to see if I captured any good ideas that need to get into our knowledge databases, my reference files or my someday maybe lists. I already gave a quick scan for current actions, so I know nothing timely is lurking on them. So I figure I am at a crossroads here:

Do I still need to do this?
Do I still want to do this?

This is one of those value-add actions that no one is tracking me on. No one would know if I NEVER did anything with these notes, yet I am still committed to doing something about them. After all, if I took the time to take the notes, shouldn't I at least do something with them? What if I captured THE greatest pearl of GTD wisdom ? I know what I want to do, I just don't want to do it, but think I should do it. So funny. Really.

Got any meeting notes buried in legal pads that need to get culled through? I bet I'm not alone...

Posted by Kelly at 02:45 PM | Comments (8)

February 27, 2007

Is it really procrastination?

I'm not saying procrastination doesn't fly its flag on plenty of occasions, but I don't think it's always the cause of why things don't get done.

When something starts to repel me on my action lists more than attract me, it's usually because:

1. I don't have all the information I need to take the action

or/

2. It's not my very next action

For example, I've got a list about a mile long right now for my home-related next actions since we just moved. One of the first ones that was added to my list was to "buy new fluorescent lights for the kitchen." They flicker and it's annoying. So off we go to the hardware store to buy new lightbulbs. Whoops, what size? Back at the house, I've gotta shift gears into something else and can't finish the light project, so I change the action on my list from buy new lights to measure for new lights.

It sits there for a few weeks and doesn't get done. At this point, I could either change my standard about the flickering light or get more specific. The flicker still annoys me, so I'm still committed to doing this.

I take a good look at it and consider why is this still on my list? Oh right, need to get the stepladder to pull down the screens to measure the lightbulbs. Where is the tape measure? Can't measure without the tape measure.

See where I'm going with this? What started as "buy new lightbulbs" was really "find tape measure." You may not take things down to that kind of microscopic next step, but for me, it can make the difference between getting something done with the least amount of effort and attention....or not.

I challenge you to go back to your action lists and find the most repelling thing you can find that feels "stuck." Is what you captured as your next action really what comes first and next? Do you need more information before you can take that action? If so, that's not your next action. Back yourself up and capture the very next physical, visible step. Make your lists work better for you and I bet you'll let yourself off the hook that you're procrastinating on some things. It may just be some mislabeled next actions dressed up like procrastination.

Posted by Kelly at 09:39 AM | Comments (5)

February 24, 2007

Keeping the simple things simple

I pride myself on being a little tech whiz when it comes to gear & systems. So when my new broadband and VOIP phone system at home went down yesterday I moved into problem-solving mode. I started troubleshooting the IP address of my wireless card. No luck. In fact, my laptop froze and I had to reboot to bring it out of trying to release/renew the IP settings. I checked my firewall settings. No difference. After spending about half an hour checking my settings to see why things were not working I decided to call my wireless provider to have someone come out to look at it. Before doing that, I decided to check the cable modem box. I noticed a tiny little button on the back of the device called "Reset." So I grabbed the ubiquitous tech tool the push pin, reset the button, and as if by magic the cable modem and VOIP are back online and working perfectly.

This is one of those funny examples to me of making something more complicated than it needs to be. It's a good reminder for me to keep the simple things simple. Those of you who are in GTD Connect might have heard a similar story in the recent interview David did with General Fullhart about training Air Force pilots. He tells the story of teaching pilots to check the obvious stuff first, like 'Is the lightbulb on the dashboard burned out?' before taking the plane down. The solution may be easier than you think.

Posted by Kelly at 08:37 AM | Comments (2)

February 16, 2007

Decide before you Organize

I was one of the lucky few that seemed to make it out of Chicago on Wednesday, despite a blizzard. I started my day at 5am with a view of the city covered in snow:

By the afternoon, I was in San Diego enjoying a walk along the beach with my Valentine:

I worked with two high-tech companies this week. Both have huge email volume, lots of meetings and rapid growth. My theme this month seems to be about the key difference between Collect vs. Process Vs. Organize. Lots of people seem to have bottlenecks in their systems trying to do all 3 of these phases at once.
Collect is really where stuff is coming in (email, voice mail, paper, your head etc.). Process is when the thinking and decision making happens asking, "What's the outcome and next action?" Organize is where you park it in a place you trust. The key distinction I try to make is that nothing gets into the organize phase until it's been processed. By the time it's organized into my system, the thinking has already been done so that I can just do.

If I'm starting to get stuck when I go to do something from my lists, it's usually because I haven't done enough of the thinking and clarifying about my outcome and next action.

Posted by Kelly at 09:48 AM | Comments (6)

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

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)

December 29, 2006

Wind Storms

I'm the first to admit that the weakness in my workflow is email. I LOVE EMAIL--especially new email. New email is always more exciting than the stuff I got 5 minutes ago, much less 5 months ago. I have to really watch that I don't stay stuck in front of the fire hydrant of Send/Receive all of the time, at the expense of the work I've already defined. I'm probably not alone in this :)

Well, our email server has been down for the last 24 hours due to a major wind storm in Ojai. I have had no business email during that time. Nothing new to distract me from the things I need to do, could do or might like to do, such as the value-add stuff I tend to put off: seminars I could listen to, articles I could write, books I could read, PowerPoint slides I could update, etc. These kinds of things have no due date and no one tracking me on whether I do them or not.

Over the years, it's been interesting to me to see the progression of my GTD systems. I have pretty well mastered the action and project levels. I'm very well organized by most people's standards, but that doesn't mean I am always working on the right stuff. The good news is that I'm getting better at recognizing when I'm stuck on a track that's not the best one for me. Sometimes it takes a wind storm to shake things loose.

Posted by Kelly at 09:54 AM | Comments (1)

December 28, 2006

What's the motivation to do GTD?

I was listening to a seminar where David Allen talks about motivation and GTD. Oh, let me sidetrack here and say that I was listening to it on my brand spankin' new red iPod Nano, compliments of Santa.

I was struck by his comment, "If you need to get motivated to do something, then you're not motivated to do it." People will sometimes comment to me in seminars that my lists and system seems like a lot of work to maintain. It honestly never occurs to me to be work or something that I need to build in a lot of motivation to maintain. I just do it because I can't imagine not doing it. The scuzz factor, as David calls is, would be too great if I didn't do any of this. And, the rewards are too sweet to miss out on. He tells a funny story about people brushing their teeth. Most adults these days can relate to brushing their teeth without an external motivation to do it. Sure, as kids, our parents had to tell us to brush them. Eventually though, our own internal monitor took over and the motivation was just there. It becomes like second nature. That's how I experience GTD and my systems.

I had a group of 100 people yesterday in a seminar in Minneapolis. Most of them were new to GTD. My advice to them and for anyone new to all of this is to start small. Pick an area that will bring you the biggest relief. Where's your gnawing sense of anxiety right now in your workflow? Email overwhelm? Paper or reference filing out of control? Scattered to do lists? Consider what you would like to do or experience differently about that. Then apply the best practices of GTD to that area consistently for a month. I've heard it takes about 32 days to make something a habit, good or bad, so doing it once or twice may not lay the new tracks down that you want.

If you've been around GTD for a while is there any area to expand or improve upon? Any parts of David's books you want to revisit? With the New Year approaching, I think it's a good time to take a look at what kind of things I'd like to be true in 2007.

Happy New Year. I wish you all the best.

Posted by Kelly at 03:32 PM

December 20, 2006

Make your lists portable

I can't tell you how many times in seminars people ask me, "If I'm putting all of these lists on my work computer what do I do when I'm not near my computer?" My response is always the same: make your lists portable. A handheld device (Palm, BlackBerry etc.) is a great choice, especially if your IT dept. will support it. If a handheld is not your thing then print your lists. I know lots of people these days who choose a hybrid system of digital and paper. They print their lists to keep with their note pad as they bounce around between meetings, work, home etc.

I was listening to one of David Allen's podcasts with Merlin Mann where David emphasizes the need to portabalize your lists. If you create your GTD lists but then don't have those lists at a place or time when you can take action, then the information on your lists will eventually crawl back into your brain. If your brain also knows that what you put on those lists won't be with you when you can do something about it, you'll create an unconscious resistance to using those lists. If you're a GTD fan, you've heard the drill by now:

Your brain is a great place to have ideas, it's a terrible place to manage them.

Pretty much any electronic system will give you a printing option for the Calendar and Tasks. Outlook gives extra options under print setup for printing to specific paper devices, like a Franklin Planner.

I sync all of my lists to my Treo. I love that I can have my entire system in the Palm of my hand and get some things added and knocked off my lists at the oddest times. Did you ever have a time where you unexpectedly had to wait and could have tackled some simple things like phone calls? With your lists with you, those weird windows of time will be well spent. If nothing else, get a quick review done while you're waiting in those endless holiday shopping lines.

Posted by Kelly at 09:14 AM | Comments (10)

December 07, 2006

What's your slippery slope?

Have you ever noticed that an area of your house that started as a temporary storage place is now the black hole for stuff? (Hey--after 2 years it's not likely you're going to need that empty box your printer came in so do yourself a favor and toss it.) Or, the first flat surface when you walked in your house that was a place you used to drop today's mail is now a two-foot pile? Or, leaving a few of those emails in your inbox that were must do's by the end of the day 4 months ago have somehow turned into 467? A few weeks of not exercising and the thought of getting back on the treadmill even for a simple workout feels like being asked to run a marathon? I call that the slippery slope. Before you know it, things can go from bad to worse and digging out of it can seem daunting.

The good news is that it's usually less work than you think to get it back to the place you want it to be, especially if you start with small steps. If email is your weak area, pick 25 old emails to go through to start. That'll take you about 12 minutes. (30 seconds per email.) If it's an area that like your paper filing that's out of control, break it into more doable steps like purging one letter or one drawer at a time. If you've got a storage area that is overgrown with stuff, decide to get rid of 5 things at a time rather than overwhelming yourself with the thought of having to clean the place all at once. With exercise, 5 minutes on the treadmill is better than nothing, at least in my case.

And if you're a GTD'er you probably know by now that ANY part of the Weekly Review is better than nothing! Pick one thing from the list and commit to that. Done a mindsweep lately?

Posted by Kelly at 04:25 PM

December 04, 2006

GTD email tips for BlackBerry users

The team at RIM who writes their BlackBerry Connection newsletter recently interviewed me about GTD for their users. Check it out:

Empty that Inbox! Manage your messages with a system

Posted by Kelly at 01:49 PM

November 20, 2006

Now what?

I got this great letter that I wanted to share. For those of you who are wondering how to bring GTD to others, especially your kids, I thought it was a wonderful demonstration of the power of asking, "What's the next action?"

Kelly, I was in your Getting Things Done class. I found it very useful and inspiring - I actually did get my email Inbox from 378 down to 4 the next day! But later in the week, I used it at home in a rather unexpected way. My daughter, who is a Senior in high school this year, was feeling pretty overwhelmed with projects due, college applications due, frustration with a difficult friendship, the ACT approaching, etc. It had all washed over her, and she was in tears, asking me what she should do. I thought about "next steps," and, as it was getting late and she owed someone a phone call, I told her she had to do that right away. She did that, and came back. I asked her what homework she had, and found that one thing was just part of a worksheet for Spanish, so I said, "Go and finish that." She did, then came back and said, "Now what?" We kept that up until I went to bed (not being a teenager myself, I tend to go to bed earlier than my kids these days). It really helped her, taking just one step at a time, and it gave me a good practical example of how this can work. She was much calmer the next day. And I hope she remembers this in college! (We'll practice it some more at home, I'm sure.) Thank you so much for your inspiration in class! Susan

-----------

Posted by Kelly at 08:26 AM

November 15, 2006

GTD and Google Tools

I've been playing around recently with ways of setting up a GTD system with Google tools. I thought it would be useful to pass along since there is some interesting application here. I'm also a big Google fan, so I like finding ways to make their tools even more useful for people.

I setup a sample Google Personalized Home page with 6 key tabs:

Here's what I've put under each tab:

Actions - I added 6 Google "Gadgets" for To-Do's. If you do a search in the Google Gadget Library, the one I like best is the one called "To-Do List" by Matt McCarthy. I chose this one because it seemed the easiest to add and complete tasks.

Mail - A gadget for Google mail goes under here.

Projects and Someday - I also used the To-Do List gadget to track Project and Someday/Maybe lists.

Notebook - A gadget for the Google Notebook. A great place for project notes, meeting notes, checklists and key reference.

Agendas - I found the "Sticky Note" gadget by Sophia B. useful for setting up Agenda lists for key people. You could also certainly use the To-Do List one for these or the Sticky Notes one for Actions, depending on which one you like better.

Calendar - a gadget for the Google Calendar.

I've also played around with using Google Spreadsheet to also track Projects and Actions. Some people find that tool more useful and like the collaboration and sharing features. If you try this option, I would suggest making a separate worksheet tab for each of the context lists.

For Google Mail, I've been testing out a pretty straightforward approach. I created two key pending lables:
@Actions and @Waiting For

....then a label for each current project. When processing mail, if something is actionable or waiting, it gets either the @Action or @Waiting label as well as the Project label if it's related to a current project. Every email gets archived after it gets labeled to maintain zero in the Inbox (because it takes less effort to work from a place of zero in the Inbox than to keep anything in the Inbox as your only reminder.) For non-actionable stuff that needs to be saved, it simply gets archived.

I know Google search is excellent. And for that reason, some may find the Project label an unnecessary extra step for them and searching through Archive is suffice. This is probably one of those personal preference things. I'm one of those people that likes being able to see emails by topic at the click of a button. Also, I have found that any search tool is only as good as the keyword I'm searching on and it's possible the word I'm searching on is not in any email, so for that reason I find that Project labels are handy for current projects.

Curious to hear from Google users on what's worked for you.

Posted by Kelly at 12:14 PM | Comments (10)

November 14, 2006

Sharing GTD with key people in your life

Many of you who have been through my seminar have heard me talk about how GTD works in my relationship with my husband John. I'm lucky in that John embraces this stuff as much as I do and many of the systems in our house and lives are GTD based. A couple of things that we do include:

Inboxes at home - an indispensable tool for handling the back-and-forth mundane stuff that doesn't need a conversation
Agenda lists - to track what's going on for us right now (I have one for him, he has one for me)
Great filing system which we both use and trust for our personal home files

It's a treat for me when John is able to come with me on a work trip. Last week he came along for my Seattle>Vancouver trip:

I know it's not always easy to get someone to do GTD. They've got to see value in it for themselves. For us, the value is that the mundane and daily grind of life is handled by simple systems so our lives can be as fun and free as possible.

If you've been able to get your spouse/partner/family on any GTD systems, how did you do that? I'm sure others would love to hear what worked.

Posted by Kelly at 07:27 AM

Using time wisely

Here's a great story I wanted to share from a GTD'er who goes by the pen name Cynical Geek:

Using My Time Wisely

After you work for 20 attorneys, no matter how much you believed the standard before, you realize that time really is money. You begin to think about your own life and what your own time is worth. While I'm not able to bill for my time (I'm a salaried employee) I do think about my time in a different manner now. Since I began reading "Getting Things Done" by David Allen, my work habits have changed along with my life habits. I sat at the tire store yesterday waiting on four tires to be put on my car and I was actually being productive instead of watching the soap operas that were playing on the TV or thumbing through the crappy selection of magazines available for customers. I sat, with my see-thru document file (loaded with my folders for Read/Review, Action Support, To Home, To Office, and Data Entry) in my lap and spent 15 minutes being productive. You'd be amazed what you can do in 15 minutes when you take your work with you. Sure, I looked like a stuck up executive in a tire store, but if that's what it takes to get the job done then it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you look like, because I know that I'm just a person like everybody else, and most people that get to know me understand that I'm not pretentious.
So I move on with the GTD methodology at work and at home. It keeps me sane, and I feel more proactive than I have in years. I'm getting ready to have 40 more devices (Dictaphone no longer sells analog dictation devices, they're all digital) and a production server to manage/route those devices. Prior to GTD I would have freaked out, semi-contemplated quitting my job, asking for another full-time support person and complained to myself a lot. Now that I have discovered GTD, I just create another GTD Project in Microsoft Outlook and schedule some reminders. The use of technology is only going to increase at my job, and I'm ready.

Posted by Kelly at 07:24 AM | Comments (1)

November 10, 2006

GTD and Lotus Notes Doc is here!

The long awaited GTD and Lotus Notes implementation guide is here. Thanks to all of my awesome beta testers who provided feedback on this many months ago. Our staff has been working hard to make the document as complete as possible in how to get the most out of Lotus Notes with the GTD methodology. If you are a Notes user, you'll find some great tricks and tips for the Calendar, Email, Personal Journal, To Do's and much more.

Check it out:
http://www.davidco.com/store/catalog/GTD-and-Lotus-Notes-p-16276.php

Cheers,

Kelly

Posted by Kelly at 07:42 AM | Comments (3)

November 02, 2006

Tracking the when....then items

One of the primary action lists we suggest is a Waiting For list. This list tracks anything I'm waiting on from someone or something else. Obvious uses would be orders placed, voice mails I've left, emails I've sent or verbal conversations I've had where I'm tracking that someone owes me something. I typically track waiting for items by listing the person I'm waiting on, what I'm waiting on, the date I started waiting and any applicable due date. Such as:

Wayne - get back to me about suggestion for Atlanta hotel - 10/31

Another way I often use my Waiting For list is to track the "When I do this...then I can do this" type items as well, so nothing falls through the cracks. For example, I just had someone (I'll call Joe) email me asking me to call them about an upcoming meeting. I'm waiting for one of my colleagues to handle another thing, related to this upcoming meeting, before I want to make this phone call back to Joe. This call to Joe doesn't belong on my Calls list yet because I can't take the action. So my waiting for list is tracking that I need to call Joe back after the other thing that is dependent on my colleague happens first. Such as:

Anne - talk to Fred about the budget so I can call Joe back about the meeting - 11/1 - due 11/9

My Weekly Review is a great way to loop back on the Waiting For list, if it doesn't happen sooner than that. With so many moving parts in my life, the Waiting For list is extraordinary helpful to track this kind of weird thing that is still a critical item, but not something I can do now.

Posted by Kelly at 03:21 PM | Comments (3)

October 30, 2006

Would you choose the same Stuff?

We had an flood in our bathroom and bedroom the other day. I discovered it via text message from my husband. He knew I was doing a seminar so he texted me with enough information to get my attention, but not too dramatic to freak me out. "Flood in bathroom. Getting new rug." It was serious enough to require replacing the rug and do some repainting. Hello new project.

I spent most of yesterday bringing the stuff back into the room. I thought it was interesting how my Stuff had proliferated and things had landed in the wrong place. How did the sleeping bags end up under the bed? Oh yah, after that last trip I didn't feel like taking them down to storage. Why am I saving all of these CD cases? Oh yah, I thought I might need them but now I'm realizing I haven't looked at them in two years.

It was actually quite refreshing to have a chance to look at everything that was going back into the room. Do I need this? How often do I use this? Is this exactly the way I want it?

If you took everything out of your office and then had to put it back in (and really gave yourself time to look at everything) would you choose the same Stuff? Would you change anything? Pick one thing that's been bugging you that you know has taken more of your attention than it deserves and change it. Are those pictures on your desk exactly the way you'd like them? Are your files working for you or do they need some purging? Are you comfortable in that chair you sit in 8,10,12 hours a day? Can you see your monitor clearly?

Try it. I bet changing that thing that's been taking your attention is going to be like taking a rock out of your shoe. You'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

Posted by Kelly at 02:32 PM | Comments (2)

October 27, 2006

Mind like water

I just wrapped up a great week with some clients in Minneapolis. On Tuesday I did a full GTD - Mastering Workflow seminar for 100 people. The next day was designed as an Implementation Day for those participants--an idea I absolutely love. I sometimes hear in seminars that people love the information and want to get started but they are not sure if their boss/team will think it's OK for them to spend the time away from their "real work" to "get organized." This particular client makes it easy for participants by carving the class out on their calendars as a two-day training. The entire day following the class is permission to implement GTD. In the afternoon, we regrouped for a two-hour Q&A, Outlook power user class and more. Awesome.

Minneapolis is one of my favorite cities. I took time out on the other night to walk around one of the lakes. I caught this shot on my Treo. A great example of Mind Like Water!

Posted by Kelly at 08:09 AM

October 20, 2006

When is fast too fast?

I was doing some volunteer work today. They had asked me to come in to help them with a specific project of installing some software. Simple enough. As soon as I got there, one person announced to me that it was "one of those days." It was clear to me that the energy in the office was frenetic. At that point, I was fairly relaxed and was clear about what I was there to do.

2 hours later I somehow became involved in 3 concurrent projects/problems, none of which was making much progress. I had also become frenetic and stressed like the rest of the office. I was trying to do everything too quickly and all at once. I felt like my whole internal engine had starting revving at a higher speed, but not in a good, creative way. Instead of giving my attention and creative focus to one thing, I tried multi-tasking and being a latest and loudest problem-solver. Problem is, I didn't do any of it very well. If I had stuck to my original project and purpose for being there I think I would have seen better results and completion. Instead I took on 3 projects and did a mediocre job with all of them.

When does fast become too fast?

Posted by Kelly at 06:26 PM | Comments (1)

October 02, 2006

My lists

In a recent blog post, a GTD'er named Peter asked me "Is it possible for you to share an example of your lists?" I'd be happy to share more specifics about how I manage and use my lists, in case this is useful:

Email: Lotus Notes
Calendar, Tasks and Memo Pad: Palm Desktop
Handheld: Treo 650
Paper notes: Levenger Circa Pad - full size and pocket size

My lists:
In the Tasks Function of Palm Desktop, here are my action lists for all of my personal and work commitments:

@Anywhwere - for things I can do anywhere, as long as I have the thing (such as hard copy critical reading)
@Calls - no mystery there
@Errands - things to do out and about such as shopping lists, things to drop off, pick up etc.
@Home/Office - things I can only do at home and/or in my home office
@Laptop - actions that require the computer
@Talk To - Agenda lists for key people (boss, co-worker and husband)
@Waiting For - things I'm waiting for from someone or something else (call backs I'm waiting for, email responses, orders placed etc.)
Projects - the list of my outcomes that will take more than one action step to complete

Currently, I have 25 projects and 50 next actions on my lists. No where near the volume some people have, which is fine by me!

In the Memo Pad I have these reference-type lists:
Blog Ideas
Checklists
Fun
Guidelines
Health & Fitness
Inspiration
Like To Buy
Places to Go
Someday
Someday-Work
Travel

I have been a Palm Desktop user for about 10 years and am very happy with it. Even though it means my email is in another program, I find the benefit of Palm's simplicity worth the effort of manually entering actions that come by way of email into my Palm Task lists.

By the way, even if you don't use a Palm handheld, you can download the desktop program for free from Palm's web site.

Posted by Kelly at 10:30 AM | Comments (17)

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)

August 28, 2006

Low-tech brilliance

I was recently listening to an audio interview with David Allen on our Connect website and the caller asked him about dealing with interruptions, which seems to be a major workflow concern out there these days for many people. David recommended an Inbox (like this great one from Levenger) as one of the best things one can do for dealing with interruptions.

Think about why you sometimes don't like interruptions. It's often a break in the flow of your concentration, focus or creativity. And rarely does someone asking, "Got a minute?" really mean a minute. The part of you that knows that, and doesn't trust that you'll remember where you left off, would naturally get annoyed with those well-intentioned colleagues showing up at your door because they've got something that's a priority for them.

David described what he does when someone shows up at his door. He grabs a piece of paper (the ubiquitous quick capture tool no matter how digital you are) and writes himself a quick note about where he left off and tosses it in his own Inbox. Now, the reason that this works is that he trusts his system and knows he'll go back to process it. Using your own Inbox is like creating a bookmark for yourself of where you left off. It's also a great way to minimize interruptions among your team. Think of how many times recently someone interrupted you to hand you something relatively mundane because they didn't have a trusted place to put it on your desk.

Here are a couple of keys for an Inbox:

1. Have it close enough for you to drop stuff into at arm's length but not so close that someone would have to come into your personal space to put something into it (meaning, someone shouldn't have to do the cubicle tango with you to get to your Inbox.)

2. EMPTY IT REGULARLY! Get that Inbox processed down to zero every 24-48 hours. This tip alone will build the trust for you and other people to use it. Here's the classic GTD workflow diagram if you want a good reference for processing.

Then, if you really want to have fun, set up Inboxes at home for each person in the house.

Posted by Kelly at 07:47 PM | Comments (6)

August 09, 2006

Why do we keep things in our head?

We had an email discussion yesterday among some of the staff about why we (as humans) have a tendency to keep things in our mind. Given the mind can only focus on 2 to 3 things at any given time, and only do one thing at a time, the mind is obviously not the best office manager for incompletions. Yet, this is one of the things I find people will challenge with the GTD process. Here were some perspectives on this that I found interesting about why people keep things on our mind rather than write it down:

Because they don't have a system they trust to put it in so their head can let go of it. In a desperate attempt to keep agreements, the brain will hold on....it has no other choice.

Habit

Control (or false control). As long as they have it in their head, they think they are in control of it.

They don't have a trusted place that their brain trusts to put it that is as fast or easy as holding on to it in their head.

In the moment we're reminded to call Fred it's so clear and obvious to us - why would we need to take the time and effort to put it in a system? "Oh, I'll remember that, easy."

If the next action hasn't been decided then the mind wont let go of it.

False belief that worry equals progress.

Your thoughts on this?

Posted by Kelly at 07:51 AM | Comments (7)

August 04, 2006

When is the right time to process?

I was reminded today by a seminar participant of a great tip on processing: she said she only looks at her email at a time when she can actually do something about it. She has found, and I would strongly concur, that looking at email when she doesn't have time to really process what's come in only creates frustration--or what GTD would call "open loops." She waits until she has time (even 10 minutes) to actually give what she's looking at proper attention to handle it.

The flip side of this--as tempting as it is-- is opening email and closing it (or even marking it unread!) because you realize you've got to dash off to the next meeting and don't have time to DO the thing the email wants you too. But then that email hangs over you like a cloud because it feels undone. Problem is, a part of you hasn't forgotten that email. It's like you've made an investment in focus and attention. As long as a piece of your focus and attention is in that email it can pull you away from being fully focused on what you're doing. You're mind is trying to close the loop because it's still chewing on what you would have done or decided about it.

Deciding a next action can be as powerful as taking the action. The amazing thing about deciding is that it temporarily closes the loop so your mind can let go of it. What often causes stress is stuff left undone and undecided. Try it with your email Inbox. Next time you're checking email and are tempted to close it and come back to it, ask yourself, "what's my next action?" Then park that email and/or reminder about your action in a place you trust. THEN dash off to that meeting and see if it makes a difference in your focus.

Two keys I would suggest out of this:

1. Process your "stuff" when you've got the time to make decisions and process it.
2. Deciding a next action is as powerful in closing a loop and reducing stress as finishing the action.

Enjoy your weekend!

Posted by Kelly at 06:50 PM

August 01, 2006

Conscious vs. Unconscious

I was driving around in the car with my husband John recently and we were chatting about something related to GTD. We love chewing on GTD topics, like something I came up against in a seminar or a challenge he had with his GTD systems. On this particular day we were chatting about how GTD deals with priorities. It's one of those topics that often comes up in seminars where I can tell the audience is looking for me to roll out some magical ABC coding system that will tell them what to do after they've spent all morning in the seminar being reminded of their rather large list of things to do.

If you follow GTD you know that we generally don't advocate a coding system for priorities. Not that ABC coding systems don't work, but they rarely stand up to the rapidly changing environments that most of us are in. Something that is a C3 at 9am might become an A1 after one phone call from your boss at 9:05am. Whenever I've coached someone using this kind of coding system they seem to spend an enormous amount of time maintaining the codes to stay current with their work and eventually lose interest in maintaining anything other than the A1's. The system starts to fall apart or at least become a drag to maintain.

As David Allen says, "Everything on my list is to be done as soon as I can get to it."

The best answer I can give about priorities is to trust your gut, your intuition, your hunch--whatever you want to call it. If you REALLY know what your work is then that choice will be an easier one. That's the beauty of the GTD Levels of Work (Runway>50k as found in pages 200-210 in the GTD book). I find that the clearer I am about the higher levels, such as 20k/areas of responsibilities, it's easier for me to not get buried in the current action level and to have more confidence that what I am doing is my highest priority in that moment.

Another key in trusting my priorities is that my system captures everything so that my mind is really free to choose my priorities from the clearest perspective possible. You can tell your conscious mind to focus on your priorities, but it will have a hard time doing that if your unconscious mind is out of control and trying to grab your attention.

An easy way to get started is to do a thorough Collect of everything that's got your attention. Process it all and decide what it means to you. Organize it in a place you trust that you Review regularly. And all that is designed so that you can trust that what you're Doing is what you want and need to be doing.

Posted by Kelly at 04:05 PM | Comments (1)

July 19, 2006

Can "think about" be the next action?

Here's a question to consider: Can think about be a next action? In my experience, sometimes yes, sometimes no. It's tempting to put something on my To Do list with an action step of "think about" or "decide". And, usually what happens when I do that is that although I get quick gratification of the item getting processed, think about or decide are usually not my next action, and the item stays stuck on my lists. It's a rare item where truly my next action is to put my feet up, stare at the sky and think about what I might do. Not discounting the value of creative thinking and brainstorming, I'm talking next action level here and why stuff can get stuck.

More often than not, think about or decide means I need more information (talk to someone, get clarification on something, gather more data, etc.) Or, I am waiting until it's time to make a decision (in which case I would use my calendar as a tickler/reminder for me of that at a date in the future rather than keeping it in To Do's to see over and over again when I'm not ready to make that decision yet.)

Posted by Kelly at 11:12 PM | Comments (1)

June 21, 2006

GTD and Notes Beta

I'm looking for a few people to beta test a document on implementing GTD with Lotus Notes. It's a great tool, following in the footsteps of our whitepapers for Outlook and Entourage. If you are interested, and can check it out and give feedback in the next week, please send me an email.

Update 6/23: Kelly here.....I have enough testers at this point. Thanks for the great interest.

Posted by Kelly at 04:20 AM | Comments (1)

June 09, 2006

Tips for reducing email

Bill Gates said in an article recently that many of us are getting 10 times as much email as we were back in 1997. The need for ways to effectively manage email is greater than ever. Even if you got it down to zero, wait a few hours and I bet some of you would have several dozen fill the void. GTD (especially the 4D's) will help a ton with the processing . There are also some simple things you can do to reduce the sources of your email volume so you don't get it in the first place.

1. I often see inboxes full of emails from online stores. Every time you place an order, that company is looking to keep you engaged. Automatically adding you to their email newsletters and special offers is an easy way for them to do that. During any order process, carefully look for the checkbox or privacy information allowing you to opt-out of future communications beyond the order. If you are already getting emails from a company you do business with, look for unsubscribe options at the bottom of the latest email.

Note: you probably know not to unsubscribe from suspected spam. It validates your email address and creates even bigger headaches.

2. Let people know you don't need to be copied on unnecessary emails. A friend of mine was sending me all of those "forward to 10 people or your cat will die" emails. I told her to please stop sending me random forwards, in the nicest way I could, and she did. This also extends to your team. If you are still being copied on emails that you don't feel are relevant to your job, current projects or focus, let those folks know. If you've got some vague sense that maybe you should be looking at those, or maybe people expect you to, maybe it's time to review your 20k foot Areas of Responsibilities to get clear on that.

3. Consider dropping reply emails with key team members for the purpose of saying "thanks", "got it", "ok! or whatever other one or two word responses get sent. An email to process is an email to process, whether it's got 1,000 words or two. We tend not to send the quick "thanks" and "got it" type emails as a staff. We just assume the person got it and is thankful. Now, with some companies and cultures, this may not fly. A client was telling me that it's actually in their employee handbook that they will acknowledge all emails received. They are a global company and in their international offices, not acknowledging an email is considered rude. So maybe try this one out with just your key local staff to help each other reduce your loads.

What have you done that works to reduce your incoming email?

Posted by Kelly at 03:11 PM | Comments (4)

May 24, 2006

Implementing GTD

One of the things I love about our approach is that we are system neutral. In seminars, I'll often demo Outlook or Lotus Notes because they are easy to project on screen, but GTD can really work with any system, tool, or planner as long as you work it. David says a good system is a "complete, current, total-life reminder system which you review regularly."

I encourage people to choose their system or tool like they would pick their car. Choose one that you like, you trust and that matches your style. Some people are more digital than others and really like everything streamlined and searchable electronically. I'm seeing lots of people these days choose a hybrid system of electronic and paper, where their main hub is on their computer, but they print out their calendar and tasks to carry around with them for on-the-fly changes. For years I used a Time/Design paper system and loved it. It was only when I became a Palm geek in the late 90's that I let it go. Otherwise, I loved the visual appeal of a paper system.

There is an amazing wealth of materials out there about getting started with GTD. A few of them we've authored for specific tools our clients use and a few have come out of GTD champions who took it upon themselves to share their knowledge (thank you!):

David Allen Company whitepapers:
GTD and Outlook
GTD and Entourage
GTD and Lotus Notes (hopefully coming summer 2006)

GTD Community whitepapers:
Gary Stringer's whitepaper on GTD and BlackBerry
Bryan Murdaugh's how-to guide for GTD and Gmail

And certainly Merlin Mann's site, 43folders.com, is worth a visit.

Posted by Kelly at 09:55 AM | Comments (1)

May 15, 2006

Making GTD stick with teams

I wanted to share some ideas about helping GTD stick with teams. If you've been through a seminar and find that the GTD honeymoon is over, maybe something here will kick start you back into why you were inspired to get back on track.

- One group I've worked with has a GTD User Group meeting every Friday morning at 10am. Sometimes they do their weekly reviews together in a conference room with laptops and in-boxes in tow. Other times they are sharing tips and tricks or challenges and wins they are having. I've sat in on a few of these meetings and found them inspiring and useful. If weekly seems like too often, consider monthly or as needed. I'd suggest setting an agenda so the meetings stay on purpose.

- Consider a group purge day of reference filing. Everyone could probably benefit from some dedicated file purging time. It may be easier (and more fun) to do if the whole group or company is doing it together. Perhaps an hour on some day that tends to be quieter than most.

- Create your own internal newsletter, SharePoint or Intranet site with GTD tips and tricks.

- Do a refresher seminar with someone from our team. I've done some really great follow-up classes for companies based on the key points of GTD. One I did recently went through a review of the five phases and had them breakout into teams after each phase to talk about what's working, not working, best practices etc. Our director of tele-coaching, Meg Edwards, created a refresher session for a client recently that was done entirely by phone using Skype. Pretty cool stuff.

- I personally find it helpful to re-read the Getting Things Done book. Inevitably I'll read something that I swear wasn't there before. Lately I've also been listening to David's second book, Ready For Anything, on my iPod while I workout. They are nice little sound bytes that are easy to digest. I like when it's on shuffle because I'll hear something from David interspersed with my 70's disco, like Macho Man. Pretty funny.

Posted by Kelly at 03:10 PM | Comments (2)

April 28, 2006

Power of the Natural Planning Model

I was in NYC this week doing a two-day seminar for a financial services company on Wall St. On the second day, we dove into the Natural Planning Model, which is David's five step model for project planning (starts on page 56 of the GTD book). What I love about this model is that it really "demystifies" project planning and gives people some structure--starting with "what's the purpose?" down to identifying clear next actions. One participant shared with me that he's had a project stuck on his plate for about 4 months. Spending ten minutes running his project through the Natural Planning Model gave him a clear plan and steps to move forward.

I've run all sorts of projects (and problems) through this model, including healing my elbow. Some of you know I've had an elbow injury for about two years. It finally occurred to me to treat it like a project. So I broke it down into pieces with the NPM and saw solutions and ways to go about healing it that I had not seen before. A participant in the seminar yesterday ran the situation of "what will my son do this summer?!" through the model. He was so excited because he saw more options and opportunities than he realized and had some do-able next actions for moving forward.

Waiting for my flight out last night at Newark Airport, I caught this shot on my Treo:

Posted by Kelly at 09:24 AM | Comments (1)

April 04, 2006

Getting email to zero

Many people consider that Black Belt with GTD is to get to zero emails in the Inbox on a regular basis. Why? Because it takes less effort, attention and energy to work from a place of zero than to keep things in the Inbox where some part of your brain has to refigure out what you've already figured out. Consider this: How many times have you opened an email, closed it, maybe even marked it as unread, then gone on to the next one. Then at some point you see that email again, maybe even open it again and have to think, did I respond to this one? Is this new? One suggestion to get a handle on what's in the Inbox is to first handle the backlog sitting in In, starting with what can get deleted. Sorting by Date, Sender or Subject can make that easier. If you have a sense that you have some old emails that you need to keep for archival purposes, and it's unrealistic to go through hundreds or thousands of old emails, then create a folder called something like Backlog or To Process--call it whatever you want to give it a place other than In. Once backlog stops grabbing your attention you'll be freed up to process what's new. I find the 4D's to be a great model for processing email:

* Delete whatever I don't need
* Do those I can do in less than 2 minutes
* Delegate anything I can hand off to someone else
* Defer anything that will take longer than 2 minutes to some kind of action folder or Task list

A grad of one of my seminars last week wrote to me about her experience implementing GTD with her email:

A funny thing to share...I was one of the ones with 3,000+ E-mails in my Inbox, so I followed your suggestion [about backlog] and created 2 files...2006 Before GTD and 2005 Before GTD and moved things more than 2 weeks old into those folders. Then, I worked on deleting, or moving more recent E-mails to tasks, or other folders as appropriate. I finished all of this VERY LATE last night. This morning, I logged in and watched and watched my "Inbox"...but there seemed to be a problem. The viewing panes were empty and weren't showing me any mail. So, I moved over to tasks and scanned those to see what I could work on in the moment -- while waiting for my screen to refresh. I did a couple of things -- went BACK to my "Inbox" and the screens STILL weren't "refreshed". I tried to look for a "refresh button" to clear up the problem...and it finally occurred to me that this is what an empty "Inbox" looks like!! I'd never seen one before! I had to laugh...

Posted by Kelly at 07:12 PM | Comments (6)

March 31, 2006

Project views in Outlook

Sometimes it can be useful to see everything related to a project in one view. For example, one of my biggest projects lately has been completing the Entourage whitepaper. I've had quite a few moving parts going at one time (meetings, tasks, waiting for's etc.) If you use a keyword when creating any entries related to that project, the Outlook Find feature is a great tool for bringing everything back together in one view. Here's how to do that:

1. Go to Outlook Tasks (Ctrl+4)
2. Launch Find (Alt+i)
3. Enter a keyword to search on.
4. Click on Search In to select advanced search options. Click on Choose Folders.
5. Check off Inbox, Calendar, Tasks, Notes.
6. Check off Search subfolders.
7. Click OK
8. Click Find Now

Outlook will start chugging away finding entries on that keyword, looking for the keyword in the subject or body of entries. You could even print this view (Ctrl+P).

Generally, I still prefer to stay in the by context/category view of Tasks. But occasionally, it does help to see my actions by project. And of course, you could always get the GTD Add-in software which links all of your projects to actions together.

If you are a Lotus Notes user, the All Documents view in mail is the best way I've found to do this.

Hope this helps!

Posted by Kelly at 02:54 PM | Comments (3)

March 29, 2006

Defensive emailing

I'm finding that I'm spending more time in GTD seminars covering email management. It's interesting to hear how people are dealing with tons of email, especially on BlackBerry devices.

A participant in my seminar in Boston this week told me he does "defensive emailing." It's those quick replies when you shoot the topic, issue or problem back to the other person -- just to get it out of your Inbox.

Another shared that his group has implemented "Email Free Friday's" to encourage people to have more face-to-face conversations.

Posted by Kelly at 09:13 PM | Comments (2)

GTD and Entourage whitepaper is now available!

I'm happy to say that the GTD and Entourage whitepaper I've been working on for the last few months is done and now available in our online store. Check it out if you are an Entourage user wanting to apply the best practices of GTD.

Special thanks to my great group of beta testers.

-Kelly

Posted by Kelly at 09:59 AM

March 25, 2006

How effective are your meetings?

Too many meetings seems to be a hot topic these days. I often hear people in seminars tell me they don't feel like they can get real work done because their days are filled in back-to-back meetings. Yesterday, in the Santa Monica RoadMap seminar, I heard a classic from David Allen on this:

"Some people are going to meetings just because the cow in front of them is."

Here are some suggestions I've been pulling together for improving meetings:

- Start every meeting with "What's the purpose of this meeting?"
- End every meeting with "What's the next action and who's got it?"
- Send meeting agendas ahead of time (one client told me this one alone has transformed their meetings--they no longer waste time in meetings figuring out what the meeting is about.)
- Send meeting minutes after the meeting while it's still fresh in participant's minds.
- Does everyone who is there really need to be there? Unless someone is directly related to the project or topic, do they really need to attend?
- Do your recurring meetings need to happen as frequently anymore? Maybe a year ago that weekly Wednesday meeting made sense, but maybe it's not needed as often (or at all!). Can it move to biweekly or monthly? Can it be a conference call instead?
- Allow enough time for people to get between meetings. Some clients start 7 minutes after the hour and end 7 minutes prior, just to allow walking/breathing/water break time.
- One client said they give speaker time-limits, so the meeting doesn't drag on and on.
- If you are on shared calendars, block your calendar for your own doing time (including eating lunch), if you find that other people are grabbing whatever open time you've got.

I'd love comments on this. Anything you've done to improve your workflow around meetings?

Posted by Kelly at 10:19 AM | Comments (3)

March 07, 2006

GTD and BlackBerry

Are there any GTD users out there who are successfully applying GTD systems on your BlackBerry? I'm really curious how you are processing actionable emails on the BlackBerry.

I'm asking because more and more of our clients are using BlackBerry, and honestly, I have yet to see anyone use one efficiently where they are not handling things more than once--besides the obvious ones to delete. Most users I come across have Inboxes full of stuff they've already read on the BlackBerry, but couldn't do anything about it to properly close the loop on it (e.g. file the email and/or capture a next action so their mind can let go of it). I'd really like to learn from some GTD users about making a BlackBerry an effective tool for applying GTD.

Posted by Kelly at 09:28 AM | Comments (29)

February 14, 2006

Recovery

I was taking a cycling class this morning at a gym in New Jersey and the instructor made a comment that intrigued me. Between intense bursts of climbing hills she said, "recovery builds confidence and strength." Whereas part of me wanted to keep a fast pace and just keep going, I took her advice, slowed my speed down to rest my legs and heart. I was stronger on the next hill I cimbed.

OK--so you knew there'd be something GTD in this: the Weekly Review is recovery. It's my time to relax my mind and body from the frantic pace of the daily grind. It builds confidence in my system letting my mind know it's OK to relax and be creative. It gives me mental strength to make better choices because I'm seeing a clear picture of everything instead of chasing after latest and loudest.

"You need to spend quality time, detached from the daily grind, thinking about, getting control of, and managing the daily grind." - David Allen

Posted by Kelly at 04:50 AM | Comments (1)

February 10, 2006

Organizing digital files

Piggybacking on what David posted on his blog about ways to handle digital filing, I saw a new solution this summer working with a client. This guy was an Outlook user and he saved all of his digital files (Outlook, Word, Excel, pictures etc.) in My Documents, in file folders by topic (of which he had dozens and dozens). He did not use ANY Outlook folders. He only wanted one place to look for all of his digital reference.

Outlook will allow you to drag and drop emails into My Documents folders, or you can be in the email and choose File>Save>change message type to .msg and find the location to save it.

I haven't found it all that cumbersome to have some information in email folders and some My Documents folders, but I can also see the value in having them all in one place or having a great hard drive search tool that works across applications.

I was doing a seminar for a software company last month and one of the participants suggested the X1 search tool, as Eric Mack mentions on David's blog. Now, this guy in my seminar did save all of his emails in Outlook but he only had one email folder called "Archive" which stored everything. He relied on X1 to retrieve what he needed by keyword. The downside I can see with that is if the keyword I'm thinking of doesn't happen to be in that email anywhere then I'm forced to search by other means.

More and more though, I think digital filing will be the next frontier of organization. What once was a paper stack is now just getting stored on a hard drive somewhere. What seems to be working the best for me is to make my system naturally match my thinking so I don't have to "think" when I need something. I want it to be as fast, easy and intuitive as grabbing for something in my paper files.

Posted by Kelly at 07:11 PM | Comments (3)

February 01, 2006

GTD and Entourage whitepaper

For those of you eagerly anticipating the release of a whitepaper on GTD with Entourage, I want to let you know I've finished the beta testing and I am now in the process of compiling the feedback. At this point, I am no longer looking for new beta testers. I had the most incredible group of guys pouring over the first draft of the doc and got some very valuable feedback.

I anticipate having the final whitepaper available in our online store in a few months. I need to be conservative with my estimate of the release date given my travel schedule and other projects in the queue for our graphics team. But I think those of you waiting for this will be pleased to see the final product.

Thanks. Kelly

Posted by Kelly at 06:40 AM | Comments (2)

January 04, 2006

How to handle daily actions

I received an email from a participant in one of my recent seminars who asked:

How you organize your daily to-do's that need action the same day?

If I have an action that must be taken today, but can be done anytime today, I will add it as an All Day Event. In Outlook, this should keep the time as free for group scheduling purposes. For Lotus Notes users, by default an All Day Event will show your entire day as busy, so choose Anniversary instead and change the range of days under Repeats (can even be the same start and end day).

Each morning, the first place I look is today's calendar page. I look at anything with a start/end time and then I scan to the untimed All Day Events. I am very careful about adding things to the Calendar so that I don't get caught with my calendar full of nice-to-do things that don't get done because I needed to handle unexpected stuff as it showed up (and hence having to copy it on to the next day which takes time and usually is a negative reinforcer). But for those must do daily actions, I think the calendar can be a great reminder system.

I like to follow the guideline of:

- if it needs to be done ON a particular day, I put it on the calendar (as an appointment or all day event)
- if it needs to be done BY a particular day, but can be done any day up to the day, I put it on the Action list for where I need to be to take the action (office, computer, call etc.)

Posted by Kelly at 02:18 PM

December 27, 2005

Project actions

One of the questions that often comes up in seminars is about how to keep project actions moving forward. For example, when the action step for a project is done, when do I choose the next one and where do I go?

First off, consider your projects to be the "game" you are playing and action steps as the "next play". All of my project names are listed together in one list called "Projects". By the way, I've also seen it work really well to have 3 separate lists for Projects-Work, Projects-Personal and even Projects-Delegated. It's entirely your choice. My work and personal life is so intertwined it just makes sense for me to keep them all on one list.

All of my next actions (some are moving parts of projects and some have nothing to do with projects), all go on the action lists separated by context (anywhere, calls, computer, errands, home, office, waiting for). Each project could have several next actions that can all be done now so each of those can get listed on one of the action lists based on where I need to be to take the action as long as they are independent of each other. Any actions that are dependent on one of those actions happening first would not go on the action lists yet--those would be captured wherever I am keeping project plans for that project (such as any project management software, manilla file folder, digital folder, notes field for the project where it's listed on the projects list etc.) As soon as I complete a next action from an action list I can either go back to my project plans if I need to grab another next action or sometimes the next action is just obvious to me and I don't need to go back to anywhere else to figure that out. I will then either do the action or put it on an action list if I need to shift gears and come back to the project at a later time. Sometimes figuring out the next action will happen as soon as the other one is done or as a safety net it will get figured out in my weekly review.

A big key is that the action lists are for current next actions only. In the right context, I could do whatever is on those lists. Anything that is considered a dependency (meaning something needs to happen first before I can take that action) goes into project planning, or back to our sports analogy, it sits on the sidelines until it's ready to come into play.

A nice way to pull your actions related to projects back together is to use some kind of key word in every entry for that project. For example, if I've got a project called "ACME" I would use that keyword in all of the actions I create, so if I'm on an electronic system a quick search on ACME will show me all of the related entries. Even if you are on a paper system, a keyword system can be handy for visual clues to see how things are related.

Posted by Kelly at 02:53 PM | Comments (1)

December 20, 2005

On the road

I've been doing quite a few seminars lately for an energy company. Last week brought me to St. Joseph, Missouri to present a two-day GTD seminar for a great group. One of the participants sent me a photo from the class:

The interesting thing about many of these guys is that most of their job is done in the field, away from a desk or computer. They are only touching back into email about once a day or every few days. They are also being asked to do more and more administrative work, so we've been asked to bring them through GTD to give them better ways to balance it all.

What I've liked about these seminars is that it challenges me to get creative about how GTD can really work for anyone in any job. What would you need to manage your projects if you work out of a truck? Or spend your time digging ditches but still need to stay on top of email? I think the same GTD workflow principles apply: get good collection tools to get things off your mind wherever you are, make decisions about what has your attention, organize it in a place you trust, review it regularly to build trust for your mind to let it go so that you can make the best intuitive choices about what to do.

Posted by Kelly at 07:04 AM

November 21, 2005

The GTD Experience

If there is time at the end of my seminars, I like to go around the room and hear from participants about what they got from the experience. It's so nice for me to hear what they share. A few comments stood out to me last week from my group in Birmingham, Alabama:

- Going to use my head less to manage my to do's
- Going to make less agreements
- Learned a lot about managing email better
- Learned so much about Outlook tasks
- Loved getting my head clear with the Mindsweep
- Natural Planning Model really simplifies project planning

Travel-wise, this was a particularly challenging trip. Like my buddy Jason, my connecting flight to Birmingham was cancelled. At midnight, my amazing co-worker Anne found me a hotel in Chicago to sleep for a few hours before catching a new flight the next morning. I got to Alabama mid-morning, found my suitcase and motored on to the seminar. Overall, my travel goes pretty smoothly, so this kind of cancellation is rare for me. It did help to have some of the basics with me since my suitcase was locked down in the bowels of O'Hare. And thankfully, the client was very understanding!

Posted by Kelly at 10:41 AM

November 06, 2005

Email Quotas - Friend or Foe?

More and more companies I have been working with seem to have IT policies about email quotas and limits that range from the extreme, automatically sweeping and deleting the Inbox every 2 weeks, to size limits on the mail file with gentle reminders asking the user to clean out some folders.

On one hand, I can see email quotas being extremely effective in helping users to stay on track with processing if employees are given best practices on how to do that, like with GTD, but at what point do these kind of rules become anti-productive? For example, one client shared with me that their company is deleting anything older than 12 months left in Lotus Notes email. They lost key project history from previous years because they didn't save to CD or print hard copy. They now need to recreate the project from scratch. But even saving to CD and hard disk isn't an option for some because of liability reasons (e.g. the Enron debacle). And printing is just going to transfer the problem to overloaded paper files if people don't have a good reference filing system.

Are you affected by email quotas and limits, and if so, how are you dealing with it? Has it helped your productivity or hindered it?

Posted by Kelly at 10:39 AM | Comments (3)

October 20, 2005

Yes, it's really about the NEXT action

I think one of the gems of GTD is the practice of capturing the very next action. When I see things getting stale on my lists, or I realize I'm procrastinating, it's often because I haven't captured the very next action versus just a next action.

Even after 14 years practicing this GTD, things still can slip onto my lists and clog my system if I haven't really spent the time clarifying what the very next thing is that I need to do. This week's annoyance was some CDs that I need to send to a friend for her birthday. My list had "send CDs", but really I need to buy wrapping paper before I can even send them. A common one is a phone call on my @Calls list, but I don't have the phone number. This can create what David Allen calls, things on your lists that repel you, not to mention internal stress and frustration.

Is there anything on your next action lists that is repelling you? If so, take a look to see if you have really identified the very next action. Ask yourself, do I have everything I need in order to do this? If the answer is no, back yourself up until you get to the very next action. What do you see yourself doing FIRST?

Posted by Kelly at 03:32 PM | Comments (1)

October 06, 2005

Keeping the GTD flame alive

I was exchanging emails with a client today about how to keep the GTD flame alive. I led a one-day seminar for them this summer. Discipline is certainly part of it, but what inspires us to even stay disciplined? Here was my response:

I think you nailed it about discipline and for me it's also finding a meaningful outcome to stay attracted and motivated toward it. If it seems like "work" it's hard for me to stay on track. I look at it like exercise: it's not so fun to walk on the treadmill, but how I feel afterward makes it worth it. GTD is the same way. How I feel, think and can relax about my life with a clear head and trusted system makes it all worth slogging through the weekly review. One of the other things I often do is change my system around, like new list categories (@online and @offline instead of @computer), getting new fun gear from Palm (Treo 650), Levenger (Circa pad) etc. so that I really like and stay engaged with the tools I'm using. It's kind of like getting a new pair of shoes--all of a sudden I'm excited and I want to find somewhere to go.

Posted by Kelly at 07:25 PM

September 17, 2005

Does email help or hinder your productivity?

Interesting question if we consider that we're getting about 10 times as much email than we were 10 years ago. I worked with a company recently that eliminated email entirely for nearly all staff below managers. This means it's back to face-to-face and paper for most of their communications.

Email seems essential to do my job well, particularly since we're such a virtual team. Or is it just that I'm used to email so it seems crippling to be without it?

What would your job be like without email? Would you get more done or less done? I'd love to hear your comments on this.

Posted by Kelly at 10:43 AM | Comments (7)

September 12, 2005

Similarities

I've finished my two-day coaching in Italy for an executive at a pharmaceutical company. Regardless of the language, location or position of the person I'm working with, I love that GTD gives people great ways for managing their stuff for a better work/personal life balance. I did a coaching recently where the person shared at the end that he felt like as a result of the coaching, he would actually be able to have better quality time in the evenings with his sons. Instead of rushing through dinner so he could get back to work, he felt like he trusted his systems better to actually leave work at work.

Posted by Kelly at 11:07 AM

September 07, 2005

Some of my checklists

Here are some of the Checklists I have as reference in my system. I find it helpful to have these on hand on the Palm, particularly for adding to any of these lists when I'm on the go:

Travel - what I may need for any trip I take
Music to Buy - music to buy on CD or on iTunes
Books to Read - titles I collect for possible reading
Skiing - things we'll need on the rare occasion we ski
Camping - things we'll need on the even more rare occasion we camp
Birthdays/Anniversaries - one complete list of anyone I might want to send a card, buy a gift or just know it's their day. This helps also since I buy my cards about a month at a time and I can see a whole group of people in one list, rather than going through all of my calendar pages to find them listed there.
Gift ideas - a list of possible Christmas gifts for people I may buy gifts for this year

If you are on Outlook, the Notes section can be a good place for these. If you're on Lotus Notes, you can categorize them into Journal (if you have that) or as a To Do category separate from your action lists, such as "zChecklists."

Posted by Kelly at 04:38 AM

August 30, 2005

Where is your Focus?

I just finished presenting the second day of GTD for a great group in Colorado Springs. I love this second day of the seminar because it really seems to open people up to new ideas and creativity they may not have thought of before. Particularly after they've sat through the first day of the seminar and realize how many agreements they've made in the world!

There's a part of the seminar where I asked them to do a mindmap of one of their projects. When they finished, some of the participants shared that their internal "yah-but's.." were coming in on some of the things they were writing down. I then asked them to do another mindmap on the exact same project, this time parking any negative thinking and instead thinking of WILD SUCCESS. They had a completely different experience and seem to have a whole different attitude and positive focus about their project.

Posted by Kelly at 05:13 PM

August 25, 2005

The Power of Someday/Maybe

A Someday/Maybe does not necessarily mean a Someday/Never list. I often see people hesitant to put things on that list, fearing it will never come around again.

I use that list to incubate all sorts of things, some even just for a few months, if I'm not committed to it yet or just can't do it right now. Even fantastic ideas that would be great to do, I'll put on my Someday/Maybe list. I've had things on there for years that just keep rolling along (go to Machu Pichu, learn Italian) and some things are just there until I can get to them (work on a GTD guide for Notes users, get voice recognition software.)

My only commitment to the Someday/Maybe list is reviewing it. That's all. But parking things on that list relieves the stress that I need to DO it now. Reviewing that list it in my weekly review (which takes all of about 20 seconds) gives me a chance to check in on it to ask, "now?"

Posted by Kelly at 05:06 AM | Comments (4)

August 21, 2005

A shout out for The RoadMap

I first sat through a seminar with David Allen back in 1991. I am still in awe when I sit through them with David now, like the recent Santa Monica RoadMap seminar. My words to him at the break were something like "this is f*%#*ng brilliant!" The new seminar inspired me to take a bigger look at my own stuff and where I'm placing my energy and focus. And as a facilitator, it reminded me why we teach this. Get yourself to one of The RoadMap seminars. They really are fantastic:

LONDON
September 08

CHICAGO
September 14

MINNEAPOLIS
September 22

BOSTON
September 30

WASHINGTON DC
October 26

SEATTLE
November 11

Posted by Kelly at 09:47 AM | Comments (2)

August 16, 2005

How to make GTD stick

A typical question that I get asked after leading seminars or coaching someone is how to make GTD stick. I think implementing any of this can help your productivity, so pick something from this methodology that really resonates with you and start with that one thing. Then next week add another thing. Then the week after, add another. Before you know it you've got a whole toolbox of tips and tricks to increase your productivity.

I led a Managing Workflow seminar today in Pennsylvania. Here are some of the key takeaways the group shared that they were going to use to get started with GTD:

The Two Minute Rule - if you can take an action in less than 2 minutes, do it now.

Context lists - organize your to do lists based on where you can take the action, rather than what the action is related to.

Create Action and Waiting For folders in email and in hard copy for your desk. If you're a Notes user, start the folder name with a dash, like "-Action" so that is sorts at the top of your folders. If you're on Outlook, use the @ symbol, like "@Action".

Do a weekly review - once a week, turn off your input to get current and creative with your system, so that you can get some alitude from the day-to-day grind.

Posted by Kelly at 02:08 PM

August 10, 2005

Tracking delegation

Many times in GTD workflow coachings I see managers hold back delegating things to their staff and direct reports because they don't trust their systems will remind them of things they have handed off.

If you are the one delegating, track what you hand off on a "Waiting For" list. I include the person's name, what I'm waiting for and the date I started waiting. I am currently waiting for our IT guy Eric to fix my wireless card which broke yesterday. Here's what that looks like on my Waiting For list:

Eric - fix my wireless card - 8/9

Even though I trust Eric implicitly to get things done, I want my list to track this item, not my mind. I also don't have a due date on their because there really isn't a due date--it just needs to be done as soon as it can be done. This Friday during my weekly review, I'll scan down the Waiting For list. If that item is still unresolved, it may generate a call or email to Eric asking what's up if I haven't heard anything by then. Or, I may see that 8/9 date which tells me that I really haven't been waiting that long and I can wait a few more days. Either way, I can move on to whatever else I need to be handling and trust that Eric is on top of it.

Posted by Kelly at 02:03 PM | Comments (6)

July 22, 2005

Mind Sweep Aftershocks

Someone who was in a seminar I did a few months ago attended David's RoadMap seminar yesterday in Santa Monica. She wrote to me today to say she was still getting Mind Sweep Aftershocks! She said that the "oh I want to do this or that" things are still coming in here and there at the most random times and that her mind opened up much BIGGER yesterday.

Posted by Kelly at 03:58 PM

July 07, 2005

You've gotta spend time to make time

There's usually at least one person in every seminar I lead who expresses concern about how much time the GTD system could take to maintain. Usually these are the people who don't have any kind of objective system in place for tracking their actions, and pride themselves on remembering what they need to do. My response is that you've gotta spend time to make time. After the initial setup of the system we suggest, the time saved will far outweigh the time wasted being unproductive. What I think most people don't realize (or like to deny) is that they are spending far more time maintaining their stuff by trying to think of it (often over and over again) and manage it all in their head. Not only will you start to act and react from emotional response, but as David Allen says, "Who says you've got the luxury to think about something twice? I thought you were busy!"

Posted by Kelly at 06:03 AM | Comments (1)

May 03, 2005

What's the Purpose

I'm helping a team at a local non-profit clarify their guiding principles (what are the rules they want to play by, they are at their best when...") I'm mostly just the scribe in the meetings, asking them questions when they seem stuck. I couldn't understand why they were having such a hard time coming up with their guiding principles until someone on the team asked "what is our purpose as a team?" I had assumed (incorrectly I now see) that their purpose as a team was clear to everyone on the team. It wasn't. And with a recent reorganization, their purpose and roles had changed. As a result, coming to agreement on their guiding principles was tedious and confusing--they didn't all have the same purpose in mind for why they were doing what they were doing. They couldn't agree on the rules because they weren't all playing the same game.

As soon as they nailed down their purpose, their guiding principles began to flow with ease and clarity.

I love these kind learning experiences. It reminds me to look at my own purpose in doing things, especially when I'm stuck. Is my inner committee in agreement about my purpose?

Posted by Kelly at 02:09 PM