One of the toughest habits I had to kick when I first got into GTD was the belief that Projects need to be "work" and Someday/Maybe items need to be "play". As soon as I became aware of this, I began letting go of the old habit, and living in a more fun and fluid way. Want to know how to make your projects more inspiring and meaningful? Here's how I do it.

3 Questions to Ask Yourself Every Week:

Initially the idea of eating lots of uncooked foods went against all the traditions I know and love. Cooking and mealtimes are so rich with cultural meaning and codes of conduct, so naturally I felt some initial resistance to the idea of giving that up. Despite my skepticism, I gave it a try. I began integrating more and more raw foods into my diet. At first, it just meant more uncooked veggies instead of steamed ones. Then I added in more fruit, raw nuts, and other raw sources of protein. It's only been a few months, so the verdict is still out. But I have to say, I feel better than ever, have more energy, and am starting to enjoy my relationship with food for the first time. This is a project I have filled under the Area of Focus "health" and my successful outcome is "I am radiant with health, perfectly nourished by every bite of food that I eat."

Since I am at a beginner-intermediate level of yoga, the workout was plenty challenging for me, and I had to pay attention to not over-extend or do the poses incorrectly. It was a wonderful workout, and one of the best I've had in terms of strengthening and deepening the poses. I also tend to look for yoga workouts that aren't cheesy or pretentiously glam. I like a yoga teacher who is down to earth, connected to his/her body, and gently encouraging. It was quite fun to see a fitness queen alongside her yoga teacher, in the student's role for a change. It certainly made me feel less intimidated to see how two people who have been practicing for over 20 years still have varying degrees of flexibility and strength.

Tips for an effective yoga session:

David often talks about the "latest and loudest" grabbing our attention and directing us away from the most appropriate next actions. There's nothing like an update about a very real and very powerful threat to pull at the psyche and add stress to your life.

Ojai breathes a sigh of relief. A shift in the wind last week brought us some both mental and physical relief. The fire shifted away from us (unfortunately towards another community to the north) and the ash and smoke falling from the sky diminished noticeably. We even had some light rain showers this weekend; fall is here and the fire is on its way out!

Thanks to all of you who have sent your well-wishes to us at DavidCo, based here in Ojai.

And thanks to The Ojai Post for keeping us informed every step of the way. It's so nice to see how Ojai became a vibrant interactive community in the face of concern. It is oh-so-good to live in a small town.

Then the epiphany struck- beyond weighing this action based on a cost-benefit analysis of what I would get out of it, there was something more interesting to be learned from this. I did pick up the trash because it was an action that took 2 minutes or less and I knew it would be weighing on my mind if I didn't do it now. I would definitely pick up that trash someday, so it might as well be this instant and be done with it. I realized I had just applied David Allen's two minute rule in a whole new way! (See Getting Things Done, pg 131-133.) This simple action became in my mind a tiny act of service to my household. Thus 2 minute service was born.

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Right now you can hear the first episode in "Productive Talk", conversations between Merlin Mann and David Allen. It's been really fun for me whenever I've had a chance to interact with these two visionaries. David + Merlin is a great recipe for engaging and often funny conversation about the fringe between GTD, technology, and contemporary ways of thinking and living. I believe it was David Harrington who first told me that the best creativity emerges from interdisciplinary studies, on the fringe between different cultures. A diverse environment stimulates new ideas in abundance because new perspectives are filtered into existing conversations and modes of operation. I certainly have a creative experience whenever I hear David consulting with his wide array of tech experts and geeks for the latest and greatest tips on where the world is headed. So I hope you'll enjoy the clip and the clips to come. It's great to be offering a slice of David in podcast form, a technology that seems all the more viral these days.

In his main article he talks about getting to the essence in three ways. Essentially it's about simplifying your life along these 3 dimensions:

1. Essential people
2. Essential work
3. Essential stuff

They report that more and more people prefer a face-to-face interaction to many of the popular social networking websites that have been getting so much press lately, i.e. Facebook or MySpace. Having just returned home from a wonderfully warm weekend out of town, I'd like to think that they are right, that the warmth of human interaction will prevail over the convenience of the keyboard. But I have a couple of bones to pick with this article...

The word "done" rang out loud and clear in my head at that moment. The sweet tase of completion. It seems that success is a word that really rings our bells here in Western civilization, and completion is genuinely intertwined with worldly success. But perhaps at times we are too focused on the end results, aiming for goals without asking ourselves the big "why."

I'm sure David Allen knows all this (and perhaps to a much deeper cut than I do), so why on earth did he title his book Getting Things Done?

It appears the Post-It folks have outdone me with this high-tech Auto Message Center. You record your thoughts into the tape recorder, then once you are parked you can jot them down on the post-it notes. (Thanks Erik!)

So why am I such a fan of capturing?

Tip for the season: Love your inbox, and it will love you.

Seriously, the number one reason people procrastinate on processing the inbox is the dread factor. You've been there, we all have. It slowly begins to increase in volume, piling up little by little, threatening to spill out and take over.

So why is an in-tray or a screen of emails scary? Everything in your life either attracts or repels you to some degree, and the inbox is no exception. I've identified these reasons for the dreaded inbox phenomenon:

• You don't know what's in it. There is nothing worse than the fear of the unknown.

• It looks bigger than you.

• You think you know what's in it, and it's not fun.

Be it the inbox on your desktop, or the one on top of your desk, here are some keys for making processing painless...

First of all I should say that this question contains some forethought. A GTD Connect member brought this idea to my attention at a recent public seminar and the theme of entry-level behaviors for GTD has been following me ever since.

The question of entry-level behaviors rests on the assumption that GTD is like any complex system worth learning on multiple levels (from nitty gritty to deep and profound). Other examples include golf, mastering aikido, driving a car, running a business, and assimilating into a new culture. What all of these mega-projects have in common is a need to master smaller subprojects in order to gestalt the more meaningful principles that form the whole. With any of these endeavors, it's easy to fall off the wagon en route to mastery. They are also similar in that getting started can be daunting without a little help. Entry-level behaviors are the accessible and practical behaviors that a beginner can do in order to see some real results without having to do a whole-life overhaul. My hope is that the following tips will give you some ideas on how to get started with (or get back into) Getting Things Done for the New Year.

The best time to identify any stale items on your list is during the weekly review. If you're looking at your action lists (by the way you're way ahead of the game if you are doing this semi-regularly) and you've found yourself thinking "Something has changed since I put that there", then it's time to review your system and update your lists.

Items tend to get stuck on my lists because they are either ambiguous, stale, or already completed (my favorite, of course). To speak to the ones that need more thank just ticking off the list...

I have often heard David Allen talk about whether he, or others, have "the bandwidth" to take on a new endeavor. It's interesting language, and I love the way it doesn't assume any lack of time or energy. By saying I do or don't have the bandwidth for something, I get to decide what I want to focus on, how much I can focus on at once, and where the limits and guidelines are about that.

It's remarkable to me to hear from countless people in our network who wear many hats with success. I intersect with some of these people thorugh the GTD Connect inteviews, others at the RoadMap seminars, and others who bump into us at seemingly random places along the road. And while these people come from all industries (medicine, finance, HR, small startup companies, education, the list goes on...), there is a common thread to their success. They model to me a fine balance between clear focus and an ability to maintain altitude and perspective, while wearing many hats. In the RoadMap seminar, which is truly one of my favorite events, David talks about control and perspective. Quite the combination, and quite the dance, in my experience, to keep them both going at once.

So here I am at another mini-reflection point, doing my weekly review and looking at all my hats like this rich colorful display in a store window. It's been a real pleasure, readers, hearing from you. I hope you'll consider this an open invitation to stay connected with me in and about this work.

You can still catch me around on the GTD Connect forums. Don't hestitate to drop me a line.