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September 15, 2008

One System Does Not Fit All

My clients often assume that there is only one "right way" to practice GTD. I hear questions like, "Does everyone do it this way?" and "Is everyone like me?" My answer is a resounding NO. While the higher-level principles of GTD are universal, the specific tools and strategies that each person should use are not. Don't try to squeeze yourself into some predefined system if it doesn't really fit who you are and how you work.

The idea for this post was triggered by a conversation I had with my fellow coach, Kelly Forrister, a while back about our favorite collection tools. She's a big fan of the Levenger Circa system for taking notes and I tend to like bound notebooks like the large Moleskine. I know we also keep a different set of categories in our action lists and reference lists.

The point of GTD is not about installing a preordained system that will plug in a change your life. It's a bit more subtle than that. It's about applying the higher-level principles and using the tools and strategies that are attractive and workable for you to accomplish them. Here's a reminder of the "Five Phases of Workflow," the core framework representing the higher-level principles of David Allen's GTD:

Collect, take notes about, or somehow gather what's got your attention,
Process that collection of notes earlier rather than later and decide what it all means to you and what you will do,
Organize the results of those decisions in a way that is easily reviewable and retrievable in a calendar, lists, files, or other systems,
Review your system at appropriate levels often enough to feel in control and in perspective, and
Do, using your system to choose the appropriate thing to do based on how much time and energy you have, what context you're in, and your higher sense of priority.

If you love the feel of pen and paper or aren't attracted to typing your lists, use a paper system. If a digital system works for you, great! The point is to do what works for you.

I'm curious what unique variations from the "standard" GTD approach are working for folks out there.

Posted by mdolan at 10:26 AM | Comments (1)

September 04, 2008

What will our office be tomorrow?

Today I had the pleasure of spending some time with David Allen and some of our other team members as David was the opening keynote speaker at Office 2.0, a conference dedicated to exploring how technology and next-generation web applications are changing the way we work and collaborate.

Office 2.0 is all about exploring and discovering the future of online productivity & collaboration. Imagine a future where all of the applications, data, and collaboration lives in "the cloud," a metaphor for the increasingly ubiquitous web. In the future, instead of using your computer to get to the web, you'll be using the web to get to your computer. Considering that most of the coaching that I do now is for clients who are on either Outlook, Lotus Notes, or Entourage, I felt a bit like a technology dinosaur at this event. It's not clear to me exactly what directions this kind of technology will take the implementation of GTD - but the possibilities are exciting.

Here are a couple interesting links if you want to explore more about what the future of "office" might be for you.

Here's a great little article with seven key definitions of Enterprise 2.0 concepts from E20portal.com, a great source for information and research about this area.

Google, with their Google Apps continues to roll-out new user-friendly applications that reside in the cloud, thereby helping you share, collaborate, and access all of the things you are working on. Here's a posting from InfoWorld with more perspective on how far they've brought us in being able to do our essential work through web applications.

Cool stuff.

Posted by mdolan at 07:36 PM | Comments (1)