David Allen Company Forums - PUBLIC: Discuss Getting Things Done http://www.davidco.com/forum/ This is for general discussion about the GTD methodology. This Forum is open to the public. en Sat, 18 May 2013 13:04:33 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.davidco.com/forum/images/misc/rss.png David Allen Company Forums - PUBLIC: Discuss Getting Things Done http://www.davidco.com/forum/ This is a test. http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14662-This-is-a-test.&goto=newpost Sat, 11 May 2013 20:28:55 GMT Is this forum working again? I had trouble trying to post a couple
of days ago, and thought there must be a problem because nobody
else posted either for several days. However, now I see that the
other forum (discuss gear and software) is active, so maybe it's
OK or has been fixed by now? If this message gets posted then
I guess it's fine! ]]> PUBLIC: Discuss Getting Things Done cwoodgold http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14662-This-is-a-test. Tickler File--Electronic or Paper? http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14634-Tickler-File-Electronic-or-Paper&goto=newpost Mon, 06 May 2013 13:00:02 GMT I have read Getting Things Done twice and am excited about starting. I have one question though. I definitely want a tickler file. About half the content on this file will come through emails and half will be things from my own life and shop. I have a home office, desk in shop with computer,... I have read Getting Things Done twice and am excited about starting. I have one question though. I definitely want a tickler file. About half the content on this file will come through emails and half will be things from my own life and shop. I have a home office, desk in shop with computer, and my mobile phone. Should I make a physical tickler folder (if so how do I get all my tasks that come via email into it)? Or should I have an electronic system? I use outlook 2010 and am open to another simple software if necessary. When I do a search on this I get bogged down with all the ideas and ways people are doing it:confused: Could someone please point me in the right direction? Thanks! ]]> PUBLIC: Discuss Getting Things Done monteu http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14634-Tickler-File-Electronic-or-Paper <![CDATA[Too many to-do's in different places]]> http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14625-Too-many-to-do-s-in-different-places&goto=newpost Sun, 05 May 2013 13:32:35 GMT Hello, nice to be reaching out for some support and knowing there are other folks as interested in GTD as I am. I'm in a bit of a pickle...the past few weeks I've been setting up the GTD system, listening to webinars on GTD connect and adding to-do's to lots of lists. Lists such as someday/maybe, errands, calls, online, and various inboxes (iphone, evernote). Now I have lots of lists. I named a few projects and put a few next actions on them.

Apparently, I have skipped a step....now that I have a better sense of the overall picture, it looks like I've been doing a mind sweep in many different places. Instead of having one list of unprocessed to-do's....I have added next actions to many different lists.

If this is making sense, would anyone have an idea about how to combine all this and move forward in the GTD way, or in another simple fashion? It seems like I have doubled my work and need to start over. I'm guessing that I now need to gather up all of these next steps and put them in one big list then go through them in the GTD way, asking myself what requires a next action, etc. Do I have that right?

I look forward to your feedback. I put a lot of work into this and would like to stay encouraged about the benefit. ]]> PUBLIC: Discuss Getting Things Done bettlejuice http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14625-Too-many-to-do-s-in-different-places GTD in Australia http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14624-GTD-in-Australia&goto=newpost Sun, 05 May 2013 03:19:57 GMT Hi all, I'm based in Sydney and looking to start a group for regular catch ups to further our knowledge and implementation of GTD. Have been doing GTD for a number of years but want to catch up with like minded people!

Would love to see if we could tempt one of the coaches or staff to give a seminar down under. Please contact me if you would like to via this thread. Regards,Fiona ]]> PUBLIC: Discuss Getting Things Done feemac http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14624-GTD-in-Australia Clarity on Projects, Contexts and Actions http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14598-Clarity-on-Projects-Contexts-and-Actions&goto=newpost Thu, 02 May 2013 08:16:22 GMT I’d like to share some thoughts I have had about the relationship between projects, contexts and next actions. A recent thread on here dismissing contexts as obsolete got me thinking. Sometimes I work really efficiently in a context but other times it is more helpful to stick to a single project... I’d like to share some thoughts I have had about the relationship between projects, contexts and next actions. A recent thread on here dismissing contexts as obsolete got me thinking. Sometimes I work really efficiently in a context but other times it is more helpful to stick to a single project for a while. I’ll illustrate my thoughts with two examples:

The first example project is to install a bookcase. A reasonable sequence of actions might go as follows:

Choose a location, size and colour with my partner
Drive to our favourite Swedish furniture warehouse and buy the bookcase
Assemble the bookcase
Realise that the notch to fit over the skirting board is not big enough
Phone a friend and ask for their jigsaw
Drive and collect the jigsaw
Modify the bookcase
Discuss precise placement with partner
Mount bookcase with brackets
Drive to return the jigsaw

The situation with the skirting board really did happen to me once. It wouldn’t be too difficult to do all that in a day but you wouldn’t get much else done either. All the changing contexts, driving around, waiting for my partner, maybe having a coffee with my friend when visiting takes a lot of time. These kinds of projects are best suited to working from a context. It might take a whole week to sort out that bookcase but I’ll get through a lot more stuff as well.

The other example project is writing a computer program. The vast majority of the time, the next actions are to implement a feature or fix a bug. Once that is done you move onto the next feature or bug. Yes, there are meetings, phone calls and planning but most of the time is spent writing and debugging code. In this situation, it seems better to work from the project, at least until a context change is required.

GTD recognises that you can’t always predict the sequence of actions in a project but for this mind experiment, let’s pretend that we can. Imagine a table where each row is a project and each column is a context. If we mark each next action with a star, it might look a bit like this:

Code:
          @Partner  @Errands  @DIY  @Code  @Calls
Bookcase  **        **        **            *
Program                                ******  *
If we organise our action lists by context, it might work really well for projects like the bookcase project but not so well for the computer program project. I have about two university programming projects, three freelance ones and at least half a dozen personal programming projects on hold. If I were to take my next actions and work through a @Code context then the mental effort of switching between codebases would be overwhelming.

I think a lot of projects lie between these extremes. Maybe a good guideline is to work from contexts by default but if a project has several next actions in the current context, either focus on that project or avoid it in order to do the unrelated next actions.

Thanks for reading. If you have any comments or suggestions for me then I would be glad to hear them. ]]> PUBLIC: Discuss Getting Things Done cfoley http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14598-Clarity-on-Projects-Contexts-and-Actions 30 Ways to Stress-free Productivity http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14590-30-Ways-to-Stress-free-Productivity&goto=newpost Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:41:48 GMT Hi,

I created this simple list to help out (new) members here. The information in the book can be overwhelming but here's a list of 30 behaviours you can adopt to reach "mind like water".

(I drafted an incomplete list, so please help add to it! And please correct me if I'm wrong)
  1. Think about your stuff more than you realize but not as much as you're afraid you might.
  2. Ask yourself "What is it?"
  3. Ask yourself "Is it actionable?"
  4. Throw away anything that has no potential future action or reference value.
  5. Decide on outcome and add it to a projects list.
  6. Do any next action that requires less than 2 minutes.
  7. Look at your calendar
  8. Look at your next action list
  9. Determine the purpose of each project.
  10. Envision WILD SUCCESS (Why not the best?)
  11. Sort items on your next actions list by categories.
  12. Dedicate workspace
  13. Label your file folders
  14. Collect anything that doesn't belong where it is forever
  15. Date everything
  16. Look at your maybe list
  17. Look at your projects list
  18. Look at your waiting for list
  19. Delete and clear inactive or unreal notes.
  20. Look at your tickler file
  21. Perform weekly review every Friday afternoon
  22. Sort your next actions list so that you have low-energy tasks to do
  23. Draft a list called Areas of Focus
  24. Draft relevant checklists
  25. Ask yourself "what are longer term goals you set and what projects do you need to have in place to make them happen?"
  26. Use outlines to plan projects
  27. Block out time to handle vertical thinking about each project
  28. End conversation with the question "So what's the next action here?"
  29. Participate on forums
  30. Review GTD book

Cheers,
Calvin ]]> PUBLIC: Discuss Getting Things Done ctklai http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14590-30-Ways-to-Stress-free-Productivity Forget about contexts. http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14577-Forget-about-contexts.&goto=newpost Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:23:02 GMT The thing that struck me as genius when I first read David Allen’s Getting Things Done was the idea of contexts. But many are realizing that Allen’s original contexts of @work, @computer, @phone, and so on, don’t make as much sense today as they did in 2002. Contexts are really outdated now . ... The thing that struck me as genius when I first read David Allen’s Getting Things Done was the idea of contexts.
But many are realizing that Allen’s original contexts of @work, @computer, @phone, and so on, don’t make as much sense today as they did in 2002. Contexts are really outdated now .

I got rid of contexts except for errands context, but, let's be honest, this list has nothing to do with GTD or David Allen, it's a shopping list for crying out loud! It's been around for so long, everyone uses it.

@computer: When are you not at your computer nowadays? Or how many times have you been in a context where you're really pressed to get things done but don't have your computer, and really can't stand looking through all those tasks that involve a computer? I seriously can think of zero situations like this.

@computer-internet/nointernet: Are you really on a plane this much? Please.

@phone: Don't even start.

@agenda: Compared to the three above, this has slightly more use, but I still don't think it's necessary. Chances are, there are fewer than 2 or 3 people in your life whose time is so valuable that you need to make a list like this for when you're with them.

@email: This is useful under one and only one circumstance: if you've become so disciplined as to check your email only a few scheduled times a day, then by all means make a list of the email you need to make when it's scheduled email time.


Deciding a context for an actions was always a useless waste of time and effort for me.
I always have iphone and ipad with me and I can do anything anywhere so contexts were really useless.

I also tried to use mental contexts, e.g. @Research, @writing, @focused thinking, etc. but it didn't help either, it actually made things worse. It was too much time spent deciding on the context for each task. I was over organising because I was following gtd by the book and/or someone else advice.

Contexts are simply unrealistically complicated and to tell you frankly, for most people whose main jobs and main sources of stress involve work done in an office or any other single setting.

I'm not simultaneously running 6 businesses and constantly on the road with 10 kids. I don't have 200 projects because I don't fill my lists with tonnes of random stuff just for the sake of it anymore. If I forget to buy butter when I'm at the grocery store, I don't stress and it doesn't stay on my mind. If I forget to surf or read something on internet, I don't care. But the large project that involves simply sitting down, closing Gmail and Facebook, and getting it done, will stress me out and will stay on my mind if I spend the day ticking off all kinds of less important tasks on my list.

I treat my projects, especially my work projects, as contexts. This system has the advantage of simplicity. I never have to think about the appropriate context for a task. Forget labeling tasks by context and focus on getting that big monster task done and you're on your way to real stress-free productivity. ]]> PUBLIC: Discuss Getting Things Done supergtdman http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14577-Forget-about-contexts. Opportunity for Outlook users http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14563-Opportunity-for-Outlook-users&goto=newpost Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:31:02 GMT Hello GTD Community!

We have an opportunity coming up for a limited number of people to attend our popular GTD® & Outlook® webinar for free. We're beta testing some changes in how we deliver this webinar. It will be held May 1st from 10am-11:15am Pacific Time. It will be led by Senior Coach Meg Edwards. You're in for a treat with Meg, who is a GTD master like no other!

We will be accepting the first 50 people to register through this link: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/337971594

Kelly ]]> PUBLIC: Discuss Getting Things Done kelstarrising http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14563-Opportunity-for-Outlook-users Do separate your 30k Goals List ? Work / Personal ? http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14556-Do-separate-your-30k-Goals-List-Work-Personal&goto=newpost Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:57:26 GMT I always had it as one list, but know I have a ton more goals under work and like the more focused view. Just wondering if anyone else has fried this ? I always had it as one list, but know I have a ton more goals under work and like the more focused view. Just wondering if anyone else has fried this ? ]]> PUBLIC: Discuss Getting Things Done JamesSP http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?14556-Do-separate-your-30k-Goals-List-Work-Personal