Getting Things Done

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Renegotiate Your Commitments See a lot of what the Getting Things Done methodology is about has been about inventorying what your commitments are. What have you agreed with yourself you need, would, could, should, ought to be doing, handling or whatever. And so managing those commitments is a whole lot of what the methodology is about to keep yourself clear, so that you don't feel like you're constantly having to do all of those. There's an inherent renegotiation process that needs to happen. Once you've externalized these commitments out of your head You write it down, I need dog food, I need to hire a vice president, I need to figure out where to send my kid to school next year, etc. And those commitments, as you may know, that's very important to make sure get that inventory nice and clear, about what those are. But now in turbulent times, that becomes extra important, to make sure you're looking forward at all those commitments you've got. All those thi

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Catch Up Your Communications with People Another nice thing to do especially in terms of catching up, it's often times subtle. And depending on your personality style about how much you engage with other people. Who do you owe a thank you to? Who do you owe a communication with to update them? All the best things in my life have actually come from relationships that I've had. Surprising serendipitous stuff. But as a bit of an introvert, I actually am. I often times have to work at making sure that I maintain my communications externally, and that I nurture them and take advantage of that. I highly recommend you think about, what are just some emails to shoot off, simple little things, or come on, get some note cards and write a hand written note. Those things are invaluable, as you probably know. That's another little thing to do, you might want to consider as a project maybe, is you catch up on all of those communications, with family, with friends with ne

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen What's Really Got Your Attention? Many of my tips are about sort of catching up, and simple things to do kind of keep your energy up, clean things up, catch up. This one is a big one. What circumstance, situation that you're in right now, if that were put onto cruise control, or if you were appropriately engaged with that would make the biggest difference? Would give you the most physic space essentially. Would relieve the most pressure on you. Sometimes that's the thing you need to grapple with. Interestingly, what you think may have your most attention...Once you recognize what has your attention, you may then discover what really has your attention. It can go to some pretty subtle and sublime and deep levels, if you allow it to. Nothing wrong with that, nothing bad about that, as a matter of fact, it's a very powerful thing to do, and to think about. So I highly recommend that you take a little bit of time and say "What most has your attention?" And then

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Worst Case Scenario Building I know this may sound a little strange, but one of the best and healthiest things you can do is to actually do a scenario of the worst case, and then imagine you getting through that. And could you handle it? Because the worst case scenario is likely to be banging around subliminally anyway. What you need to do is to relieve that pressure, and the way out is through. The best thing to do is to sit down and figure out, what could the worst case be? Can I and could we, tolerate that? That will relieve a bunch of pressure and give you much more freedom to focus on wild success. Obviously you don't want to be dwelling on the negative picture. You don't want to sit there and be fatalistic or dwell in some sort of negative picture building. But you do want to go through that and take a look. That allows you a lot more freedom to then focus effectively and productively as you kind of shoot down the middle. Prepare for the worst, or at

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Labelers I know that may sound a little dumb and dorky, when you're in a turbulent time to think about a labeler. What's a labeler? Any of you old GTD practitioners probably know how adamant I've been about the value of labeling things. Being able to have a typeset labeler. If you're not doing anything else, order yourself a labeler, if you don't have one already. You'd be amazed at how much of a difference it makes, to make sure your files look like that, and have nice labels on them. It does make a difference. A lot of people say they had no idea how much of a difference just a labeler would make. In terms of how I manage myself, my information, access to it. Labels can be used for anything, they can be used for file folders obviously, but they could also be used for plastic bags, where you're keeping track of pills, or you're keeping track of electronic equipment, or just wrapping a label around a piece of electronic gear, so you know what it's about. Al

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Catch Up On Legal Stuff This is a tip, that would be nice to have implemented before turbulent times. And certainly needed no matter when. But it's one of those old projects that often for many people lies in the background, because it's the kind of stuff you don't want to think about. Wills, what to do if we can't make decisions ourselves, healthcare. All those legal documents that manage what happens if you can't manage it. And what goes on from there. Believe me, this could be everything from Life insurance, that people don't want to think about. Luckily there are people in your life that will be glad you thought about that. If you haven't done that already. So a two-minute tip here, come on folks. Any of those old kind of legal situations and documents, what happens when you die? Do you want to be cremated? And all those other life critical documentations that you need So that you feel comfortable about what happens, no matter what. So in these kind of

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Crusty Projects It'd be a good idea to do an inventory of any old crusty projects that have been sort of hanging around in your life and work. This would probably be a good time to tackle those, or renegotiate them. Just drop them off the list, or move them to someday / maybe. But you may have something like, clean up the basement, or rearrange a room. Or set up a whole new filing system that you wanted to do. It's a good idea to make sure that those are on your list, if they want to be on your list, and tackle them. This is a good time to do stuff like that. Again, when things turn around and they're not so turbulent again they'll probably never get done, because you'll be busy and back in your normal life, if there is a normal life coming toward us again. Hopefully so. Anyway, that's my tip for the turbulent times. It's a real good idea, again it's one of those things that can catch up and you can feel like you're completing some stuff, you can feel like

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Get Your Paper Based Filing System in Order Actually, it's a tip for any time... If you don't have a really good, quick filing system that you can put stuff into and access easily. Then the stuff tends to mount up and then constipate your system. Get it clean, get it streamlined, get it current. Here's mine. My paper based system now lives three places. In a 2 drawer file cabinet, a rack of files, right on my desk, and then upstairs in an attic area, I have long term storage. My primary filing system is just a simple file drawer, alpha sorted, of things that I need, paper based. And sometimes paper based is better then PDFs, easier to see in a batch if I need to refer to something. Anyway, there's my basic filing system, I used to have four drawers now, it's primarily in one. I have a lower drawer here that has some older documents, that I might need, you know, legal documents etc., that I might need to refer to three or four times a year maybe, but they're

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen The Capture Step of GTD® If you're familiar with the Getting Things Done model and methodology is the primary step to start with, that is, to get your head empty of anything that has your attention. And in turbulent times, it's very probable that you've got a whole lot of stuff that has emerged, that has your attention. Interestingly there's an inverse relationship between, on your mind, and getting done. So the things that have your attention mean they're probably not on cruise control. There's some decision about them you need to make and some sort of organization of the results of that, in a reminder system. But the first step is just to get it out of your head. So if you haven't done one lately, and especially if things are changing and you've got surprises and things that you're dealing with, newly so. Then it's a real good idea to get those out of your head. So, pen and paper, you can't beat it And I suggest, that you first of all have an in basket or

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Rearrange Space Often times I think we just go numb to the spaces that we've gotten used to. Where we work at home, how we cook at home, how we live in our living rooms, or dens, or wherever. Sometimes space makes a huge difference, and there are times when it's time to then re-think. Should I rearrange this room? Should I rearrange how we're doing? Ask yourself, how are you living? Where are you spending your time? A lot of people have gone unconscious and whole environments have gone unconscious. Living room, people often don't live in their living room. They live in, usually, in the kitchen or the den, or wherever. It's an interesting exercise to go through. What's the purpose of this room? And is it really arranged appropriately? Like I would really want it, or what would be maximal for me. Especially if you've just transitioned to having to work a lot of time from home. A real good idea, if you haven't done this already, is to look around your work spa

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen The Night Before People have often interviewed or asked me, How do I spend my day? What kind of rituals do I have to sort of stay on top of my game on a consistent basis? The one thing that I really do consistently, and I share with people is what I call "My day starts the night before”. Before I go to bed, or sometime in the evening what I do is pull up my calendar and look at the next 1, 2, 3 days, maybe the week. Just to get a sense of, what does the landscape look like? In terms of the hard landscape, the things I'm committed to have to do, I need to be in that meeting, that virtual meeting at 3 o'clock, I need to be able to tomorrow, to make sure to that I pick up X Y Z, whatever. So, I do that the night before. First of all, because I love to sleep, It allows me to sleep as long as I can before I actually have to do something. Also, I'm not surprised when I get into my day. There are enough surprises we have to deal with. I want to be able to tee myse

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Current Reality: How Do You Feel? We need to make sure that we're really clear about what's true in space and time right now. Even if we have a positive direction we need to know where we are so we know whether to go left or right from where we are, but we need to start with where we are and not necessarily resist whatever the current reality is. You've got to start from a real base. And this one might be a little challenging, but this is one I call Current Reality: How Do You Feel? What are the feelings going on? What's the emotional state that you're in? Not that you should necessarily reinforce that, or spin in that. Or think that that's a good thing, to be worried, to be afraid, to be confused. Those are common kinds of emotions that we have often times in turbulent times. But you need to acknowledge that you've got it. You don't want to repress it, you don't want to stuff it down. The environment around you, certainly people that are close to you, will

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen What Does the Still Small Voice Tell You To Do? This one may sound a little strange as a tip, but it's one that has served me for my 74 plus years. Trying to make a priority decision... What do I do right now? How do I do that? There's no algorithm, there's no formula that you can really trust. The one I found to trust, is basically your intuition, or your spirit, or whatever kind of word you're not allergic to. That says, wait a minute, there's part of me that probably knows more about all of this then maybe even my conscious mind is capable of grasping all at one time. So being able to trust your intuitive judgement, that's a cool thing to do. Truly, a whole lot of people are so in chaos, that they can't tell the difference between intuition and indigestion. But I think we all, if you just quiet yourself, just for a couple of minutes, and listen What should I do next? What's the most important thing I need to do? What would make the biggest difference to

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Capture Tools Everywhere When things pop into your head that you're going to need to think about, deal with, do something about have to make a decision about or whatever that's potentially relevant to you. Then you need to make sure you get those out of your head and capture them because your head is a terrible office, it'll fool you because you think of it you're sure you won't forget whatever that is but two minutes later you're thinking of the next thing you don't want to forget but you forgot the first thing. So you need capture tools. So, mine are low tech for the most part. No batteries, no Wi-Fi required. This is with me all the time. A pen and a little pad. When I'm sitting down anywhere that's a flat surface longer then a few a minutes, I've got a pad and a pen, can't beat it. Who knows when lightning is going to strike, something's are going to occur to me I need to deal with. Particularly while I'm working on other things and dealing with other

David Allen offers a Two-minute Tip: Catch Up Hi. David Allen. Two minute tip for turbulent times. This one's called, Catch up. Now, obviously in turbulent times we're often kind of up to here with stuff to do, but you're likely to have some downtime. Some time where the most productive thing to do might be to clean up the backlog. That is to bring up the rear guard, as we say. For instance, how current is your bank balance, your investments? How sharp are your kitchen knives? How well have you fertilized your garden for the spring or the summer? What's up, what's out there that you say I need to catch that up? I'm not totally current with whatever that's about. And that may be some of the best things you could do is to go find something that you need to catch up because by the way, the smaller the backlog of outdated things or things that are not current, the cleaner and clearer it is to deal with surprise and new things coming towards you. So the best thing to do right now, if you have some windows to do th

David Allen offers a Two-minute Tip: Fix or Finish Something Simple: David Allen with a two minute tip for turbulent times. This one is called fix or finish something simple. You know, many times when we are in a situation where, golly, it's easy to be worrying, it's easy to be hung up, it's easy to be procrastinating, it's easy to be maybe confused about what your priorities are or what you need to do. Sometimes the best thing to do is to aim low and close and get a cheap win real quick. Like right now. I'll bet if you looked around your environment, you'd find a number of things that would not take you but a few minutes to fix or finish, or to deal with and it's been kind of not necessarily bothering you in a big way, but bugging you and you know it's something you need to do at some point, you need to move this over there. You need to take that off the wall. You need to replace a light bulb that's been out. You need to take some WD40 and lubricate a door or something that's been squeaking. There's a number

Bruce Fetzer took a productivity training with David Allen in the 1980s. Since then he has been applying what he learned. His work with the John E. Fetzer Memorial Trust has been his major focus in the last few years. The mission of the trust is to advance integrated, relational views of reality through exploring scientific frontiers and universal spiritual practices. David Allen engages Bruce in a discussion of the role of business in doing good work through meta-science, or the study of the scientific method. They also explore how to integrate inner life with outer action.

In this episode, David shares some useful insights regarding how we already plan projects when we're at our best: The Natural Planning Model.  He contrasts this behavior with the much more common unnatural or reactive planning models.  You'll also learn about the importance of vision and principles when planning, and a practical way to get stagnant projects moving again.  

Today we have three separate, rare segments pulled from the archives on different concepts that are all related to memory and performance improvement.  First, you’ll hear a segment regarding the idea of mental RAM, and what happens when we leave unclosed loops open in our lives.  Next, you’ll learn about multitasking vs. rapid refocusing and how that state helps us scale our performance.  And third, you’ll learn a few handy uses for checklists in order to continuously improve over time.  

What behaviors actually make a difference in your GTD system?  Listen as David Allen shares tips on removing system drag in front of a live audience.