Salespersons are trained to sell, not to consult. So most people do not do well in “consultative sales” despite what they said when they were interviewed.

Fortunately, those of you who discovered GTD have two great tools at your disposal. Specifically, they are David Allen’s “Project Planning Trigger List” and the “Natural Planning Model.” Learn to master those two tools and you are sure to increase your sales. [Editor note: you can find both models in the Getting Things Done book, or in this laminated set of GTD System Guides.]

For the truth is that your customer is probably overwhelmed by the project at hand. Maybe they identified a problem and finally got the boss’s go-ahead to look into purchasing a solution, and that is why you are in a dialogue with them. You and a few of your competitors, that is. Competitors who have products that might well be better than yours, or cheaper, or which have a better brand. Competitors who probably have a dashing salesperson with a bigger expense account and box seats and a country club membership.

The only thing you have to offer is to be recognized as the problem solver, and a lot of that includes identifying what exactly is the problem and to get there you need to ask a lot of really brilliant questions that your client has not even thought of. Let us consider an example of two competing salespersons.

Imagine yourself wanting to hire a contractor to put in a swimming pool for your backyard. One salesperson drives his dazzling new BMW M5 up your driveway. Being president of the largest pool contractor in the state has really paid off! He tells you about his millions in sales and what celebrities are sipping umbrella drinks in his masterpieces at this very moment, and his brochures are slick. You wonder, is that Jennifer Aniston floating in that pool? He then measures the yard, careful not to get his Brioni suit soiled, and then asks you what your budget is. Judging by his expression, obviously you are not going to be in the Jennifer Aniston pool. He smiles, though, and he tells you that you can have a pool of a certain size, but for 50% more money you can get a nicer look. He leaves some of those brochures for you, writes a quote and hands it to you. He must be going, he says. Will and Jada’s pool is finished and he needs to stop by for cocktails with them.

Then another salesperson comes in driving his F-150. He has a worn binder with product specs and photos, and the pages are mangled. Clearly he has taken the photos himself, and there is nothing near Jennifer or Will or Jada in any of them. He looks at your yard and then asks if you all can go into the kitchen and sit around the table to talk. He asks a lot of questions and takes notes. He asks things like:

• Who will be enjoying the pool? Oh, you and your wife, and the kids. Let’s get them to talk about what they hope for. How about the grandparents? Oh, they come over on weekends? Do you want to get an idea about whether they think it would be fun to have a pool?
• What is your plan for your house? Do you plan on staying for a few years? Every plan to expand the house? What’s the overall look you want?
• Who will be involved in decision making when the project is under-way? How do you want to be involved? How do you want us to communicate?
• How much money were you thinking of spending? Do you want to get the best pool you can afford or do you want to consider less expensive options too? Are you concerned about seeing an increase in value in your property, should you decide to sell?
• Do you have anything going on in the next fews weeks that might interrupt with the installation, such as parties, neighborhood activities, vacations, etc.?
• What is going to make you confident you got what you wanted, that we delivered as promised?
• Is there anyone else who needs to give approvals? Neighborhood boards and associations, etc.?
• Your neighbors are going to see you having a great time in the pool. Do you want to tell them your plans and make sure they know they are welcome to come over too?
• Do you need to check with the city ordinances? How about with your homeowners insurance policy?
• How about if we mark off the area where the pool will be and make sure you are comfortable with losing that land for other purposes, and we’ll show you how we will have to get the equipment in here too, OK?
• Would you like to read about the various technologies we have to offer, and hear my opinion on the pumps, filters, lights and surfaces that we can consider?
• Are you active in any groups whom you might want to entertain with a pool party? That’s a great way to start enjoying the pool to its fullest.
• Let’s make sure we understand the risks involved: we are going to be moving a lot of heavy equipment and tearing up the land, so we’ll make sure you understand what is involved. You need to be comfortable with it, OK?
• Have you thought about what a perfect pool experience would be? What would be a bad experience too? Let’s really spend some time thinking about those scenarios and see what we can learn before making any decisions, OK?

Tell me who’s just won your trust? (If you like the first salesperson, quit reading here.) I hope you like the second salesperson!  For he doesn’t just know about pools–he is really looking out for you. He is thinking about the impact of a pool in all aspects of your life. He is thinking of how it effects your family, your community, your friends, your finances, your plans for the house, etc. He has just made you think about things you never considered–and they are all important. You just found the swimming pool genius, and no one has a chance to sell you a pool except for him, right?

How do you position yourself in that way as a salesperson for your company and product? The good news is you do not need to be a genius. (The other good news is you can have a BMW M5, celebrity clients, and still be a great salesperson.)

The Project Planning Trigger List is a great place to start. It is a brain-storming tool: it asks a lot of great questions to consider in order to clarify the project. If you have a planning meeting with the client and lead a brain-storming session based on these questions, your credibility is going to sky-rocket. Because not only are you going to uncover some real gems in the discussion, but you are going to demonstrate that you are a big-picture thinker. If you are selling to a company, you have proved you are thinking like the CEO because you are looking out for the company as a whole. The way you do that is to ask questions about the following.

• Resources: whose input is needed, whose could you use, what resources might you need
• Executive issues: how it relates to overall company strategy
• Administration: how are we going to manage this project
• Finance: what funds are available, what are the costs, what are the potential payoffs, etc.
• Operations: how does this fit in with other operations of the company, and how are we going to ensure delivery
• Quality: how to monitor progress
• Politics: whose buy-in is needed, and how to get it
• Stakeholders – considerations?: the board, stockholders, employees, vendors, customers, community?
• Legal: any issues to consider?
• Space/facilities/equipment: what do you need and how do you get it?
• Research: why might you need to know?
• Public relations: should you let others know what you are doing?
• Risks: what could happen and can you handle it?
• Creating thinking: push the limits of your thinking, consider wild outcomes, both good and bad

Compare these two lists and you will see I adapted the Project Planning Trigger List to the fictitious example of how to sell a swimming pool. I bet when you read my questions about the swimming pool you thought, “that Joyce guy must sell swimming pools!” Actually, I hardly know anything about swimming pools. I just picked a product randomly as an example, and I used the Project Planning Trigger List to help me think of some really good questions. Imagine what you can do with it by applying it to the products and services you really sell.

(Please look forward to Part 2, in which I will explain how to apply the Natural Planning Model to sales.)

Chip Joyce is a business development expert, regular contributor to GTD Times and member of GTD Connect.  You might enjoy his other posts too. You can also reach him by email.

In the original Getting Things Done, much of the focus was on paper systems with an electronic complement. These days much of our world is the opposite.

I try to have as much as possible in electronic form with a paper complement. Having things on a computer or PDA allows it to be searchable and easily changed from one category to another. But just because we can search for something doesn’t mean we should. Why not just know where it is?Despite limitations of paper systems they do have the advantage of offering visual and tactile boundaries where a computer based system allows data to stagnate easily and just be searched. This clogs not only the system but our heads!

I have several programs on my iPhone dedicated to organizing and sorting information.  But I found myself using all of them all of the time. That didn’t make sense – I don’t open my file cabinet every day. My electronic boundaries had broken down! To-Dos had meandered to my references and journals had infiltrated my to-do lists. I found myself adding projects and actions to my reference memos because I had that program open but we would never add a To-Do into our file cabinet! So, electronic boundaries needed to be set and implemented as everything had turned into a digital inbox. Here are some tips to clean the digital house.

I use SplashNotes for my contextual action lists and ShoveBox for my digital file cabinet. ShoveBox is really great because it can handle PDF files, pictures, web archives and bookmarks as well as text. It also syncs with it desktop companion. The calendar program (iCal) is obviously for items that need to be scheduled. I found the Notes program to be less than useful so for me that is relegated to short text for mental affirmation and meditation. I also use a program called The Daily Tracker for habits that I am forming or breaking. All of these are on the first page or the dock.

By putting an item in the appropriate program my head felt immediately better because it knew where to look! I didn’t need to check my electronic file cabinet every day. A quick morning scan of the calendar and a check of my contextual action lists was all I needed. After a workout I know to enter it into the Daily Tracker for logging. If I encounter dead time I can open Notes and review my meditations.

With all of my content in order – and it does take time just as the paper review process – the GTD system can continue to flow into the modern era and beyond.

Peter Tambroni is currently a classical musician, music teacher,writer and photographer in suburban Chicago. He holds degrees from the Crane School of Music and the University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign. He is currently vice president of the School District 83 Teacher’s Association.  Peter maintains and writes for MostlyBass.com and EvolvingEducator.com.  With his busy schedule, using GTD methods is an absolute must!

What’s different about this map versus the diagram that’s in the GTD book?

The diagram in the book (page 120) only includes Collect, Process and Organize phases. This new one also includes Review, Horizons of Focus, 3-Fold Nature of Work and Criteria for Choosing.  It’s a very cool map describing how all parts of GTD intersect and work together.

Can I still use the one in the book?

Absolutely. You can also grab the original one for free here.  Nothing in the methdology changed–but the new Map expands on it in a much more detailed and comprehensive way to tie it all together.

What’s on the DVD?

The DVD is David Allen walking you through the map, giving his coaching and guidance on what each section means and how to work it.  And it’s got some soothing music to reduce your stress, if nothing else. Check out the sample video.

Questions? Please write to customerservice@davidco.com.

NetCentrics has released an update for the Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In, Version 3.0.40.  This update is critical and provides you with the latest version of the Getting Things Done Add-In and offers the highest levels of stability.  This update needs to be installed before the Daylight Savings Time change (November 1, 2009) in the U.S. This update corrects the issues of the Add-In losing its activation status during Daylight Savings changes and time zone changes.

You can get it directly from the NetCentrics site. Note: please be sure to contact NetCentrics, the developer,  if you need support on this. They are the best ones to answer your questions (versus DavidCo.)  We just know so many of you use the product so we wanted to pass this along.

“A vast majority of professionals are in “emergency scanning” mode. Their self-management consists of checking for and acting on the loudest immediacies – in email, in the hallways and on the phone. Everything else is shoved to the side of the desk, and to the back of their mind. Because they’re focused only on “priorities”, and are paying attention only to the most in their- face stuff, everyone else has to raise the noise level to “emergency” mode to get any audience at all.”  – David Allen, Wired UK article July 2009.

Other free articles from David on Wired UK you might like too:   Be creative amid chaos,   How to reap what you sow,   How to make space to think,    How to know what to do with your life and   How to cope without your autopilot

Hi David,

I have enjoyed reading Getting Things Done and Making It All Work.  I own an architecture firm in Michigan, and have been implementing your GTD system into my work and life plan.  I am very close to a smooth-flowing GTD process; However, I have one obstacle to overcome, and I would greatly appreciate your recommendation…

I use MindManager 8 as an outstanding tool for identifying, clarifying and planning project strategies (drilling down to next action items).  I use “map linker” to bring in next action items to a MindManager dashboard I created to encompass the GTD process.  The map provides context categories, and subdivided categories to group my next action items (please refer to the attached MindManager dashboard map).

The problem that I am experiencing is defined as follows:

1.      At what point in the GTD process, do you let go of MindManager maps, and transition to next action lists that can be carried with you?
2.      How do you use MindManager as a tool, and to what extent?
3.      Do you copy and paste your next action items from MindManager into your lists, or do you use MindManager to track your next action items? (If so, you may have a two step process to check off completed items in MindManager and in your next action lists).
4.      Do you limit your use of MindManger for brainstorming ideas and project strategies, and then re-create next action items in your lists?
5.      Do you find that MindManager can become too complex and overwhelming with so many maps and strategies to view (as I am experiencing)? If so, how do you simplify this process?

At what point can you expend too much effort into creating MindManager maps, and become ineffective in focusing energy into next action items?

Thank you in advance, and I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to review my questions.

Best Regards,

Dean

David Allen replied:

Dean,

I don’t bother drilling down to next actions on my maps. Too much work to double-enter, and they move too fast anyway. I just do the map, figure next action, then go to my action lists (in Lotus Notes). I’ll sometimes put a shortcut in the notes section of a project on my list, to the mind-map.

I just use maps for capturing and developing projects and themes. Have lots of ActiveWord cues to pull them up fast to add things as required.

David

Dean’s response to David’s advice:

David,

Last evening I started to use your method described below.  As a result, I am more focused, and experiencing a load of stress off of my shoulders.  I am now using MindManager to capture thoughts and ideas, list projects, and to develop toward identifying short term (weekly) outcome/result goals (or sub-projects) that would move each project forward.  Then, I identify and enter each next action item into the appropriate Outlook task category, and sync to my iPhone.  No more double-entering or complex (overwhelming) mind maps to sift through to find my next action items.

Thanks for your words of wisdom.

“Less is More”

My Best,

Dean

FYI – We’re doing a Webinar for GTD Connect members about mindmapping on Nov 12th. Michael Deutch of MindJet will talk about 10 ways to get the most out of mindmapping.  (Free trial members can join webinars too.)

Because the iPhone was built without a Tasks application it means building not only a secure syncing solution, but a corresponding App on the iPhone. I thought Lotus would be doing that, but not from any releases I’ve seen so far.

A guy wrote to me this morning to ask what solutions are out there for this, as he’s about to roll out iPhones to their entire workforce. They use Lotus Notes and he’s been unable to find anything that will sync Notes To Do’s to the iPhone.  He asked if we are building it (no plans to.)

Has anyone heard of anything coming or available that will sync Lotus Notes To Do’s to the iPhone?  We’d love to hear about it.

• GTD Times – This is the the official blog for David Allen, GTD & the Coaches.  Loads of helpful advice, tips, tricks & strategies for implementing GTD.
• Podcasts - Includes the GTD best practices series with David & his team.
• Coach’s Corner - Dozens of free articles from the Coaches, from GTD philosophy to tactical tips and tricks.
• GTD Connect – The two-week free trial is a fully-functional experience of our online learning center (except for downloads.) There’s no obligation, no payment required, and nothing to cancel.
• Articles, Handouts & Learning Tools - Essays from David on GTD best practices, the original workflow map and more available as free PDFs from our store.
• Tips & Tools – Some random, useful tips & tricks (like sample travel checklists and Waiting For rule instructions)
• GTD-IQ - Measure how you’re doing with GTD. Take it as often as you like (especially you crazy makers). There are also some free articles and videos on this site too.
• GTD Facebook Fan Page – A great place to connect with other GTD’ers chatting about a wide-range of GTD topics.
• GTD LinkedIn Network – A great network of GTD enthusiasts with more of a business focus.
• Twitter - Follow the David, the Coaches & Products dept.  @GTDSpecialEvent also runs free GTD Twitter-based classes.
• GTD You Tube Channel – A collection of fun and useful videos of David and GTD practitioners.
• Productive Living newsletter – David’s free newsletter with “David’s Food for Thought,” product specials & community news. Sent every 3 weeks.
• Video of David @ Google – A great overview from David on the keys to control + perspective.
• DavidCo Discussion Forums – These rich forums are a great way to ask questions, search for answers and connect with other GTD’ers around the world.

The last three weeks were the most bizarre in my life so far. Thanks to GTD I didn’t get lost. I want to share my story with you and all interested GTD’ers:

On Saturday 26 September 2009 my dad passed away because of a sudden brain hemorrhage. He was on a trip in Israel with members of his church. It was his dream for 35 years to see The Promised Land himself.

Wednesday 16 September 2009, 16:07h. It was my second workday after a four-week-holiday. I had my Areas of Focus clear and my Project list straight to get back on track again. Ready to dive into the details.

Then the phone rang. It was my dad’s pastor calling from Eilat, Israel. My dad had an accident on the beach of the Red Sea. His body functions had stopped. After a succesful reanimation he came back to life. Immediately he was transported by ambulance to the Intensive Care of the nearest hospital. Dad was in coma and has not come out of it again.

On that moment I reacted without thinking. I had to tell the news to the family. I called my only brother. We had to tell the news to mom in person, so I dropped everything and went on the road.

As my habit I began to collect every thought out of my head into my system. I had to make a lot of calls and gather a lot of information. It went out in a good mindmap, which helped to point every nose in the same direction. A moment before my head was clear and ready for work and life. In the blink of an eye everything had changed. My Areas of Focus just pointed to one thing: Dad.

The next day I found myself packing my suitcase, calling family members, dad’s pastor in Eilat, the Travel Agencies, the Insurance Company, and last but not least: my boss. I went to Israel. In a few hours my aunt and I headed to Amsterdam Airport, waved our partners goodbye, and we took the plane to Tell Aviv. The only thing I knew about Israel was that the temperature in Eilat (Negev desert) was very hot. For the rest I didn’t had the time to do research on Israels culture and habits. Within 24 hours we stood next to dad’s bed in a town 4000 km (2500 miles) from home.

During my first GTD-review in Israel, a lot (actually all) of my projects went straight to “Sometimes/Maybe”. New projects appeared: Ask the doctors about dad’s condition daily, inform the home front daily about it, find a hotel, find supermarkets and places to eat, find a bank!, where is the Tourist Information?, give dad his favorite music while he’s still in coma (had to arrange a Discman), how to travel between hotel and hospital?, etc.

I had in mind to look after dad as much as possible. Heavy emotional times. But the rational business- and bureaucratic side showed up. A warranty had to be arranged for the hospital costs. The Dutch Embassy in Israel, and the Dutch Government of Foreign Business had to be involved. Happily there is a very good Consulate in Eilat. Communicating a lot with him, I could delegate the whole business to him. So I could hold my mind on dad, and keep track of all the delegated actions from beside his bed. The financial administration of the hospital watched my back, so it was very important for me to stay on top of this.

Dad could not be transported to The Netherlands. He wouldn’t survive it. And nobody could say how long this situation would continue. After a week we decided that my brother and another aunt would replace us in Israel. Our travel and tickets home had to be arranged. We said goodbye to dad, knowing that it could be the last time in life. Just before our plane hit the runway on Amsterdam Airport, my brother did let us know that dad had passed away to Heaven’s Promised Land. It was no surprise. It was just definite now.

A lot of projects could checked off, and new projects appeared: Dad’s transport home, his funeral: find a funeral caretaker, make funeral cards, make a complete address list, send the cards, arrange the divine service, etc. I could delegate a lot of stuff to family members.

His funeral happened on Tuesday 6 Oktober 2009. And we prepare ourselves for new projects again: Handle off dad’s stuff and keep an eye on mom. Happily a lot of this has no due date, so we can take some time off. Intense action must be followed by intense relaxation.

Kindly regards,
André

Thank you André for sharing your story. We know how personal this is to you and we are honored that you found the strength to pass it along to others who might find it helpful.

The GTD Times Team

But, I also think it’s important to acknowledge that GTD isn’t about always being tidy. In fact, the moments when GTD is most valuable are the messiest and ugliest moments. Take this recent snapshot of my desk, for example.

This is what it looks like after a week that included four speaking gigs, two road trips (to get to some of the aforementioned speaking gigs), an all-day conference, and two birthdays (my husband’s 40th and my son’s first). Oh, and that’s in addition to my full-time job at clockwork.net, blogging at geekgirlsguide.com and trying to maintain some semblance of a personal life. Gaaaah!

But, you know what? That’s LIFE. It’s freakin’ messy. The minute something feels “done” or “perfect” — something comes along to mess it up. The real power of GTD is in realizing that it’s not about how awesome your desk looks, it’s about realizing that — for most of us — there is no such thing as “done.” We have to get comfortable with  that fact.

Ultimately, my desk tends to reflect my state of mind: when my desk is a mess it means that, before I just go about mindlessly cleaning it, I need to get my head back in order. What are my priorities? What do I need to do? What do I want to do? What can I realistically accomplish in the time I have?

In my own life, it played out like this: on Tuesday morning last week (around the time this photo was taken), I sat down at my desk and felt immediately overwhelmed. Every inbox in my life was literally bursting at the seams. Instead of freaking out, I grabbed a very large cup of coffee and began a Weekly Review. I immediately started to feel  calmer. I checked the calendar to ensure that I could spend the day getting things back into focus. My inboxes slowly started to dwindle.  (By the way, the most frustrating thing is processing one’s inbox while more input keeps coming in — getting to zero took me all day.)  I channeled my energy either where it was most needed (urgent  emails!), or where I most felt like letting it go (Did I remember to book that hotel for our anniversary weekend?). I ended the day feeling like things weren’t perfect, but they were good enough for now, and I’d finish the rest tomorrow.

I’ll be the first to admit that this discipline of defining the edges of my own work doesn’t come easily. I’m the type of person that will stay up until 1am to finish something because I feel compelled to, not necessarily because it needs to be done. But, I’m working on it. I’m working on learning that my time is finite and I could literally spend
the next 7 days in front of a computer working non-stop with no breaks for sleep or meals and I still wouldn’t be “done.” I’m not a widget maker, I’m a knowledge worker and my work is never done.

Yeesh, it feels uncomfortable to even say that!  “Hello, my name is Meghan and my work is never done.” But, it’s true. And the more I practice saying it, the more I believe it, and the less I feel compelled to keep my inboxes at zero all the time (which, I can tell you from experience, is a losing game). The more I believe that I’m never done, the more I can choose to close my computer at 5pm and give my kids my full attention or keep my iPhone turned off on a date with my husband. These things are just as — if not more — important that my inbox or my desktop.

So, the question is not: is your desk spotless right now? The question is: do you feel in control right now, and how long would it take you to get there? If the answer gets a bit messy, don’t worry about it.  That’s part of the game.  After having said all that, I totally want to see your awesome desk. (Send those along to us at editor@gtdtimes.com)

Meghan Wilker is a regular contributor to GTD Times. She’s also been featured in David Allen’s In Conversation series on GTD Connect, spotlighting some of the most fascinating people in our network of GTD’ers around the world.

In my GTD Twitter class this morning, doing a Guided Mindsweep, a few people asked why they would write things down in a mindsweep that are already on their lists? There are a few common reasons why things will creep back into your mind:

You didn’t clarify enough. If your mind thinks there is more planning or brainstorming to do about that, or what you captured as a next action is not the next physical, visible step, it will take it back.

You’re not reviewing enough. If your mind doesn’t trust you’re looking at that choice often enough (Are we doing anything about this??), it will take the job back.  The Weekly Review is gold.  It’s not just clean-up time, it’s reassurance time for your mind that you’re “on it,” even if that’s a decision to let it incubate some more on Someday.

Having a total and seamless system of organization gives you tremendous power because it allows your mind to let go of the lower-level thinking and graduate to intuitive focusing, undistracted by matters that haven’t been dealt with appropriately. – David Allen

In other words…get a seamless, leakproof system for tracking everything you can’t do in the moment–personally and professionally.  And make sure you trust it more than holding stuff in your brain.

In our podcast series on the best practices of GTD, we’re moving on to the 3rd stage of mastering workflow: organize. Once you’ve collected and processed your work, then you just need to put it into places that you trust.

For those of you who want even more on this topic, the Getting Things Done book club on GTD Connect is just about to move to Chapter 7 of the book, which is all about organizing.  The book club is a great way to make sure you really “get” all of the pieces of GTD to put together a complete and intuitive system that makes sense for you.

What: It will be a working Twitter session. I’ll guide people through the GTD Mindsweep process through a series of Tweets.  Mindsweep is part of the Collect phase of GTD (read chapter 5 of the Getting Things Done book to get a quick overview of this process.)  It will be up to you to then process & organize it (chapters 6 & 7 of the book.)  When I’ve done these Guided Mindsweeps for GTD Connect members, many commented how great it was to have someone else jogging their brain on things they hadn’t thought of on their own. They did a much more thorough collection of the loose bits in their brain.

When: Thursday, October 15th – 9am PDT (Los Angeles time) Find your local time.

How: Follow @GTDSpecialEvent or just launch this web page during the event to follow the Tweets. Have a blank electronic document or pad & pen handy to do the exercise.

Who:  Anyone who wants a clear head. Truly.

If you’re like most people, you’ll move too fast and be engaged in too many things during the course of a week to get all your ideas and commitments outside your head. But it should become an ideal standard that keeps you motivated to consistently “clean house” of all the things about your work and life that have attention. – David Allen

Watch now

(GTD Connect members can watch these inside the Connect Media Library)

Coach Julie Ireland weighs in:

I tend to rebel against too much structure/planning. At the same time I do need a certain amount of structure, otherwise my creative energy gets drained from the uncertainty of not being clear about what my commitments are. The beauty of GTD lies in putting enough time and energy into what we call “defining our work and responsibilities”, so that when we have discretionary time we can choose very consciously and purposely to work off of our pre-defined lists, or in my case go and play in my art studio. There is real power in making that choice as the most appropriate thing for me to do, vs. attempting to work in my studio because I’m either avoiding my responsibilities or simply haven’t defined them clearly enough.

Early feedback on this new training product has been fantastic.  It’s not just a re-do of the workflow diagram that’s in the GTD book–it’s a new map that really encompasses much more of the GTD story on control + perspective, as well as a DVD of David navigating the way.  Big thanks to the creative folks at XPLANE too for taking David’s vision on this and turning it into a fun new way to learn.

I am part of the senior management in a company and am responsible for a particular department. With many changes happening in the company such as growth and expansion, in a very short span of time, things happen ad hoc and lot of time gets spent in miscellaneous activities. This ad hoc confusion de-motivates me and does not give me a purpose to work in the interest of the company, as a lot of this work is thankless in nature. Hence, how should I address this?  Should I ask my CEO for direction and let him know about things not being interesting or do I have to motivate myself to drive and take charge of the situation and take the growth process ahead?  What is your suggestion?

David replied:

You have asked a very good question, but one that I can only feed back options. Much depends on the bigger questions about what’s important to you and where you’re going. If your long-term goal is clear enough, it should give you criteria for determining whether putting up with the discomfort in the short term is worth it in the long term. On the other hand, if it’s really important to you to be inspired and enthused by your work, then it’s not worth tolerating anything less for very long. In any case, it’s not a bad idea to have an open and honest relationship with key people in your life, e.g. your boss, about such matters.

Often in times of organizational change it will be necessary to re-examine your own direction, and particularly the desired outcomes for the responsibilities you now have in your job, and often that’s going to require frequent updates from your boss and others in the environment. Maybe the best thing to do is to make sure you get as much data as you can about the current situation… sometimes it’s just a matter of getting a better grip on “current reality” so you can know where you stand in relation to some of the other questions.

I know these may just raise more questions than they answer, but those are the things I would be talking to myself about, if I were in your shoes.

Hope that helps,

David

For those of you on Gmail, here’s a handy guide from Google for getting the most out of Gmail.  A few years ago, (before Tasks was added to Gmail), our coaches were working quite a bit with a client on Gmail and wrote this free article on using Gmail as a list manager.  For all of the GTD Setup Guides, click here.

One of the best tricks for enhancing your personal productivity is having organizing tools that you love to use. – David Allen

As a GTD evangelist myself, last March I was fortunate to attend the GTD Summit in San Francisco. This was a first-ever event hosted by David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, and his company, David Allen Company. It was a networking event which brought together all of the best and brightest GTD practicers from literally around the world. It was at the GTD Summit that I met Ken Case – the President of the Omni Group.  Being a Technology Director at a school district in Maine and a GTD evangelist, I encouraged him to consider donating OmniFocus to the MLTI program as a first step in exposing the educational community within Maine to the benefits of the GTD system.  Read more–>

People will tell us, “You don’t understand, we’re different.”  Well, yes…and maybe not.  We at the David Allen Company define “work” not as that place you walk into carrying your expensive cup of coffee/mocha java late’ (skim).  We define “work” as anything that needs to be different than it is.  So while your jobs may be different, that fact that all folks have things that need be different in their lives is not different.

While cultures may be unique and individual jobs may be different, the fact is that a “customization” of the GTD workflow model is not needed.  How people apply GTD to the tools they use and what we demonstrate for solutions will vary based on the audience, but the workflow model will apply to all.

The reason lies in the principles of GTD – capturing everything that has your attention, clarifying these inputs into outcomes and actions and placing them into a system the individual trusts implicitly (takes a bit of time to get here), and reviewing this system as often as needed to make certain that one is placing their focus where it needs to be, when it needs to be! Simple, right?

I see one common theme arise–regardless of the profession:   you have daily inputs that need to be defined and converted into outcomes (DONE) and actions (DOING).

• Lawyers must “review pages 9-11 of Smith contract for revisions”@computer
• Sales folks must  “Mr. Bader to discuss next article for website@calls
• Doctors must “develop draft of PPT slides for presentation at Phoenix conference”@computer
• Moms must “get Joey baseball spikes”@errands
• Business owners must “compete loan application and email to John at National Bank”@computer
• The managing director of the wagon building department at the North Pole must “Santa – discuss decrease in wagon demand and increase in electric scooters”@agendas

The “customization” many speak of does not relate to the GTD principles (Collect – Process – Organize – Review – Do), but rather to how one practices these principles.  This is no different than those who know the principles of building material wealth (compound interest, pre-tax deductions) or staying in physical shape (diet, exercise). One may understand a principle of diet as it relates to physical health and practice vegetarianism, while another practices the same principle while eating some red meats, but with a greater intake of fish/chicken.

The customization of GTD implementation is endless.  Some Organize in Outlook while others choose Lotus Notes, while others still like a paper system.  Some folks keep actionable emails in the @action email folder while others convert their actionable emails into tasks/to-do’s.  Others print out their tasks and highlight the ones they will finish that day, while others place these actions on their calendar as all-day events rather than in their action lists.

When we present a seminar, we do not come to tell you how to do your job. In most cases we are not qualified to do this – and probably don’t want to be.

What we do come to do is assist you in learning how to master the flow of your work – two very different disciplines…but very closely connected.  The feedback we often get is, “Wow, as I begin to improve managing my workflow, I’m doing my job better.”

Yes, exactly.

Danny Bader is a senior presenter and coach with the David Allen Company.

• You know your lists are not current so you dread having to clean up while you scan (Done a Weekly Review lately?)
• You know there are things on there that require more thinking (Ask yourself, “Do I have all of the information I need to do this?” If not, you don’t have the next action. Get more specific.)
• You have things on your lists that you don’t think are your job (Get clear on your Areas of Focus & Responsibilities–what’s your job and what’s not)

• The next actions you are seeing are too big (Break them down into smaller next actions. Watch where you go too big on time or energy commitment.)
• Your action listed is not the next action so some part of you doesn’t see success. (Drill down to the next physical, visible action. If you’ve got to Rewrite the report before you can Book the meeting with the team, then Rewrite report is your next action, not Book Meeting.)
• You don’t like the tool you are using (get one you like)
• You don’t know how to use the tool you are using (spend time learning the essentials–even the speed keys help a ton)
• You don’t trust the list you are using (get one you trust like your second brain)
• Your lists aren’t setup to work the way you think (renovate them so they do work for you)
• You skipped from Collect to Organize, so you really just have amorphous blobs of stuff to choose from (Refresh yourself on that critical Process step in GTD. Listen to the Best Practices of Processing podcast or read chapter 2 of the Getting Things Done book again.)

Bottom line:  You don’t have to love your list manager or love what’s on them to get stuff done, but you do need to have clear next actions to choose from.

1. Do what’s on them
2. Decide not to do what’s on them

You need time for processing and defining your work, just like you need time for doing what you’ve already defined, as well as time you need for choosing to do work as it appears.  So is David Allen suggesting a nice, neat little pie chart of 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 to spend your time?  No.  But everybody needs time for each one of these areas.  And technically, while reading email is part of defining your work, it can quickly teeter into doing work as it appears when you start using it as a distraction or procrastination technique to avoid what’s on your lists.

If you really don’t want to do what’s on your lists, checking email won’t solve that. I’d say you have a bigger issue to look at there called why are your lists repelling you?

GTD is more than a task management system, it’s an external mind system. Things that are important to me, for whatever reason, good, bad, little or big, are all being captured in a system that will consistently remind me that those things are important to me. My mind and spirit don’t have to hold on to the job. They can relax and hence have more energy to focus greater mental/spiritual power on anything I do focus my energy on because they’re not also expending energy in trying to hold on and remember all the things that are important to me. Its simplicity makes it possible to do it all the time, developing the habit to do so is more of the challenge. Its benefits can be tremendous. When I repress things that bother me, which build up to a load that causes all kinds of problems, such as depression, over-reacting and anger, it then creates more problems with family, work, friends, etc.  But I can fully engage in the problem/issue by collecting it and creating a project for it. This simple mental exercise immediately releases a pressure I would ordinarily place on myself to “remember” the problem subconsciously without ever devoting any mental focus on how I might be able to resolve the problem. Not asking “What’s the next action?” would just clog up my mental/spiritual pipes and create funk. Less and less creative juices would flow because of the backup in the system and now the problem has compounded by many folds because I can’t think about it or anything else, breeding more problems than I can handle.

GTD allows me to free myself of that clogging process. If it bugs me, it has to be because for some reason it’s important to me. Fine, then capture it as a project to address, and when I’m in the right context, use that time to focus on what it is, and what, if anything I can do about it. This works for even those things I can’t do anything about, such as the passing away of my brother. Well, is there something I can do about that? Getting him back is not an option, but honoring his memory is.  So, asking “what’s the next action?” and “What can I do to honor his memory?” Now the depression and sadness takes a back seat to the energy being directed at focusing on doing something to honor his memory. If the time is taken up front to simply identify that this is something that’s rocking my world by placing it in a collection bucket, that alone would relieve a great deal of pressure. But once I return to that “IN” basket and begin the process of clarifying what my brother’s death means to me, I begin the journey of true healing.

I was re-introduced to GTD as a result of my failing to take care of my job responsibilities when my brother passed away. I realized that if I didn’t do something to get myself together I would lose my job as an operations manager. Somehow I stumbled onto GTD on my eReaders library on my Palm PDA. I had read it before, and attempted to implement it but soon forgot about it. I was in a different place after the passing of my brother, and I was a bit desperate to find something to help me get back on track. Initially it was only so I could track all my job tasks. About six months later, while listening to one of the free podcasts, a new idea was introduced to me about how I can use this same system to resolve personal issues by simply making it a project. Personal issues! Wow!  Now I’m on a different kind of journey with GTD. I am truly grateful.

Thank you Jay! We so appreciate your honesty and willingness to share your story.  If you have a GTD-related story, we’d love to hear from you.

- David Allen (p.22 of Getting Things Done)

Sales is an Art, Not Really
Sales as an art form is the lead myth and barrier to consistent sales performance. Sales is a process that is performed. Granted some better than other. Just like an Olympic athlete–the technique is consistent, some just get better at it.

Unfortunately, for our sales organizations somewhere along the way we got the impression that there were a variety of better ways to swim the 100M freestyle. Rubbish!

Sales is about making efficiently making contact, delivering value, and collecting money. Most of those you can’t control. I have said it before, but it boils down to this: If the product sucks–you don’t need sales. If the market sucks–you don’t need sales. So, lets figure that out as fast as possible by contacting more people more efficiently with GTD.

Collection
Get all of you stuff in one place. That means all of your contacts, leads, people. Whatever you want to call them–you need them together. When you start calling you don’t want to be hunting for names, phone numbers, or who they are. Dial–Hang-up–Dial.

This means you need a database, spreadsheet, or contact management software that lets you efficiently move from one contact to the next. I suggest contact management software with a robust lead management database. This is going to allow you to scale and make a lot of notes. Hopefully you are building a rolodex for the ages.

Processing
You need a system. Calling fast and frequently is great, but you need to know what to do with each contact based on the results of the call. GTD has a nice 5 choice process. Make your sales lead management process just as simple:

1. Trash it
2. Close it
3. Transfer it (hand it up or down)
4. Schedule it
5. Nurture it

There is nothing else.

Organizing
When you organize your sales pipeline manage it in the same way as GTD. Set-up the right buckets and make sure your processing system gets the right contacts into the right buckets.

Here are the buckets I use:

1. Attempted
2. Contacted
3. Proposal
4. Closed
5. Withdrawn
6. Scheduled
7. Bogus

The nice thing about creating buckets in your contact management software is you can use it to automate your contact flow, lead prioritization, and any lead nurturing campaigns you have. Manual or automated–organizing into predefined buckets makes sales happen faster.

Reviewing
No system is perfect. Review it. See what is working and what is not.

This is again where a good lead management database comes in handy. Look at your reports and do some quick analysis. Don’t get overwhelmed by the minutae–eyeball your reports for oddities.

I like to look for what I call–”slowing and heaping” in my reports.

What processes seem to be happening slower or less frequently than expected? Try something new to speed them up.

Where are leads piling up? Try something to process them out of the log jam.

Doing
Want to know the number one cause of most poor sales performance? Ssssssh, come close for the secret…NOT DOING ANYTHING!

That’s right. Just doing something even without a contact database, or a system, or a process, or organization will yield more than standing around organizing sheets of paper, counting your pencils, or labeling your folders.

As Nike says, “Just Do It!”

Article contributed by Bill Rice, a sales expert and GTD enthusiast. This was originally published on Bills’ blog. We thought it was a great summary of applying GTD to sales so we are posting it here with Bill’s permission.