One of the things that I have seen over the years is a lot of incomplete Project Lists. And I think some of it is because we have a tendency to have a narrow view about what a project is. Years ago, David said in a seminar, “Hey folks, you don’t have problems; you have projects.” And one of the things that I see is people not necessarily bringing their “problems” into their GTD system. It just doesn’t really occur to them, and it was the same with me. When I’m coaching people now, and they start sharing about their “problems”, I’m like, “Look, it sounds like you’ve got a possible project with some actions.” And they’re like, “Wow, I’ve never thought about it that way.”

I thought that I would share a personal example that really supported me in terms of making a very difficult situation into a successful outcome. Years ago, I had a situation with a family member that was very challenging and very difficult, and it got to the point where we weren’t speaking. Needless to say, the family really was not happy about this, and neither were we. I was losing a lot of sleep over this. I was very stressed, and obviously it was on my mind. It never even occurred to me to bring it into my GTD system. And so one day I realized, “Wow, I really think that I have a project here.” And I actually decided not to make it a project at first. I actually put it on my Someday/Maybe list because I wasn’t ready to move forward on it. And every week in the weekly review, I would review it, and say, “Nope, not this week. I’m not going to do anything about this.”

After doing this for about a month and a half, I decided that I was ready to turn this into a project with a successful outcome. Not a negative outcome, but a really successful outcome to resolve this relationship. I had a next action on my Home List, which was to write a letter to this person. I was procrastinating on it, and again in the weekly review, I was reviewing it and realizing that I couldn’t even write the letter. I needed to talk to somebody first, and really get a clearer picture of what I wanted to say. So that got moved to my Agendas List, then I had a conversation with somebody, and it eventually got moved back to my Home List. I wrote the letter, sent the letter, and the letter went on my Waiting For List, because I was waiting to hear back from this family member. And all through this, I was no longer losing sleep over this. That was the power of really understanding how GTD can transform the way so many of us think in terms of problems into thinking in terms of outcomes and Actions. And so eventually I heard back from this person. And about eight months later, we resolved this relationship, and I was able to check this project off as “done.”

Ever since that time, the minute I start thinking, “Wow, I’ve got a problem here,” I am really quick to say, “Wait a minute, I don’t have a problem– What’s my outcome? What’s my next action?” And it has just transformed my life. Sometimes I look around and see people continuously thinking in terms of problems. And I just thought that I would really share this with you, because in all my coaching, when people have that concept of “I’m really trying to resolve this problem here.” I say, “Okay, let’s do a paradigm shift and look at this in terms of outcomes and actions.”

So I hope that maybe you’ll take a look at your project list and say, “Have I missed identifying any open loops that are keeping me up at night or causing me stress?” You can have emotional open loops, like I just shared with you. You can have physical open loops. I fell on the ice a couple of years ago, and had to go into some physical therapy for my shoulder, and that was a project. You can have mental open loops. You can have spiritual open loops. I hope this gives you some insight into creating a very robust personal and professional Project List.

Listen to the audio version of Meg’s post.

Learn more about Meg and her coaching work for the David Allen Company.

Check out all of the episodes in Meg’s GTD Coaching Secrets series.

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In this 90-minute interactive webinar, David Allen will describe the strategies, tools and specific behaviors that dramatically upgrade individual and organizational productivity. In particular, he will focus on:

1. The 5 stages of control and the 6 horizons of focus necessary for personal self-management
2. How to get immediate control of “current reality”
3. How to keep track of the total inventory of your commitments
4. Why organizational issues are often personal process issues
5. Why it’s so challenging to change the simplest habits
6. How to continually self-consult to get back on your game

Register here.  David also does free events like this for GTD Connect members.  If you’re not a member, you can check out the two-week free trial, or join for by the month ($48) or year ($480).  If it’s not for you, canceling is easy. Really.

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One of our Coaches was recently working with someone on OmniFocus and passed along a great summary of all of the OmniFocus keyboard shortcuts. We also have these posted for Windows & Outlook.

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Chris Taylor, editor for Goose Educational Media, wrote up a detailed book review of Making It All Work that we thought you may find helpful. He wrote:

We broke the review into two parts, as I felt Making it all Work really lent itself to that format.

Part 1, focusing on control
Part 2, focusing on perspective

You can also read their review of GTD. Enjoy!

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We’ve setup a page on Facebook for all of you David Allen and GTD fans out there.  It’s a  great place,  if you’re so inclined, to follow some of the latest bits of noteworthy news, quotes and musings from GTDGuy.  Check it out:  facebook.com/gettingthingsdone. You can also follow David on Twitter as GTDGuy.

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She recently did a great write up on her experience of GTD on a Mac:

My System

When I started implementing GTD about four years ago, I was working on a company PC. I configured Outlook (as outlined in the GTD and Outlook whitepaper) and everything hummed right along. Three years ago, I left that job and transitioned to a Mac. Suddenly, I was adrift without a system and I ended up falling into a trap that I think a lot of GTD practitioners (and geeks) fall into: I started over-analyzing my needs and evaluating software to the point that my system stopped working very well. I tried Backpack, Remember the Milk, OmniFocus and a score of others.  Finally, I decided the best approach would be to figure out a way to bend the applications I already use all day, every day to my will.   Read more>>>

By the way, David’s In Conversation series on Connect has featured some of the biggest GTD fans out there, including…

• The writers of the Simpsons
• Musician Evan Taubenfeld
• Arianna Huffington
• The CLO for General Mills

…and dozens more.   If you are not a GTD Connect member, you can check out the two-week free trial to listen to these interviews.

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In this 35 minute podcast they talk about:

• Some of their favorite tools for capturing anywhere, anytime
• The essential tools for work and home spaces
• What makes or breaks a good collection tool?
• The essential “red folder“
• Collect versus organize and why most people don’t get the difference
• Why an empty inbox reduces interruptions
• What’s it like to work in a GTD culture?

Listen now>>>

Subscribe now>>> to all of the free podcasts

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I am always running experiments with my kids (queue the evil scientist laugh!).  I would love to share these experiments or test new things (experiments, gear) to help start the GTD thinking at an earlier age.

Here is a recent post I wrote on one of my experiments.  It resonated with several GTD moms and dads at the GTD Summit.

I am also experimenting with home design, backpack gear, homework routines, school routines and home routines to build systems that enable the GTD systemic approach.

Read more about Mike’s experiment>>

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We’ve all heard the benefits of taking naps or practicing meditation during your workday can result in one being more productive. We’ve also heard how these things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive - sometimes (often by accident) they go hand in hand. However, depending on your work environment these suggestions may not be applicable…or even possible.

I’m certain that many employers wouldn’t take it too kindly  if you were seen napping - break or otherwise - on site. That may not be fair, but welcome to life.  I also know that achieving a meditative state can be difficult, unless you work in a church, monastery or perhaps a library. What I would suggest to replace napping and/or meditation is that you look back to your youth, back when you were in grade school. Remember what it was like to have recess.

I had two short recesses and one long recess each day, the latter being sandwiched between the two (amongst classes, of course). The shorter ones were fifteen minutes long and they allowed for quick escapes into the outdoors and away from the rigors of schoolwork. We played foot hockey (only needing a tennis ball and a “borrowed” piece of chalk from the classroom to mark the goal posts at either end of the blacktop), role played our favorite television shows of the era (ours was V, and I generally played as Ham Tyler - Michael Ironside is the Canadian Clint Eastwood) or simply read a Choose Your Own Adventure book. No matter what we did, recess gave us a chance to recharge - and often that is the best way to get refocused.

Fast forward to today. We’re given (or giving ourselves) very little time to take breaks and recharge. Many of us eat lunch at our desks while working, while some don’t rest at all. The old saying “no rest for the wicked” may apply here, but I think it applies to the habit as opposed to the individual. In grade school we used to get a long recess that would accommodate both our lunch break and “mind break.” If you calculate the combined forces of both the short recesses and the long one, that’s an hour of recharging right there. Some of us barely get thirty minutes to eat in our daily routine. It’s amazing how our past recess has become today’s “regress.”

It even started as we moved along the educational chain.

As we moved from grade school into high school, short recesses became abandoned for a simple long lunch hour. This is when skipping class became a popular hobby for most students, myself included. Intense study began to replace interaction between studying. No more foot hockey (unless you happened to go to a school where they had a varsity team – highly unlikely), no more role playing (unless you were in the Dramatic Arts or spending time in the school psychologist’s office) and the only choosing you did during breaks was what you were going to major in.
Then came college or university. This is when the places you went to learn were described as “institutions.” Some made it through, some dropped out and some are still there - or go back because there’s always more to learn. There’s nothing wrong with learning and challenging yourself to be the best you can be. But even the best need breaks to reflect, recharge and refocus. Even Michael Jordan got a break between quarters (and a larger one between halves).

You see, recess equals progress.

We need to take breaks, and we need to take them often. I can’t say how many or how long you may need to take, but you need to take them. I don’t think anyone could - or should - try to absorb something that is vital in a short amount of time. David Allen has suggested that even if you “get” GTD after reading the book, you should read it again. And again. And again some more.

So I’ll leave you with the following “choices.” Now that you’ve absorbed the idea of reintroducing recess into your life, do you:

a) Increase the amount of work you do to offset the recesses you’re now going to take? If so, go to #1.

b) Dismiss this article as mere fantasy and continue on as usual? If so, go to #2.

c) Start your first recess right away? If so, go to #3.

Your adventure has been chosen…

1) You find it impossible to balance more stuff and your co-workers find you weeks later buried amongst papers in your inbox.

2) I’m surprised you took the time to read this. Think about that.

3) You bring the tennis ball; I’ve still got the chalk.

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“People ask me, is it [Twitter] a waste of time? Is going to a cocktail party a waste of time? Well, people go to cocktail parties, so if you feel guilty for going, you shouldn’t go to begin with. If you are going, why are you going?”  - David Allen

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There are two things I would look at:  Speed + Input

One angle to consider is to get really good and faster at processing.  Speed will be required when you’re getting tons of volume every day if you hope to get through it all without it consuming your entire day.

I think it’s also helpful to look at what you’re getting with a fresh eye, now and again.  Do you need to be getting everything you’re getting?

If you’re not sure, climb up the GTD Horizons of Focus, especially to the 20,000 level.  Is the input you’re collecting by email relevant to your current Areas of Focus and Responsibilities? If not, what can you renegotiate around any of that?  (There is an implicit agreement with the email you allow in.  Don’t allow in what you don’t want to give a piece of your attention to.)

For example:

• Get off email groups that don’t relate to your job, personal life or current interests.
• Even Junk takes time to process, so do what you can do eliminate mail that takes your attention that way. If unsubscribing is validating the email with the spammer, setup some smart mail rules for sending this stuff to a Junk or Trash folder.
• Unsubscribe from mailing lists that you don’t read anyway. Be honest with yourself on this. There’s a whole lot of value-add reading we all could be reading to improve our life, job, focus etc., that we don’t.
• Setup a “nice to read” folder to quickly triage the newsstand type items that you could read, or not. Just be vigilant in cleaning it out, like you would magazines on your table, when they expire in relevance and interest.  Emails have a shelf life, so be careful with this one.

If you are a GTD Connect member, there’s a great 2-minute video from David Allen on dealing with email that talks about all this in a really succinct and humorous way.

For many years I did GTD classes for a high-tech company in Silicon Valley where their engineers were getting close to 800 emails a day. That kind of volume takes some mastery to stay on top of, for sure.  So I hear you Gil when it seems daunting to deal with the volume that comes in for you.  I hope these tips give you something to work with.

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Our kick-off event for Breakfast, Business, and Books presents three Los Angeles-based authors who were recognized recently in The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. These business experts will share their knowledge about meeting the challenges we face in the current economic environment. We expect this once-in-a-lifetime event to sell out, so please make your reservations early.

GUEST AUTHORS
David Allen is the internationally best-selling author of Getting Things Done,
Ready for Anything, and most recently Making It All Work.
Warren Bennis has written or edited 26 books, including best selling Leaders and On Becoming a Leader, which was translated into 21 languages.
Karen Berman, founder and president of the Business Literacy Institute, wrote Financial Intelligence with co-author Joe Knight.
Todd Sattersten is the co-author of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time and the moderator and inspiration for this event.

Learn more

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The good news with the GTD model is that the thought process is the same no matter how something comes in (email, paper etc.) But since email plagues so many people, we’ll use that for our example.

1. Open a new email.

2. Ask yourself, “What is it?” and “Is it actionable?”

3.  If it’s NOT Actionable, then delete it, store it in a Reference email folder, or incubate it on Someday/Maybe if you think you’ll have action with it in the future.

4.  If it IS Actionable and will take you multiple steps to complete, ask yourself, “What’s my desired outcome?” Track that outcome on a Projects list.

5.  Now ask yourself, “What’s my next action?” Then you’ve got 3 choices:

1. Do it now (if it will take less than 2 minutes)
2. Delegate it now (if someone else can do it, track on Waiting For if you need to)
3. Defer it to a Next Action list or folder (if it will take longer than 2 minutes and store that email in a place (other than “In”) you know you can easily get back to when you need to take action.)

If it’s got multiple next actions that can be done simultaneously, track each one of those. If you have “future actions” or dependencies, and this is a project, those can be stored with your project plans.

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I’ve been using the trifold wallet for a couple of weeks now, and as a capture tool it can’t be beat. I have an iPhone and use the application Things on my Mac

…(I tried Omnifocus too, but it was too complicated). The problem is that I can’t capture info on iPhone: it is too cumbersome to type quickly. Too often I was failing to capture thoughts because I didn’t have the time to fumble with the iPhone’s virtual keyboard. I have had BlackBerry and Treo devices in the past, and even with a real keyboard, a pen and paper are the best capture tools for me because I can draw arrows and circles, underline words, etc.

Before buying the trifold I tried a homemade solution by carrying some cards in my wallet, and a collapsible pen in my front pocket, but that didn’t quite work. The pen tended to fall out: I went through three in no time. Having cards jammed somewhere in your wallet that need to be pulled out, written on, and put back, was far from elegant. So I retired my nearly new and expensive wallet for the trifold.

Every night I transpose my notes from the wallet into Things on my Mac, and then I sync wirelessly with the Things app on my iPhone. That’s where my lists reside.

Chip Joyce
New York, NY
Profession: new business development expert

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Before:

After:

Have any GTD photos you want to share? Send them along to editor@gtdtimes.com.

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In our recent podcast  on The Perfect GTD List Manager, we shared that one of the most common questions we get is, “Which tool should I use for my GTD lists?”  Specifically, you want to know which tools David Allen uses!  While the GTD approach is tool-agnostic, we have our personal favorites, as we know many of you do as well.  eProductivity for IBM Lotus Notes is one of those, and is the tool David (and most of the staff at DavidCo) use to help manage our workflow.  Even if you are not a Lotus Notes user, we think you’ll find value in hearing from Eric about what he learned would make the ultimate tool for David Allen to use.

In this podcast, Eric Mack (@EricMack) shares with Coach Kelly Forrister (@GTDCoachKelly) on some of the design philosophy and underlying features and principles that make eProductivity a tool David recommends.  (Note: There’s a free trial and on the podcast Eric also offers a $100 off to the first 50 people that contact him by June 15.)  Some of the features discussed on the podcast will make more sense if you check out some screenshots.    LISTEN NOW

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When I present this concept in GTD classes, it’s without exception that someone makes a humorous remark about age, saying something like, “Oh, I thought it was just happening to me more when I hit 40.”  No, I remind them, it’s not so much about age as it is about the design of the brain.  Most of you’ve heard or seen the research that the average person can only hold onto 7 concepts (+/- 2) in their head at one time.

Last week I was reminded again of the unreliable nature of our brain to hold onto simple tasks…by my 14 year-old son.  It goes like this.  My youngest child lost a tooth, a molar to be specific.  As you can imagine she was very excited because in  the Bader house - perhaps like your own - the Tooth Fairy pays a visit to exchange some cash for the tooth.  Any of you that have or know 8 year-olds will agree this is a big deal.  Plus my daughter’s tooth was a molar, a larger back tooth.  Somewhere in her beautiful mind she developed the reasonable  - to her - assumption that the larger the tooth, the more money she gets.  This did turn out to be the truth, but not because of her reasoning, and you will see why.

My wife and I were in the family room with our daughter asleep on the couch.  Our 14 year-old son volunteered to carry her to bed.  He then came down and said he can place the money under her pillow and remove the tooth.  We both agreed, but stressed the fact that he must wait until she is really asleep.  He gives us the line, “Guys, relax, I got it.”

Fast forward to 7 am the next morning.  We’ve all slept, our son jumped on the bus at 6:40 am and my daughter entered the kitchen wearing a sad face.  “Daddy”, she said, “the Tooth Fairy didn’t come last night.”  I did what any loving Dad would do, I concocted a story about how I remembered once when the Tooth Fairy didn’t come to take my sister’s tooth until the next day when we were all at school.  I told her to place her tooth back under her pillow, and I stepped outside to make a call.

“Hey Dad, what’s up?” answered my son.

“Oh not much”, I replied then paused before I finished my thought, “Tooth Fairy.”

After about one-tenth of a second he said, “Oh man, I forgot.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I covered for you, but this is going to cost you.”

We spoke when he came home from school about the principle of not keeping things in his head.  My son is a great kid, student, and athlete and I believe he may finally be listening to me when I speak about GTD.

So my daughter got her money, although it cost me a few extra bucks - “Tooth Fairy interest” - and perhaps my son received a simple, funny and valuable learning moment.

How you doing?  Anything in your head?

Danny Bader is a senior presenter with the David Allen Company.  He leads public and private workshops around the world.  Read more about Danny.

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“There’s a strange paradox. You want it simple and it won’t be cool enough for you. And if you want it really cool, you’re gonna have to have discipline and sophistication of really understanding GTD to make it work and gain the power out of it.”  - David Allen

LISTEN NOW

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Listen to Wayne’s 15 minute podcast.

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Here are all 11 steps to the GTD Weekly Review, for your reference:

GET CLEAR

• Collect loose papers and materials
• Get “In” to zero
• Empty your head

GET CURRENT

• Review Action Lists
• Review past calendar data
• Review upcoming calendar
• Review Waiting For list
• Review Project (and larger outcome) lists
• Review any relevant checklists

GET CREATIVE

• Review Someday/Maybe
• Be creative & courageous

“Best to not be too tied up in how often you “should” be doing a Weekly Review. Then, like avoiding writing your relatives because there’s just too much to catch up on, if you’re not getting to the Review regularly, you’ll just think it’s too much to catch up with, and you quit. Any time, any frequency, is better than not at all.” - David Allen

Until we meet again…

Kelly

GTDCoachKelly

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Follow GTDCoachKelly: http://twitter.com/GTDCoachKelly

Search on the hashtag: #Tweekly

I’ll Tweet the 11 steps of the GTD Weekly Review, one every 5 minutes.

- Kelly

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“Simply type in your ideas. Drag and drop files and web pages. Any idea can be linked to anything else. Using your digital Brain is like cruising through a Web of your thinking. See new relationships. Discover connections. Go from the big picture of everything to a specific detail in seconds.”

Wednesday, June 3rd, 11am Pacific Time. Register for free.

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Here are the particulars:

Thursday, May 28th - 10am - 11am Pacific Time (California) time. Find your local time.  Here’s a sample of local times:

• 11am Mountain time (Denver)
• 12pm Central time (Chicago)
• 1pm Eastern time (New York)
• 6pm UK time (London)
• 7pm Poland time (Warsaw)
• 2am Japan time (Tokyo)
• 3am Australia time (Sydney)

A few of you have asked how much of GTD should you know before joining the guided Tweekly Review. I would highly recommend understanding the essential Mastering Workflow principles of GTD:

• Collect
• Process
• Organize
• Review
• Do

The GTD book, is one of the best ways to learn those principles.  Part one (about 86 pages) will give you a great overview.  If you’ve been through a GTD class with us, review your workbook.  Short on time or just want a refresher of the best practices?  I would at least download these free articles from the DAC store:

• GTD Weekly Review
• 5 Phases of GTD: Mastering Workflow
• GTD Workflow Diagram

Here are three different ways to follow:

• Follow GTDCoachKelly on Twitter
• Search the hashtag “#Tweekly” on Twitter
• Follow the Twitterfountain on GTD Times.

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(Yes, we know many of you like “Things” by Cultured Code too!)

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The idea for writing this article came from the talk by Thay on the History of Engaged Buddhism in Mindfulness Bell No. 49. Specifically, when Thay talks about the future and mentions there will be courses held for businesspeople. I would like to share a practice that comes from the world of business, but has proved to be an invaluable tool in my practice of mindfulness.

Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen is a systematic approach to task management, which is gaining popularity at a phenomenal rate. When planning this article, and thinking about what you the reader may enjoy, I was undecided whether to emphasize the GTD methodology in an impersonal way, to focus upon my own experiences, or to draw upon the similarities with Zen Buddhism. I decided upon a compromise, and have divided the article into sections, each one focused on a key similarity between GTD and the practice of mindfulness, and within each section I will outline the relevant aspects of GTD, and a little of my own experience to help illustrate.

‘Mind like Water’

I came across GTD whilst flicking through some sample books on my Palm while waiting in a Doctor’s surgery. I was immediately struck by this book, and later that day downloaded the GTD audio book from iTunes and spent the entire weekend listening to the book and working through everything it suggested. For me to be suddenly so enthusiastic about something is almost unheard of, and I’ve spent some time trying to figure out exactly what attracted me so strongly.

The phrase ‘mind like water’ comes up a lot in GTD. It is a metaphor taken from karate, and used to indicate the still/spacious mind in its natural state of rest. When something splashes into water, it responds absolutely appropriately to the size of the disturbance before settling down. It doesn’t create a tidal wave in response to a pebble, as our minds so often do – creating mountains out of molehills; it returns to calm, ready to deal with the next splash.

This phrase is essentially the criterion of success for GTD. If you have a ‘mind like water’, then you are using the system correctly. When you think about that for a moment, it quite unusual for a task-management program to define success not as the amount of tasks you complete, but as the state of mind you have while accomplishing them. I think this is the key reason why GTD caught my eye, and perhaps the clearest overlap with Zen.

Get it out of your head

The GTD philosophy is based around findings in psychology showing that our minds are terrible at both prioritizing and time-management.

Once we decide to do something, our mind thinks we should be doing it right now. If we think we should be doing two things, then we have automatic stress – whichever one we are doing, our mind thinks we should be doing the other. We can have any number of things buzzing around our mind, all of which our mind thinks we should be doing simultaneously. I think all meditators need little convincing of this fact, as once we start to try to meditate, we become aware of all the background chatter in our heads. Furthermore, our mind has no sense of importance, it just recognizes incomplete tasks but isn’t sure which ones to shout loudest about. If you’ve been meditating on loving kindness or maybe even ‘emptiness’, the nature of reality, to find yourself distracted by whether or not you’ll fry or scramble your eggs for dinner tonight, you’ll need no persuasion of this.

When I first started meditating, I took a pen and paper with me to the mediation hall. The reason was that I knew my mind would instantly start spouting all the things I have to do (and had forgotten about) the moment I closed my eyes. So, I would tend to spend the first ten minutes of my mediation scribbling down all this ‘stuff’, and after that could generally meditate well with a fairly clear head. Now, people more intelligent than I was would wonder why I didn’t meditate in my room for ten minutes before going to the hall, get all the ‘stuff’ out of my head and onto paper, and then go off and do a proper meditation. Well, that’s basically GTD, getting stuff out of your head into some kind of system you trust, enjoying the ‘mind like water’, and kicking yourself gently for missing such an obvious commonsensical approach! In fact, David Allen describes GTD as: ‘A methodology to get things off your mind’.

Bottom-Up Approach

One of the key differences in task-management styles is how to decide and prioritize what to accomplish in your life; essentially this can broken down into top-down vs. bottom-up approaches. A top-down approach advocates working out all your life values/beliefs and the things you wish to accomplish based around those core values, whilst a bottom-up approach focuses on the little things that crop up each day before dealing with the ‘deep inner questions’.

For me, both GTD and Zen are firmly bottom-up approaches. GTD starts task-management with the little things, e.g. do washing, phone mum, sort desk drawer, for 2 reasons: 1) these are the things that either on a conscious or unconscious level are devouring our attention and energy, and 2) the confidence that arises from accomplishing these and the extra mental space that generates allows us to be far more effective when looking at our overall direction in life and our core values.

I believe this distinction can also be carried over into Buddhism. There are schools that encourage the development of and training in meditation practices that are extremely advanced from day one. I have seen many people for whom this simply resulted in increased stress, including myself. In addition to being stressed about all the ‘everyday’ things one’s not accomplishing, the spiritual things simply get added to the list and increase the stress, ‘I haven’t phoned mum, developed bodhichitta, done the washing, taken my inner energies to the central energy channel through meditation, etc.’. This is not a criticism of these practices, but a danger inherent to all ‘top-down’ approaches – that if the bottom level is clogged up, then adding more ‘things to do’ at higher levels is not going to help; in fact, it will do the opposite.

The thing that attracted me so much to Thay’s teachings is the fact that there is so much emphasis on everyday activities. Now making a cup of tea is part of my spiritual path, rather than a distraction from it. When this first dawned on me, I felt that this is something I could really do and complete, and the resulting feeling of confidence and joy was palpable. The overlap here with GTD should be clear, i.e. the importance of doing things which have our attention well and mindfully, rather than trying to constantly shift our attention to somewhere it may not be ready to go.

Our Direction Comes from a Peaceful Mind

One famous task-management guru, who emphasizes a top-down approach, presented the example of someone who works very hard to fulfill his ambitions by climbing the ladder of success only to realize that the ladder was against the wrong wall. This is a powerful way of demonstrating that we need a life plan, or our lifetime’s efforts may simple be taking us to somewhere we don’t want to go, faster!

GTD is not a top-down approach; however, there is scope for future planning and development – it should just come from a stable foundation. To extend the analogy – don’t flap around putting the ladder against the wall. Be peaceful, and you’ll naturally pick the right wall.

To me again, this draws upon one of the most beautiful qualities of Zen. That when our mind is peaceful, so many of our questions, thoughts, ambitions just fade away, and whatever is left – well, that’s worth perusing. However, trying to see what things in our mind have value while we are discontent is an extremely difficult task. At that point our mind simply isn’t qualified to make any judgment. For me, personally, when I can’t generate a peaceful mind, I have found it helpful to ask: ‘If I had a peaceful mind, would I still have this thought/wish?’. If the answer is: ‘No, it would no longer be there’, then I know it’s a wall I shouldn’t be putting a ladder against.

The Ultimate Life Hack

So, as I wind up this article, I find myself hoping that I’ve provided enough insight into GTD for those of you are interested in such things to inspire you to find out more (a good starting point is www.davidco.com), although I appreciate I haven’t gone into great depth into the nuts and bolts, this was necessary in order to stop that article from becoming way too long. For everyone else, I hope you have enjoyed and taken something from this.

In conclusion, both Zen and GTD are methods for getting things out of your head, having your attention firmly focused on whatever you are doing in that moment, and enjoying the resulting peace and tranquility. In my experience, this overlap has created a synergistic effect, where my understanding of one has helped my understanding of the other. I think I’m not alone in this regard either, judging by the following quote from Merlin Mann (productivity expert) and reported in the Wall Street Journal in December 2008 (note ‘life-hacking’ refers to any technique to make life easier): ‘Sorry to disappoint the world, but the Buddhist tenet of mindfulness is the ultimate life hack.’

Thanks to Paul Lavender for contributing this article to GTD Times. Paul is a copy editor living in Basel, Switzerland.  He thought this article would be of interest to the GTD Tmes readers.

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Have you ever been stumped by the difference between a Project and an Area of Focus?

In this great 5 minute podcast, David Allen Company senior coach Meg Edwards talks about the GTD best practices for creating a Projects list. She gives tips on:

• understanding the difference between a project vs. an area of focus
• getting to a complete projects list vs. one that is “semi-complete”
• why most people have a projects list that doesn’t really work
• when to “bump up” or “bump down” in looking at your Horizons of Focus

In the podcast, she references her own Areas of Focus, which she captured in a mindmap:

Add yourself to the David Allen Company podcast feed.

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The GTD: Mastering Workflow seminar is coming to Denver, Colorado on Thursday, May 28th. As a special offer for GTD Times readers, take 10% off the registration fee with the code Rocky10.

Whether you are new to GTD, or a veteran looking for a refresher on the best practices, we hope you can join us for this practical & tactical GTD seminar.

What a recent GTD seminar grad shared:

Since attending your seminar, my productivity has soared and I am no longer awaken at 2AM by things I forgot to do. I was and am an organized person. I had read David’s book a few years ago and had put into practice pieces of the GTD approach. But it wasn’t until I attended your seminar that I really got it. I especially appreciated the manner in which you conveyed the information - light-heartedly (no stern “gotta dos”) and with plenty examples to make the concepts easy to understand.

I am still learning and growing in my understanding of GTD, but the leap I made after attending your seminar was huge. Many thanks.

Be well, Nicole

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Whenever I would do GTD seminars, I would recommend people get a “GTD buddy” to support them in doing the Weekly Review. Sound like kid stuff?  It is–but it works.  It’s a support system to keep people to their word.  Think about, if you were to commit to a Weekly Review, and have someone ask you how it went afterward, or even do one at the same time, wouldn’t you be more inclined to actually do one?

Over on Twitter, avid GTD’er and GTD Connect Member Darla suggested we do a “group weekly review.”  I jumped at the idea.  I would love to facilitate people getting clear, current and creative.  Sounds like a great time to me!  Her vision for this is:

“Our goal could be to make the weekly review fun - remove the mystery - remove the feeling of “have to” that so many people put on it.”

So, here’s how it will work:

On Thursday, May 28th from 10AM-11AM Pacific Time in California (check your local time), clear your schedule to do a GTD Weekly Review.  Follow me @GTDCoachKelly, or follow the tag #Tweekly.  I’ll walk everyone through the GTD Weekly Review checklist.  We’ll have 5 minutes per step before moving on to the next one.  Yes, 5 minutes.  Idea is to get you through a taste of all of 11 steps.  If you’re not done with a step, just bookmark your next actions list with what’s left and move on to the next one.  I’ll Tweet the step and an explanation of what you can do.  Or, if you are so inspired and getting good stuff out of the step you’re on, stay there. There’s no “should” here except to get whatever value you want to get out of it!

Grab a free copy of the Weekly Review checklist before the Big Day.

By the way, you can follow David Allen on Twitter @GTDGuy.  There’s also loads of traffic with the #gtd tag.

5/26/09: Read the latest update on this.

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