I wasn’t planning to set any goals for this year. Many areas of my life are in reasonable shape as we start the year, so I thought I’d cut myself some slack and had resolved not to be quite so resolute with my targets. It turns out it isn’t that simple. After four-ish...
Written by Kelly Forrister; Senior Coach and Presenter at the David Allen Company. I’ve been practicing and teaching David Allen’s productivity methods for over 25 years. I consider myself pretty organised and minimalist in the way I live (so much so that someone...
Those of us who work with our email inboxes regularly ‘at zero’ are aware of the many benefits this brings. It is therefore a surprise, when trying to encourage others to do the same, that their first response is often along the lines of “I don’t care that I have...
Yum. Sea Bass or T-Bone? Delightful options for sure, but as I pondered the choice, I felt uneasy. I was sitting in my living room browsing the online menu for a meal that was still six weeks away and, along with everyone else in our party, I’d been emailed the link...
Near the end of a seminar someone will often say some version of the following: “I like the sound of what you are proposing, but I think it will be difficult”, in a tone that makes it clear that they feel it shouldn’t be. Here is my take: given the benefits GTD®...
No part of me is more English than my need for a regular cup of tea. So, with the end of the webinar that I’d been delivering close at hand, my attention was turning to a hard-earned cuppa. For this reason, perhaps, I was caught slightly off-guard by the excellent...
‘Seriously? They’re posting business-critical information as a reply to a private Facebook thread?’ I was as incredulous as my client at this lack of basic ‘communication hygiene’ – expecting colleagues to find what they needed to...
In a couple of days I’ll wave goodbye to my daughter. As my eldest child, she’s the first to head off to university and after that we’ll be separated by a long day of driving to East Anglia, much of it staring at the featureless flatlands of Lincolnshire or stuck...
“What do you see?” The question took me a bit by surprise. I was just settling in for lunch with my friend Dan. Pleasantries had been exchanged, and I was scanning the menu when he’d reached his wrist across the table and held it where I couldn’t miss it. “Uhm, your...
“All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.” -Voltaire I was fuming. I could feel the blood surging up to my head, fuelling a litany of judgmental thoughts. Brexit. Trump. That maniac on the M1. Something had...
Ever heard of desire paths? Although the name might conjure an image of the trail of underclothes between the sofa and the bed in a Hollywood love scene, the reality is slightly more prosaic (not to mention less fun). According to Wikipedia, desire paths are...
If you want to know what clean edges in a system looks like, take a peep through a microscope. Life, in its simplest form, is about integrity. When the walls of a cell break down, the cell is finished – returning to the primordial elements that once made it up....
Written by Moni Danner. When new parents return to work after maternity/paternity leave, they are often noticeably more efficient than before. Managing family life, especially with small children, forces us into a tighter temporal corset, and that demands pretty...
A striking advertisement for dental hygiene depicts people whose eyes are bleeding, pointing out that if any part of one’s body besides one’s gums were to bleed, they would seek immediate medical attention. Likewise, I believe that if people were able to...
Andrew Ward, Director of Optimum Advisory, is a business and HR leader, organisation development consultant, and amateur GTD® evangelist. He has worked in and for organisations large and small, multinational and domestic, in the UK and US and in industries including...
True story: A few months back, a well-dressed Italian woman in her early sixties walks into a local Sicilian cafe in search of a panettone for Christmas. Having surveyed a ceiling sagging under the weight of dozens of them, suspended from festive ribbons, she...
Are you lazy? If you’re reading this, probably not. As my colleague Todd Brown explains over on our YouTube channel, GTD® tends to attract people who are already motivated and successful. To paraphrase Steve Jobs, GTDers are usually folks who are looking to put a dent...
I was at a dinner party recently where the conversation – implausibly – turned to ‘paperwork’. We’d exhausted topics like real-estate trends (luxury – in; affordable – out), our ongoing Circus Brexitus, and the ambient geo-political madness. Things had clearly gotten...
Alex Lee manages the strategic communications, planning and policy development for Library & Student Support Services at Sheffield Hallam University, leading a team of seven. Her role as Head of Management Services covers a broad range of service delivery for a...
In their newfound enthusiasm for discovering the freedom and relief of getting everything out of their head, journeymen GTD® practitioners can fall into the trap of believing that small lists are inherently bad. Indeed, David Allen, creator of the Getting Things Done®...
Gundula Welti is a certified GTD® Trainer and has 21 years of experience in both buying and sales roles within a large international corporation. She is highly specialised in sales and negotiations and uses GTD in all aspects of her life. She says that GTD helped her...
In the lull between the Christmas and New Year celebrations, one of the pleasures I usually find myself drawn to, other than leftover mince pies, is looking ahead at next year’s holiday possibilities in my calendar. It seems I’m not alone, either, since it’s a peak...
We’re deep into the season of office parties, mulled wine and mince pies here in London, and as the nights continue to draw in I find myself in a reflective mood. Around this time of year, I like to remind myself of the core ideas behind GTD®, by way of reaffirming my...
