2020 Vision

2020 Vision

Had one of our world leaders stood up at the Davos World Economic Forum in 2016 and predicted that they’d be joined this year by a controversial property tycoon and reality TV star who’d become the President of the United States, it would have been put down to either...
In Praise of the Short Sub-List

In Praise of the Short Sub-List

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®...
A Prescription for Procrastination

A Prescription for Procrastination

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...
GTD & D&D Part II: How to Lead a Team of Dragon-Slayers

GTD & D&D Part II: How to Lead a Team of Dragon-Slayers

I have a confession to make. I have been routinely engaging in conflict-resolution sessions with a group of creative, talented mid-career professionals. We have been collaborating on solutions to complicated, high-stakes problems by drawing on the unique strengths and...
Happy Hunting

Happy Hunting

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...
Back to basics with David Allen

Back to basics with David Allen

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...
Interview with Rebecca Stevens, business psychologist

Interview with Rebecca Stevens, business psychologist

Rebecca Stevens is a Manchester-based psychologist. She is registered as a Practitioner Occupational Psychologist with the Health Professions Council and an Associate Fellow & Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society Division of Occupational...
And now for something completely different…

And now for something completely different…

Last month my colleague Todd Brown blogged about Aristotle and GTD, and the topic must have jiggled loose some errant neural connections in my brain because later that day I found myself remembering a classic Monty Python sketch called the ‘International Philosophy...
Guest blog: my life with Getting Things Done® 

Guest blog: my life with Getting Things Done® 

Dr. Peer Wiethoff is the Foreign Trade Manager at NOKIA and has been a user of Getting Things Done® (GTD®) for over nine years. His journey with GTD revealed interesting benefits for him, even as a person who is already organised. Peer is now a certified GTD Trainer...
Show me the money

Show me the money

The occasional thud you may have been hearing in the neighbourhood lately isn’t the sound of huge falling conkers but the sound of credit card statements hitting people’s mats. Yes – all that holiday fun coming home to roost. The flights, the hotel and that...
The wistful lumberjack is back

The wistful lumberjack is back

Not everything in life – or even in GTD – can be illustrated using wood chopping as a metaphor, but it does seem to offer some helpful parallels. I noted some of them a few years back in a previous blog, but this year I noticed a few other lessons that translate well...
What you gonna do?

What you gonna do?

“Just Do It” – Nike marketing slogan I did a quick search on Amazon this morning and found more than a dozen books with the phrase “Do It Now” in the title. These are books on eliminating procrastination, increasing effectiveness, and getting more done. The implied...
Eat your greens

Eat your greens

“They’re good for you.” <Sound of silence.> “You won’t get any dessert.” <Look of daggers.> “JUST EAT THEM!” It’s a familiar mealtime scenario. Children and parents in a stand-off over vegetables. Eventually, though, point-blank refusal turns to grudging...
Heart surgery

Heart surgery

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...
Of pale ales and rabbit trails

Of pale ales and rabbit trails

Tim Sismey first encountered GTD in 2006, and within a week of implementing his system he was sleeping better, making more informed decisions and delegating more effectively, whilst simultaneously more able to focus on his family, friends and his passions of music and...
Going beyond the basic checklist

Going beyond the basic checklist

Scott Walker (not his real name) is a good friend of mine. He has nine black belts. Note, they are not in Judo or some other martial art. They have been acquired as a result of arriving at a hotel, looking for a belt for his trousers, and realising that it was still...
How to run a Reggae night

How to run a Reggae night

In his own words he looks like an accountant or a dentist, so how did an English gent from the Cotswolds become the undisputed world champion of the Reggae soundclash, a gladiatorial arena where DJs compete track-by-track to win the crowd, and only the brave survive?...
Scenes from a seminar #563: “Why would I do this?”

Scenes from a seminar #563: “Why would I do this?”

“I’m not seeing the benefit”. I’d been holding forth in a seminar on how to get clear on what all the new stuff that shows up each day means for you before getting stuck in to moving things forward, and the remark from one of my participants came as a surprise. Caught...
Does your email inbox do strategy?

Does your email inbox do strategy?

Do you ever have days where your work is driven by your email inbox, where you’re constantly replying to emails – barring the odd meeting or a hurried lunch at your desk? With the average office worker receiving around 70 emails a day, it’s no surprise that the...
A journey of 1000 miles begins with a tangible next action

A journey of 1000 miles begins with a tangible next action

David Griffin is a senior consultant at Cambridge based 42 Technology, which offers pragmatic engineering innovation, design and development services to clients in a range of industries. He first started with GTD in 2003, when Palm Pilot devices were no longer cool...
Walk this way

Walk this way

I’m a rambler from Manchester way I get all me pleasure the hard moorland way I may be a wage slave on Monday But I am a free man on Sunday ~ Ewan MacColl (from ‘The Manchester Rambler’) On a glorious spring morning last Friday, under a radiance of blue skies, a...
Avoiding target fixation with GTD

Avoiding target fixation with GTD

On April 21st, 1918 Manfred von Richtoven, ‘The Red Baron’, was shot and killed by an anti-aircraft bullet. Considered the greatest flying ace of his time, he had made a rookie mistake by flying too low into enemy territory. It was a mistake he himself...