GTD® – A Simple Series Of Yes Or No

GTD® – A Simple Series Of Yes Or No

est. reading time: 6 mins Starting with “No” In the process of implementing GTD® one of the first things people start to appreciate is the context list. The way all tasks can be captured when they come up and have every next action clarified and organised, but instead...
Sing When You’re Winning

Sing When You’re Winning

est. reading time: 7 mins “Are you winning, Miles?” The person asking is a burly, retired Mancunian who owns the plot next to mine at the allotment. He has a penchant for crooning ballads at the top of his voice as he cultivates the cabbages, cauliflowers...
Stop Beating Yourself Up With GTD!

Stop Beating Yourself Up With GTD!

GTD® is meant to create a better workflow and help you achieve greater work life balance – but be careful not to beat yourself up with it! Let’s talk about being a little kinder with yourself and your practice.

Good Morning, Beautiful!

Good Morning, Beautiful!

What a lovely way to start your day – “Good morning, Beautiful”! This is how one of my current coaching clients is greeted every morning. The words aren’t from a loved one – although I’m sure that happens, too – but from her GTD® system. I smiled broadly when I...
I ❤️ Airplanes

I ❤️ Airplanes

During a recent Train the Trainer Level 2 Seminar, we each exchanged our own personal best practices that make us advanced GTD-ers. As we all know, the GTD Weekly Review® is the one area where participants don’t get an instant reward, and therefore don’t always see...
What Would Maverick Do?

What Would Maverick Do?

“I feel the need, the need for speed.” – Top Gun Whisper it, but more than once down the years I’ve heard it said that Tom Cruise is a fan of GTD®. He’d be a great GTD ambassador if it were true. Let’s face it, he gets things done – over 75 movies,...
Smokey Vs. The Arsonist

Smokey Vs. The Arsonist

This silence was definitely not golden. My audience looked at me expectantly, willing me on, but I had run out of words. I looked over to my parents seated in the second row. They too were encouraging but didn’t have the words I needed. Head down, I made a run for my...
Slow Yew Down

Slow Yew Down

It wasn’t a good look for a teacher of the art of stress-free productivity – sweating bullets as I balanced unsteadily at Gate 43 in Lisbon Airport with an open laptop clutched in one hand and the other trying to open a passport on the right page. I uttered some...
Living The Dream

Living The Dream

As the bank holidays disappear in the rear-view mirror here in the UK, a public holiday that we don’t get will be celebrated in the United States in a few days – Martin Luther King day. As my calendar reminded me about this recently I realised that there’s a line from...
Don’t Look At Your Lists!

Don’t Look At Your Lists!

When we all started with GTD® we had to build our GTD system from scratch. This meant that you, like everyone, had to spend a lot of time with Capturing all your stuff, then Clarifying and Organising this into your tool of choice. These first three steps can therefore...
You’re So Money

You’re So Money

Complete this sentence: “You’re so money… a. “supermarket.” b. “you just don’t know it.” If you’re here in the UK you probably chose (a) because it’s the tagline of a major ad campaign for a price comparison website in recent years. If you’re also a movie buff,...
Working On The Weekend??

Working On The Weekend??

Question: What do the following have in common; Buying a bible Selling fish and chips Shooting Welshmen in Hereford Answer: They are all things that used to be illegal if you did them on a Sunday (although it was legal to shoot Welshmen in the 1400s as long as you did...
GTD From the Top – Episode 5

GTD From the Top – Episode 5

Welcome back to GTD® from the Top. In this series I’m aiming to distil the core ideas behind the Getting Things Done® methodology into easily digestible bites. I’m hoping that you’ll use this series to reflect on how GTD might better help you or your organisation to...
Engage With Engage

Engage With Engage

Hands up if you ever feel that you spend more time ‘playing’ with your GTD® set-up than being meaningfully productive? You know the saying: “If you want something done, ask a… person who is regularly, repeatedly and reliably engaged in their productive experience; in...
Fire and Forget (AKA ‘The BCC Trick’)

Fire and Forget (AKA ‘The BCC Trick’)

“The highest-performing people I know are those who have installed the best tricks in their lives.” – David Allen One of the characteristics of GTD® compared to other content in the productivity space is that it is decidedly not just a collection of time management...
Enigma Variations

Enigma Variations

Enigma: a person or thing that is mysterious or difficult to understand (see Weekly Review®) Variation: a different or distinct form or version of something First, I should mention that many people who tell me they can’t stick with a Weekly Review habit are also those...
Be Calm. Be Patient. Be Furious

Be Calm. Be Patient. Be Furious

I try to be furious every day. This might seem like an unexpected admission from a coach in the art of stress-free productivity but, don’t worry, Furious is a person rather than the description of a frothing meltdown. Jason ‘Furious’ Styles was a character played by...
Why Are You Reading This?

Why Are You Reading This?

Trusting your choices about how you spend your time and focus your limited resources is a key desired outcome of ‘Getting Things Done®’. If you can spend most of your days, weeks, months and years trusting your judgment that what you are doing is what you...
How I Lost 31kg With GTD

How I Lost 31kg With GTD

I’d like to tell you it was virtue, but it wasn’t. At a certain point, I just couldn’t take it anymore. The desire for change came slowly, then suddenly. I can pinpoint the moment. It was when I saw a picture of myself with a seriously overweight dog on my lap. Lucy...
20/20 Vision

20/20 Vision

If ever there was a time to get our visions perfectly clear, it must surely be in 2020! Often at New Year, people scout around for opportunities and ideas to add to their ‘Resolutions’ for the coming year. Trying to remember or think of great things they could achieve...