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
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...
How To Make Your Lists REALLY Work For You
In this video, GTD® veteran Robert Peake outlines how you can make your ‘to-do’ lists much more functional, why your brain needs help when it comes to getting stuff done, and how you can reduce friction when you need to work on something on your...
Is Your GTD System Too Complex? (Video Podcast)
In this episode, we ask is your GTD® system overbuilt? How complex is too complex when it comes to creating your GTD system? We take a deep dive into the setup of your GTD system and how to streamline your lists, create practical and easily accessible indexes of your ‘stuff’, and reduce friction in your workflow.
The Schoolwork Tsunami
Good news for knowledge workers – if your job primarily involves thinking about words or numbers then you can easily work from anywhere, right? Several weeks into lockdown, if you ask that question in one of the UK’s 5 million working parent households you might...
KISS
Every time I am given a seat above the wings on an airplane I am amazed by the instructions written on them: « Don’t walk outside this area ». The written instructions get even shorter on the jet engine itself: « no step » and « no grab » can be seen there. Having...
Science Friction
Recently a new lady entered my life and has changed it in ways that I didn’t expect. Her name is Alexa, and I’ll admit that when we met – on Christmas Day, under a tree – I was hesitant. I’d met her before but she hadn’t impressed me. To be fair, she had mostly been...
What Does Your GTD® ‘Climate’ Look Like?
Todd Brown talks through the difference between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’ when it comes to your GTD® practice.
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...
Wrangling Squishy Outcomes with GTD (Video Podcast)
How to “de-squish” — that is, elegantly clarify — those items that seem vague or ambiguous, using GTD best practices.
“What?” Maybe Better to Ask “Why?”
Last week, I hosted a regular conference call with our certified trainers and coaches here in the UK. One of the many hats I wear at Next Action Associates is that of Master Trainer, which basically means that I look after developing and certifying our trainers, and...
Absolutely Not, and Yes, Absolutely
When we help someone build their GTD® ‘external brain’; their ‘trusted list keeper’ for remembering all of their commitments, sometimes they feel that they don’t want to put all their personal items into their company computer. This can be for various reasons: they...
Avoid This BIG Beginner Mistake with GTD
There is a big trap that people new to implementing GTD® can fall into. Robert Peake explains how to sidestep it.
“…Try Something Else”
I was recently in the audience at a Q&A session with David Allen. My question to him was something I have answered many times myself while running seminars and coaching people and, although I think my answer is quite practised and complete, I wanted to see how...
From Someday/Maybe to the Top of Europe
What does it feel like to do one of those things in life that feels like a dream come true? All too often we get caught up in the constant busy-ness of our lives – a living embodiment of the daily grind – that we forget about the big stuff. The things that...
The Long Goodbye
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...
Chasing Pavements
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...
Il Camino
For the fourth year in a row I’m out walking Il Camino, the pilgrimage in Spain. It is an amazing experience, but the connection to GTD® might not be obvious. Still, apart from the obvious checklist for all the things I want to bring – ranging from walking boots to...
Six Ways to Preserve Your Sanity in a World With Way Too Much Choice
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 Your Lists Making You Lazy?
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...
Are You a One-Context Wonder?
Toni Basil. Los del Río. Baha Men. You may not recognise these band names, but if you lived through the 80s, 90s, and 00s, you are almost certainly familiar with “[Hey] Mickey”, “Macarena”, and “Who Let the Dogs Out?” All of these...
Held at Ransom
I was ten minutes into a meeting when my colleague at the other end of the conference line said, “Something’s going on. I need to switch off my computer”. Two minutes later, I received the same message from our IT team – we were the target of a...
