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...
FOMO, YOLO, and GTD
Being often in a hurry, millennials love to abbreviate. One of my favourites is “tl;dr” (too long; didn’t read). In case you’re a millennial reading this now, here’s the “tl;dr” version of this article: if you’re afraid...
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...
Aristotle helps you with your iPhone
In the week that the latest iPhones were launched, I’d like to encourage you to take a mental journey back to classical Greece, for some helpful advice about modern life. Those of you who have been reading my blogs for a while will know that I’m a history buff, and in...
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?”
“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...
The elephant in the room
Fifteen minutes into the meeting my former colleague’s eyelids had become heavy. Soon after, they drooped, fluttered, then gently closed. Yet despite the circle of smirking faces around the conference room table, nobody said a word. The elephant in the room could have...
Scaling down (yes, down) with GTD
It seemed like it was going to be an ordinary Tuesday. Then the phone rang. Have you ever had one of those moments when the camera seems to pan back on your life suddenly, and everything that seemed so important up to that moment falls away in the clear, cold focus of...
What are you hiding?
From the outside the restaurant looks promising, and you’re hungry. You get a table and the waiter brings the menu. You have a browse. A few things look OK, but you’re not really that up for anything on offer. With a sigh, you order something that looks acceptable but...
Buying paving stones at the grocery store
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...
GTD at Christmas
It’s that time of year when we start thinking about Christmas. For many, it’s not all red-nosed reindeer and fairy lights, however, because Christmas is in fact one of the most stressful times of the year – mostly due to the amount of planning that...
