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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
In our increasingly always-on, too-much-to-do, pay-attention-to-me-now world, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that stress in the workplace is on the up, but in a recent study we have some hard data to ponder. Stress was at the top of the list of health and...
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” -Robert Burns, “To a Mouse” It happens about once per seminar. During the practice session, where people are clarifying their project outcomes and next actions, a hand goes...
I bumped into a former GTD participant earlier this week, and I could see from her body language that she wasn’t keen to see me. Initial pleasantries past, I found out why. “I’m off the wagon”, she said, sheepishly. “That’s great!” I countered. This did not seem to...
It’s a sun-filled summer afternoon and you’re strolling happily down the street when a flash of light catches your eye from pavement ahead. You instinctively tell yourself it’s probably just shiny litter but your eyes linger, widen and then sparkle with delight. Yes,...
As a teenager, I used to play competitive chess. One of the most exciting spectacles in this world is the exhibition match, where a single player would compete against numerous other players simultaneously. I got to participate in one such match against a Russian...
Like so many of us, I have a love-hate relationship with the alarm clock on my phone. I often hate how early it wakes me up, but of course love that it does so reliably. Like the bookmark, whose simple virtues I extolled in a previous article, the alarm clock is...
In a recent seminar I clocked that one of the participants was not happy. He was trying to be, but his question betrayed considerable doubt: “Love the lists”, he said, “but I still don’t have any more time than I did before. When am I going to actually do the things...
When I’m working with clients helping them to try out GTD best practices, skeptical questions pop up pretty regularly. I don’t mind, actually. I understand that behind the skepticism are important considerations about the effectiveness of GTD, and whether it’s right...
I knew my wallet was being stolen as it was happening, but was strangely powerless to stop it. While checking out one of the delightful displays of fresh fruit and veg in the market just off the Rambla in Barcelona, I felt something unusual happening with the bag...
Christmas is a time for sitting around and pondering. So when my wife, Denise, asked if we should all go trampolining on Boxing day I should have said: “That sounds like an interesting idea, let me think about it ’till Easter”. Instead, I said:...
One of Shakespeare’s most famous lines is, ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players’. Fabulous metaphor. Love it. The problem is that – as I’ve gotten a bit older, and the stage has gotten more crowded with each passing year – I can’t always...
Do you understand the basics of the Getting Things Done, but are struggling to find the time to implement it well? Have you been using GTD off and on for a while, but have recently “fallen off the wagon”? Here is a quick, simple diagnostic exercise that...
I’m no doctor, but here is something I’ve learned from experience: when a muscle goes into spasm and doesn’t recover properly, sometimes it gets to a point where it has been tight for so long that the brain simply stops registering the pain signals it is sending. It...
You have a safety net. Whatever acrobatic manoeuvres will be required in the working week ahead, you can leap from platform to swinging trapeze with confidence. Someone down there is going to catch you if you fall. That someone, strangely enough, is you. As I...
“Baby Steps, get on a bus. Baby Steps, get on a bus.” -Bob Wiley (played by Bill Murray) in “What About Bob?” As a practicing poet, I often “trick myself” into creative flow. It is as if when I look at a subject directly, the...
I’ve had an idea for a service business. It’s about helping people to make sure they’re reminded about the things they need to do in their lives. It’ll work like this. You tell it what you want to be reminded about, and it will remind you. It will remind you at...
I was on a long plane flight earlier this week, about six hours in the air. While I don’t particularly relish time away from home, I do find that the time I spend on planes is some of the most productive time in my life. On a plane all of my various mobile devices are...
Growing up in the American Southwest, I have long been acquainted with a familiar parable about the young greenhorn (inexperienced rancher) attempting to brand cattle. What I never realised is how relevant the tale is to twenty-first-century knowledge work. The story...
“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” -William Morris The Japanese personal organiser Marie Kondo recommends thinking of one’s possessions as animate, and treating them with according...
