Tips For A Productive Summer

Tips For A Productive Summer

Todd Brown provides some useful tips about how to make the most of summer by using the time to get more productive. It’s an opportunity for you to review your organisational system, your lists, your tools, and your processes for work.  ...
GTD From the Top – Episode 6

GTD From the Top – Episode 6

­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...
20/20 (re)Vision

20/20 (re)Vision

2020 was a great year! 2020 was a terrible year! It was both, of course, depending on what I’m choosing to look at in the year. For me it felt like a very challenging year as we went through it. Endless uncertainty, non-stop reports of human tragedy, and inconsistent,...
Flow, flow, flow your boat…

Flow, flow, flow your boat…

Again? Can’t be. We stopped paddling to allow ourselves to focus. Sure enough, there they were: an older couple, drifting along in their inflatable canoe. Ahead of us, again. My canoeing partner and I exchanged minor expletives under our breath. We were about 90...
What Happened In Vegas

What Happened In Vegas

One night in the Autumn of 1967 an up-and-coming black comedian walked onstage at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas on the biggest night of his life then froze. Eventually, after standing in silence for some time, staring back at the affluent white audience, he leaned...
Calendar Strength Training

Calendar Strength Training

“If I’m in meetings all day from 8am until 8pm, when am I ever going to get time to do this Clarifying and Organising thing?” “Well, quite” I reply, “and what about actually working on all the items you have already put on your lists?” Following this common coaching...
This Summer’s Flotsam and Jetsam

This Summer’s Flotsam and Jetsam

Monika Danner has worked in corporate HR and leadership roles for more than 15 years. She has been a GTD® practitioner since 2014 and is now a certified GTD trainer for Next Action Partners in Germany. “Your projects list is a composite picture of the future you want...
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...
Four Things to Do to Make the Most of Your Year-End

Four Things to Do to Make the Most of Your Year-End

Well, the end of the year is around the corner. Snuck up on you, did it? You’re not alone. The good news is that for many of us, as things slow down toward year-end, we can find the space between the holiday parties to refine our GTD® systems and practices. Here are...
Aristotle helps you with your iPhone

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...
Permission to stare out the window

Permission to stare out the window

“Honey, I just realised – nothing is going to try to kill me out here.” My wife and I were ambling along one of England’s many public footpaths through gentle countryside. I agree it may sound like an unusual observation. But having come from...
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...
Getting (back?) on the wagon with GTD

Getting (back?) on the wagon with GTD

“[Once you have learned GTD,] at least you have a wagon.”     -David Allen It all makes sense. You want to do it. And yet, you aren’t doing it. If this sounds familiar in relation to your GTD practice, know that you are not alone. The methodology is...
How to wave 2016 goodbye

How to wave 2016 goodbye

Well, we’re almost at the end of a year. I type that with a bit of a sigh. And yes, I know that many of you will be very glad to wave 2016 goodbye, and your plans to do that might well include some combination of too many mince pies and too much mulled wine. But if...
The art of stillness

The art of stillness

In ‘The Land of the Rising Sun’ during the 1990s, the madogiwazoku – which is Japanese for ‘the window tribe’ – were ageing employees who were no longer seen as useful to the organisation. However, since there was a reluctance in Japan’s corporate culture...
A Simple Tip for a Magic Memory

A Simple Tip for a Magic Memory

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...