Lost Benefit Analysis

Lost Benefit Analysis

“That’s too expensive for us.” We’d been talking about offering our services to her people, and the remark caught me a bit off-guard. She was the CEO of a decent sized business, who had just finished rhapsodizing about the benefits she’d been getting from using GTD®...
Why, O Why, O Why?

Why, O Why, O Why?

The world has changed a lot since David Allen developed his methodology and wrote the 2001 first edition of “Getting Things Done ®”: Filofaxes have been mostly replaced by laptops, Palm Pilots by smartphones, faxes by emails, and too many meetings by far too many...
How GTD® Can Help in a Business Turnaround

How GTD® Can Help in a Business Turnaround

When a business is in a cash crunch, collecting overdue invoices is one of the things you’d expect to be a top priority in the organisation. Strange as it might sound, that is not always the case. One leadership team I heard about recently was so busy fighting...
A Comprehensive Approach to Enabling a Team with GTD

A Comprehensive Approach to Enabling a Team with GTD

In the dream, the client has deep pockets. Deep conviction too. They are a long-term GTD® user who has leveraged their practice of GTD into a promotion, and wants their new team to get the same benefits they have personally experienced from using the approach: more...
Culture and the Cigar-Smoking Triathlete

Culture and the Cigar-Smoking Triathlete

In my thirties I was an amateur triathlete. I wasn’t good at it, but I showed up for the training and finished a few events per year. At the same time, I was also a 5-a-day smoker of cigars. Big ones. In this, I excelled. Even at the time, I was aware that training my...
Lack Of A-tent-ion

Lack Of A-tent-ion

“I thought you said we didn’t need my tent!” I had been happily setting up what I thought was my tent for the evening, but this snippet of conversation from the other side of the clearing dragged me out of my wilderness reverie. We were 18km into a four-day canoe...
Internal Affairs

Internal Affairs

“Hell is other people.” – Jean-Paul Sartre Have you ever wished ‘they’ would get GTD®? Ever thought that it would all be so much easier if your colleagues would finally pull up their socks and start being a bit more like your very fine and virtuous self? If so,...
Guest Interview with Alex Lee, University Manager

Guest Interview with Alex Lee, University Manager

Alex Lee manages the strategic communications, planning and policy development for Library & Student Support Services at Sheffield Hallam University, leading a team of seven. Her role as Head of Management Services covers a broad range of service delivery for a...
Guest blog: Why GTD is for everyone

Guest blog: Why GTD is for everyone

Karly Edwards is a Senior Secretary at KPMG, and discovered GTD as part of an internal initiative for partners at the firm. She soon adopted GTD herself and has never looked back. I have worked at KPMG for 10 years as Senior Secretary, and for nine of those years I...
Working Standards: Where the He?? Am I?

Working Standards: Where the He?? Am I?

In my last blog, I opened a conversation about the possibility – and the value – of raising acceptable working standards in an organisation. If you liked the sound of that – or simply can no longer bear the waste you currently see in your place of work – this blog...
Leading with GTD

Leading with GTD

When a leader of a team or an organisation ‘gets’ GTD® for themselves, there is a desire – often felt as a burning need – to offer it to their wider team. The desire to pass it on can be altruistic (“this has been great for me, would be good if others had it too”),...
The elephant in the room

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...
RACIng Down The Pitch

RACIng Down The Pitch

Recently, I touched on how Areas of Focus can help you to keep areas that matter to you on track and in balance individually. This particular horizon of focus is also incredibly useful to teams. In the spirit of the current World Cup football matches, I’d like to...