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...
Robert De Niro asks a very important GTD® question with his famous quote in the movie ‘Taxi Driver’. “Are you talking to me?” You wouldn’t believe how many projects are found on lists that don’t ‘talk’ to their owners. First of all, some project names don’t talk to...
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...
You won’t get the great benefit of seeing your world from a higher perspective in your Weekly Review® without first having a complete Projects list. And… You won’t fully understand why you should keep a complete Projects list until you’re getting the benefit of seeing...
Each Day In Life is Training Training For Myself Though Failure is Possible Living Each Moment Equal to Anything Ready for Everything (Soen Ozeki, Daisen-in Zen Temple, Kyoto) I’m sitting in an Amsterdam coffee shop reflecting on the mind-altering trip that I’ve been...
Boxer, the horse from George Orwell’s classic text Animal Farm, had one answer to adversity: “The solution, as I see it, is to work harder.” It is a poignant allegory for Stalinist exploitation of working-class Russian revolutionaries. But it is also...
I wasn’t planning to set any goals for this year. Many areas of my life are in reasonable shape as we start the year, so I thought I’d cut myself some slack and had resolved not to be quite so resolute with my targets. It turns out it isn’t that simple. After four-ish...
This week, I talk about GTD® and discipline. Sure, it takes time to make something a habit, but the benefits of GTD practice are obvious – the ability to become far more productive and less stressed. That’s where to focus.
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...
When you sit down at your computer after a morning of back-to-back meetings and you’re greeted by 87 new emails, you’d be forgiven for cursing technology under your breath. Today, however, is the United Nations World Communications and Information Society Awareness...
Rebecca Stevens is a Manchester-based psychologist. She is registered as a Practitioner Occupational Psychologist with the Health Professions Council and an Associate Fellow & Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society Division of Occupational...
Since it’s been a year in which our public discourse has been dominated by preparations for Brexit, I’m expecting that ‘TRANSITION’ is going to be one of the words of the year next month when such things are announced. The psychologist Daniel Levinson reflected on...
Last month my colleague Todd Brown blogged about Aristotle and GTD, and the topic must have jiggled loose some errant neural connections in my brain because later that day I found myself remembering a classic Monty Python sketch called the ‘International Philosophy...
“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...
Gundula Welti is a certified GTD® Trainer and has 21 years of experience in both buying and sales roles within a large international corporation. She is highly specialised in sales and negotiations and uses GTD in all aspects of her life. She says that GTD helped her...
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...
Last night I scattered my father’s ashes on the waters of the Ganges at Varanasi, the holy city to which Hindus come to die and end the cycle of death and rebirth. India had exerted an ancestral pull on my dad his whole life but he’d never managed to...
“Oh Dad! You promised!”, my son shouted through the Travelodge lobby at an hour that will not have gone down well for those with Boxing Day hangovers. He was not happy. He’d just discovered that there was no all-you-can-eat full English at the Epsom branch, just a...
“[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...
As he lay dying by the railway tracks the local MP for Liverpool, the Right Honourable William Huskisson, must have thought… “Dash it all… I didn’t see that coming!” On this very day in 1830, a train service was launched connecting Manchester, the greatest...
So the decorations are back in storage, the leftover turkey is a memory, and we’re back at it in the office. Here in the UK, winter seems finally to have arrived after a very warm autumn, but hey, the days are getting longer now and soon spring will be beckoning. As...
How to ensure your GTD® Weekly Review® becomes habitual. Rumour has it that before he started writing each morning, Winston Churchill would drink a couple of bottles of Guinness and eat a steak pie. Seemingly it was his way of calming his brain, overcoming reluctance...
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...
