<\/a><\/p>\nComplete this sentence: \u201cYou\u2019re so money\u2026<\/p>\n
a. \u201csupermarket.\u201d<\/p>\n
b. \u201cyou just don\u2019t know it.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re here in the UK you probably chose (a) because it\u2019s the tagline of a major ad campaign for a price comparison website in recent years. If you\u2019re also a movie buff, though, you might recognise (b) as the true origin of the phrase, from a cult 90s comedy called \u2018Swingers\u2019.<\/p>\n
Now, firstly, let\u2019s quickly establish, in case you\u2019re choking on your cornflakes or spluttering into your soup right now, that the movie \u2018Swingers\u2019 is not <\/em>about suburban sex parties. It\u2019s actually about two guys on a harmless night out in Las Vegas and the famous phrase \u2018You\u2019re so money\u2019 is used repeatedly by one of them to try to build his friend\u2019s confidence in talking with women.<\/p>\nFor me, the phrase sometimes comes to mind when I\u2019m listening to people describe where they\u2019re at with GTD\u00ae, especially people who\u2019ve read the book and tried to implement the methodology but have not yet reached the sunlit uplands that it describes. They can sometimes be a little despondent.<\/p>\n
The blogger David Cain, author of the excellent personal development blog \u2018Raptitude\u2019, is possibly one of these people;<\/p>\n
In my own quest for the grail, there probably isn\u2019t a book I\u2019ve read more times than David Allen\u2019s landmark book<\/em> Getting Things Done.<\/em> It presents a watertight system for gathering all of your obligations into a giant funnel, and cranking them through a coordinated workflow system so that pure success gushes out the bottom.<\/em><\/p>\nI love the system, and I\u2019ve spent much of my adult life fantasizing about having it in place. And several times, I have \u2014 for about 48 hours. Then at some point I forget to check a few of the interconnected lists and folders, and soon my watertight system has become another pile of papers with important things written on them that I will get to someday.<\/em><\/p>\nWhat David and others like him are often not seeing is the fact that they\u2019re doing lots of things right. They\u2019re capturing the things they need to do something about in their busy lives and they\u2019ve set up some kind of a place to put them. But then it goes pear-shaped.<\/p>\n
In their subsequent low mood they can\u2019t see that they\u2019re sometimes just a few fundamental steps off track; there can be just a few key things missing which, if corrected, could get them to a much happier place. Fixing this is often the stuff of a brief coaching and delivering one can feel like being a mechanic and knowing just the right place to whack the machine with a spanner to see it spring back into life again.<\/p>\n
But what if you\u2019re coming to GTD without even a malfunctioning machine to whack? Even then, things might not be quite as hopeless as you think…<\/p>\n
In this situation, I like to lift the spirits early doors. Sometimes it\u2019s fun to celebrate someone\u2019s initial mindsweep by dramatically announcing \u2018Congratulations, you\u2019re practicing GTD!\u2019 It comes as a surprise to them to realise that some success has happened so fast, but it\u2019s true. Any <\/em>attempt to externalise reminders outside your head is GTD in action. It\u2019s a longer journey to black belt, for sure but, nonetheless, it\u2019s worth celebrating this realisation.<\/p>\nSo if you think you haven\u2019t started practicing GTD, or if you think you\u2019ve all but stopped – clinging onto the wagon with just one fingertip, as a client memorably described it – here are some things you can still celebrate to keep hope alive;<\/p>\n
\n- Do you mark emails as unread when you have to do something with them? Congratulations, you\u2019re making a distinction between the actionable and non-actionable things in your life. Next, start to actually keep the two things in different locations.<\/li>\n
- Do have a calendar, with things in it? Congratulations, you\u2019re operating a trusted system, a single point of truth for things that are time-specific. Next, start doing the same for things which aren\u2019t, by maintaining a set of lists for everything else you\u2019re committed to.<\/li>\n
- Do you have a shopping list? Congratulations, then you know how context-based organisation works. Next, extend the logic of that highly practical approach and start to think of other contexts which reliably crop up for you and where you\u2019d like to have specific, relevant reminders easily to hand.<\/li>\n
- Do you drop your keys and wallet or purse in the same place every night when you walk in the door? Congratulations, you\u2019re using an action support system so that the tools you need are to hand at the right time. Next, apply the same thinking elsewhere, whether it\u2019s paper in an action support folder, emails attached to a \u2018to do\u2019 item, or a web link pasted into a calendar item.<\/li>\n
- Do you manage to have a quick look at your calendar at some point on a Friday afternoon or Monday morning? Congratulations, you\u2019re doing part of a GTD Weekly Review\u00ae. Next, review more of your lists at the same time to get even more benefit.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
If you\u2019re doing any of the above then you\u2019ve started practicing GTD. The path to increasing your mastery is not just about starting new behaviours from scratch but also about seeing what\u2019s already working, understanding why it\u2019s working, and doing more of it. So here are some questions to consider;<\/p>\n
\n- Where are you already organised in your life? Why? What can you take from there and do elsewhere?<\/li>\n
- When do you feel most focussed and productive? Why? Where else can you make it happen?<\/li>\n
- Which productivity habits and tools do you have that work well? Why do they work? Can you expand the benefits to other places?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Don\u2019t overlook or underestimate what\u2019s working already. You\u2019re money. You just don\u2019t know it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Complete this sentence: \u201cYou\u2019re so money\u2026 a. \u201csupermarket.\u201d b. \u201cyou just don\u2019t know it.\u201d If you\u2019re here in the UK you probably chose (a) because it\u2019s the tagline of a major ad campaign for a price comparison website in recent years. If you\u2019re also a movie buff, though, you might recognise (b) as the true […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":144039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_eb_attr":"","gtp_columnspro_styling":"{}","gtp_paragraph_styling":"{}","gtp_heading_styling":"{}","gtp_spacer_styling":"{}","gtp_video_styling":"{}","gtp_group_styling":"{}","gtp_cover_styling":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[300,311,318,320],"tags":[51,53,79,109,1069],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144037"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144037"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=144037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}