Posts Tagged ‘gtd’

10 Best Productivity Books of 2009

Granted, the year’s not done yet, but publishers start to slow down new releases right about now, so it’s not likely we’ll see another contender for “best of 2009” until January. Plus, Christmas is coming up, and I wanted to give you plenty of time to read some of these books before you give copies to your friends and relatives.But really? It’s never the wrong time to recommend a list… Continue reading

November 18 2009 | By Dustin | Tagged: book, book review, chance, gift, gtd, luck, motivation | 11 comments»

Scoring 100% in Time Management

"Most people who attempt to learn a new time management system fail."I can't prove the above statement with hard facts, but I have a sense that it's true, based on my personal experience and observations. If success is defined as 100% successful implementation, then that statistic is most certainly true.On the other hand, perhaps 99% of the people who take a time management program put down the book, or drive… Continue reading

October 9 2009 | By Francis | Tagged: gtd, habit, time, time-management | 18 comments»

GTD Refresh, Part 6: Decisiveness

For the last several months, I’ve been slowly rebuilding a more-or-less by-the-book GTD system. I’ve done elements of GTD for years, but things over the last year have gotten too complicated and my hope is that implementing the whole GTD system as close to Allen’s vision as possible will help me balance two quite different careers with the rest of my life.

I had intended my… Continue reading

July 16 2009 | By Dustin | Tagged: decision-making, decisiveness, email, gtd, inbox-zero, work | 12 comments»

GTD Refresh, Part 5: Building the Weekly Review Habit

At the very beginning of David Allen’s recorded lecture, Getting Things Done Fast, he tells his audience that the most important but single most difficult part of becoming more productive is making time every week for a weekly review. Most important because this couple of hours of “time out” once a week is where virtually all the GTD magic happens – it’s where we make sure… Continue reading

June 19 2009 | By Dustin | Tagged: david-allen, gtd, gtd-refresh, weekly review, work | 22 comments»

Stripped GTD: 3 Habits That Make You More Productive

David Allen's Getting Things Done has been a huge help to me as I've created processes and systems for many of the things I do, be it writing, other work, or just budgeting my time so I can spend more of it doing the things I love.The problem with GTD, the snag I've hit time and time again trying to implement its practices, is that it's just so darn… Continue reading

June 15 2009 | By David | Tagged: gtd, notebook, organization, Productivity, review | 19 comments»

GTD Refresh, Part 4: Getting Sorted

Last week, I talked about finally getting my projects in order. Of course, that’s not a one-time thing, but I’m not quite ready to talk about the process of bringing new projects into my lists just yet, whether “on-the-fly” or as part of my weekly review.

But getting a grip on my projects, both big (there’s a book proposal I want to write) and small… Continue reading

June 5 2009 | By Dustin | Tagged: file, gtd, gtd-refresh, paper, project | 8 comments»

GTD Refresh, Part 3: Projects

Months ago now, I announced I was going to “reboot” my GTD setup, returning as close to an “orthodox”, by-the-book GTD setup as I could manage. Out the gate, I started “off”, working not from tasks up but from the middle, David Allen’s 30,000 and 40,000-foot levels, by drawing up a mindmap of my areas of focus and my vision for myself in a few years time.… Continue reading

May 29 2009 | By Dustin | Tagged: gtd, gtd-refresh, next-action, nozbe, project, task | 6 comments»

Why a Great Pen Makes All the Difference

When I first got into the whole "systematic productivity" thing, I did a ton of reading on the subject. One of the things I kept coming across was people discussing which notebook and which pen they used in their own systems. I would read these, all holier-than-thou, and think something to the effect of, "a pen is a pen. Is a pen. Is a pen. Who cares?"I… Continue reading

March 20 2009 | By David | Tagged: applications, gadgets, gtd, tools, web | 23 comments»

GTD Refresh: Contexts and Calendar

In my first post in this series , I discussed the steps I had begun to take in putting my GTD system back in order. I started by outlining my life at the moment (especially my Areas of Focus") and sketching out a vision of myself in 3-5 years.The next step in my return to an orthodox GTD system is to reset… Continue reading

February 26 2009 | By Dustin | Tagged: calendar, context, gtd, list, schedule, task, time-management | 13 comments»

GTD Refresh: Getting My Head Together

The last year was a hard one for me, in virtually every area of my life. Even my successes -- and there have been several -- have come at the cost of greater stress and a more and more difficult to balance schedule.

While I have managed to adapt and develop ways of keeping everything on track and moving forward, each new pressure -- whether on my time… Continue reading

February 16 2009 | By Dustin | Tagged: areas-of-focus, david-allen, getting things done, gtd, gtd-refresh, making-it-all-work, mind mapping, mindmap, mission, personal productivity, system, vision | 19 comments»

Book Review: David Allen’s “Making It All Work” (Part 3 of 3)

The second major theme in David Allen’s Making It All Work is “perspective”. (The first major theme, “control”, is discussed in part two of this review.) This part of the book expands greatly on the “Horizons of Focus” to which Allen commits only nine pages in the original Getting Things Done.Getting perspective means two things for Allen. First, and less importantly, it means consciously sorting your priorities before… Continue reading

February 9 2009 | By Dustin | Tagged: attention, book, david-allen, gtd, life, making-it-all-work, personal productivity, review, work | 3 comments»

Book Review: David Allen’s “Making It All Work” (Part 2 of 3)

Note: I decided that I'd better make this three parts instead of the originally-planned two. Allen's work is, of course, central to the whole field of personal productivity, so it's worth really diving into it. Don't miss Part 1 here.At the center of Making It All Work is a renewed emphasis on control -- effectively managing the work in your life -- and perspective -- aligning your work… Continue reading

February 6 2009 | By Dustin | Tagged: attention, book, david-allen, gtd, life, making-it-all-work, personal productivity, review, work | 7 comments»

How to Procrastinate Productively

There's a popular quote floating around productivity circles that says, "eat a live toad in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day." Many people apply this to getting things done, saying that if you tackle your most difficult and overbearing task first, nothing else will seem so difficult.I disagree. The way I see it, the thought of having to eat a live toad… Continue reading

February 5 2009 | By David | Tagged: cleaning, errands, gtd, organization, procrastination, Productivity | 14 comments»

Book Review: David Allen’s “Making It All Work” (Part 1 of 3)

December saw the release of David Allen’s Making It All Work:Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life, Allen’s long-awaited follow-up to his classic Getting Things Done (Ready for Anything, published in 2004, acts more as a companion to Getting Things Done than a sequel). Making It All Work seems to have been written with the primary goal of addressing some of the the… Continue reading

February 4 2009 | By Dustin | Tagged: attention, book, david-allen, gtd, life, making-it-all-work, personal productivity, review, work | 13 comments»

Why You Should Learn a Productivity System

One of the biggest barrier to productivity in most people’s lives is their resistance to adopting a productivity system. Some read a lot of productivity books and sites like Lifehack and feel like they can take a little bit from here and a little bit from there and call it a day. Others hate the idea that someone like Stephen Covey or David Allen could know their own needs better… Continue reading

January 22 2009 | By Dustin | Tagged: 7-habits, david_allen, gtd, habit, Productivity, skill, stephen_covey, system | 18 comments»