Thanks, on your comments on the article. Glad you liked it.

You took the words right out of my mouth, when you said that the “art of making others productive is entirely different.” But in my experience just like GTD, it’s an art, which one gets better at as one invests more time and energy at.

We’ve spent REALLY significant time in teaching GTD to everyone around us. Sometimes when I walk office, I see empty inboxes and people busy entering their next actions in their relevant contexts it gives me a really warm and fuzzy feeling inside. However there are days that it’s just the opposite. Yesterday was one such day, and I was really wondering was the time & energy invested worthwhile. It’s while I was brooding on this, that a fellow colleague walked up to me and said, “Excuse me Arif, can you just help me out here, I’ve got a small GTD query.” Her question was relatively simple and was easily answered. But her simple act of being concerned about her productive system that she was keen on enhancing it, made my day.

So, the moral of the story is that it does pay to teach GTD, even though may times it’s not really evident.

But the truth is if you’re like me, whether it’s beneficial or not, we’re such die-hard GTD fans, that we can’t help but preach it.

I am great GTD lover and I have tried to instill GTD on people within my business. The art of becoming more productive is very different from making other people productive.

Some people just get it, and others are instantly dismissive of anything that looks like personal development.

However, I will keep trying!

I so understand what you mean. Being the Director of a company it’s difficult implementing GTD across my company. For those who don’t directly report to you, they’re certainly much more tougher to convert.

In those scenarios what I’ve seen work best is that you can begin to preach to those who begin to show interest first, even if it’s mild interest. So for eg. when your colleagues begin to see the change in you, they realise that you indeed get so much more done and you’re always totally relaxed and chill, that’s when the training can begin.

And I’ve experienced that it’s not too long before people do start noticing the difference. Specially when you keep your Waiting For list pristine and constantly followup on each and every task that others have agreed to do. It’s a matter of time that the curious come up and say, “Hey, how ever do you manage to keep track of every little thing so easily?”

Ofcourse if you have people who directly report to you, then it becomes easier, because then you can mandate that they use the system. Atleast give it a shot for a few weeks before they give the verdict that what they’re currently doing is better.