Somewhere early in the process, I realized that I was the only one who really cared about getting the loan (and house). Dozens of people were involved, some had a stake, many had responsibilities. I started calling people before deadlines, but I didn’t ask “is it done yet?” I asked something else, anything else.

Any time I talked to someone, I collected notes and questions. If I had 3 non-urgent questions to ask the appraiser, I didn’t ask them all. I’d keep some in reserve to ask at check-in time. And the check-in question doesn’t have to be related to the task at hand. I was ruthless. I’d call the real estate agent to ask for the name of the Indian restaurant she’d once mentioned. The loan officer got a call for her cat’s birthday.

I guess it’s all about communication. This technique doesn’t always work. But if you have some rapport with the people — and can collect *any* data at all — a friendly call about something moves you to the front of their attention. Most of the time, the person would volunteer the status of their items, without the unpleasantness of nagging.

– What would need to happen on this project to make it a success for you?
– What is it that is holding you back from buying in to this project?
– What can be changed that would bring you on board and get you to buy in to our shared objectives?

(Your own wording may vary, given the context and the personality types you are working with). By asking these kind of questions, you empower your peers to take the project on board themselves. Additionally, by making statements about what it is they would like to see on the project, they become partially accountable for its success.

I’m returning to school for Law after spending five years working as a PM and practicing GTD. I’m really excited to put everything that I’ve learned to work!

“I find that I usually take on the role of project coordinator: envisioning what needs to be done, thinking about the goals of the project, and assigning tasks to other people within the group.”

While there will always be people that won’t deliver on their commitments, you will have a better completion rate for the commitments that people have come up with and committed to themselves. Meet with the people as a group that you think will be the contributors/workers. Discuss together and come to agreement on what the goal is, what the steps are to get there and who will do what and when they will do it. I’d encourage you to still think about this ahead of time and have your thoughts about it. The goal and steps that the group comes up with will be even better than what you will come up with by yourself. Each person has knowledge and experiences to bring to the team. You’ll have more perspectives and more questioning of what may seem like the obvious solution. Because the project is their idea, they’ll be more committed to delivering. Because they’ve committed to a date instead of having a date imposed on them, they’re more likely to honor the date. They’ll have a better understanding of how their deliverable feeds into the next task and why something they think can be delivered 5 minutes before completion of a project really needs to be there a month earlier so others can do their part of the work.

This is harder than coming up with a plan yourself and handing out assignments. I think you’ll be happier with the results.

That’s true many people can’t or don’t want to get organized (not knowing GTD). Work seems to be an extension of their social network but you have to look as if you were doing something

@Matt
sometimes nobody really sat done with them to clarify their goals in the job and how they streamline with the goals of the organization.

One thing I’ve noticed though as I’m using GTD in all aspects of life is that people know they can depend on you, trust you, will ask you how to organize something and some will give you more work to do:) and some won’t like you for being too focused and serious.

What is it that gives us this uneasy feeling when we have to remind people of their tasks? It seems obvious that if they don’t do GTD then you have to put them on your @waiting list but when it comes to actually tapping on their shoulder there is this unwillingness. Is it personal insecurity or the way we are socially conditioned to believe that somebody will do the task they said they will do without checking on them?

I think the best you can do is get buy-in about the deadline, permission to remind people, and if someone drops the ball, email the person ultimately in charge and say that the project is stalled until X is done — please let me know when this becomes a priority again.

“Teach Susan how to run a project”
“Fully hand over Project X to Julian”

It goes without saying the only people yelled at for the delays are us. If I had authority, this would make sense, but I don’t…so it doesn’t.

For instance, in the business world you might get assigned to a project where there is a project manager who is not your boss. Without the threat of being fired, some people won’t care if the deadline is met. In GTD parlance, they don’t share the same “ideal outcome.” What to do?

In situations where you are the project manager, it is critical that you do two things:

1) Only proceed when you can get vocal consensus among the project team about the ideal outcome and give dissenters a chance to back out if they don’t want to help. Yes, we are committed to having this rally, raising $1,000 at the bake sale, getting 500 signatures on these petitions, etc. Come back to this outcome often, repeat it, make people visualize it and want it to exist.

2) Every planning meeting agenda point and task must end with an agreed and published WHO will do WHAT by WHEN. This should be emailed out within 24 hours of the planning meeting. As a bonus, you can delegate out the role of “Evil Taskmaster” to someone else whose only job is to enforce the commitments others have made on the project. At the group’s OK, they would have the authority to email and call people 2 days before their task is due, so they still have time to get on it and get it done.

I wish I knew about GTD in college, it would have helped a ton. So you are way ahead of your peers. In general, non-profit and activism groups can benefit from better meetings, so if you want to be a superstar I recommend managertools.com – their guidance on running meetings is great.

Good luck.

In time I might have specific advice based on the experience. Right now what I can suggest is that the leader be super-organized with GTD, focus on projects and concrete next-actions, be explicit on what you are delegating and the deadlines, and definitely keep @waiting lists, etc., as Wayne says.

Of course you will have slackers who will disappoint you. But good leadership inspires, and you can provide clarity via what you know of GTD, and hopefully others will rise to the occasion and be excited to know exactly what to do and how to do it.