What is the GTD Organizer? The 2019 GTD Organizer is an elegant, functional, and complete system, built on the GTD principles. We created it to give people a way to get people up and running with a tool that is completely aligned with GTD. How to Use It The GTD Organizer comes as an editable …
Tag Archives: Implementation
Starting with where you are, not where you should be
Question: Why does Getting Things Done® focus on the “weeds” rather than the higher-level stuff? Why don’t we start with goals and vision and then make our way to day-to-day work? David Allen: I appreciate your question. The professional and personal self-help training programs consistently emphasize higher-horizon focus—clarity of purpose, values, vision, goals, etc. I agree that …
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What Gets in the Way of Being Productive?
A typical question I get is, “What’s the one thing that we do that gets in the way of us being productive?” It’s not one thing, but five, all wrapped together: People keep stuff in their head. They don’t decide what they need to do about stuff they know they need to do something about. …
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What is GTD®?
Someone recently asked David Allen to share the underlying principle to Getting Things Done® (GTD®). He said: There are several, but the main ones are: 1. CLEAR YOUR HEAD – Your head is for having ideas, not for holding them. In other words, build and maintain an “external brain” to hold all your significant reminders …
The best ways to deal with stress
David Allen on the best ways to deal with stress: Understand first that you’re actually IN stress Determine what’s causing it Clarify what you’d like to have true in the situation—what’s your desired outcome, at least in terms of how you’d like to be feeling? Decide if there is a next action you can take …
GTD Setup Guides
Our GTD Setup Guides give you step-by-step coaching on applying GTD to some of the best software tools out there. We currently have Guides for: Todoist Trello Nirvana Wunderlist OmniFocus Outlook for Windows Outlook for Mac iPhone/iPad OneNote for Windows Evernote for Windows Evernote for Mac Lotus Notes Google Apps You can get them and …
Making Use of Weird Windows of Time
The concept of daily or weekly to-do lists is as outdated as rotary phones. We need to have a total, holographic view of everything we want to accomplish, and all the actions required to start any of them. And we need to have access to views of those actions whenever we actually might be able …
What does it mean to be organized?
What does it mean to be organized? It used to be the definition was clean and neat. You know the offices–you walk in the door and it looks likes no one works there. The desk has nothing on it, except for a cool object and a photo. Is this what being organized really means? My …
Managing your projects with GTD
How well are you managing your projects? In the GTD Managing Projects audio program, David Allen and his senior staff share the GTD best practices and models for seamlessly managing your projects. Bonus materials include a rich set of PDF handouts and the GTD Live recording of David leading you through the Natural Planning Model®. …
Why things don’t get done
In the work I do, I often see a dark side to organizations and relationships that have collaboration and being nice as values. It can easily become a smokescreen behind which people avoid accountability and clarity. I have noticed a tendency for people to spend a lot of time in high-energy meetings and discussions, and …
Getting started with context lists
Q. What do you recommend for lists if I am just starting with GTD? A. One of the biggest challenges that I see when people are setting up their lists initial in their GTD system is they are not really sure what contexts to use. Typically what I recommend is starting with really basic contexts; Agendas to hold the …
Episode #26 – Black Belt GTD
What are your biggest GTD® improvement opportunities? Do you ever fall off the wagon? Join David Allen & Meg Edwards as they discuss what “Black Belt” GTD is, some of its biggest hurdles, and how you can overcome them. Listen Now Subscribe or Download iTunes Stitcher Libsyn Google Play Music Spotify SoundCloud Podcast Transcript …
Processing email with GTD
The more facile you get with the GTD models, the faster you’ll be at processing your input, such as new email. We’ve found it takes most people about 30 seconds to process something. That means making a clear decision about what “done” (the outcome) and the “doing” (the next action) looks like. No software will …
Get your life back to widget-cranking!
Oh, for a widget-cranking job again! Ever have gigs like that, where all you did was crank widgets? Like a summer job in college? Remember how bored you were, and how psychologically healthy it was? All you had to do was show up. Every morning there was a big pile of un-cranked widgets, right next …
Your favorite software tool tailored for GTD
If you’re looking for tips, tricks, and coaching from the experts on using GTD with your favorite software tool, check out our GTD Setup Guides. We currently have GTD guides for these tools: Microsoft Outlook for Windows Microsoft Outlook for Mac Microsoft OneNote for Windows Evernote for Windows Evernote for Mac OmniFocus for Mac Wunderlist for Mac …
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Personal Productivity and the Inner Seven-Year-Old
There seems to be someone about seven years old inside of all of us, who never matures, and whose behavior either allows us lots of creative expansion and productivity, or causes us to crash and burn. It seems that the smart (adult) part of me has known what to do for years. It knows that in …
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Why GTD Matters to Your Organization
David Allen shares 3 keys to why GTD matters to your organization. Please accept statistics cookies to watch this video.
Episode #22 – GTD and Balancing Family Life
How do you balance a daunting project list representing multiple roles and outcomes? David Allen chats with Meghan Wilker, a tech expert, mother of two, and GTD enthusiast. Listen as Meghan shares how she uses GTD in her work and family life. Listen Now Subscribe or Download iTunes Stitcher Libsyn Google Play Music Spotify …
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GTD Setup Guides
One of the best ways to implement Getting Things Done is to follow our expert advice in configuring one of the many tools we have found to work well for GTD. See a sample or buy a Guide now. Here are the current GTD Setup Guides available to support you: GTD & Outlook for Windows GTD …
Are you indulging in easy?
GTD® wisdom from David Allen on giving yourself the gift of easy and unplanned Things being simple and easy is not easy, for most of us. The structure of planning what to do and working within structure can be stressful, if not stifling, unless it’s balanced with the unplanned and unstructured. I relish those spontaneous …
