A few weeks ago in my blog I asked people to have a look through their reminders and to send in their favourite Projects, Next Actions, and Someday/Maybe list entries. In our blogs over the last (can it be?) four years our goal has always been to inform and inspire. One day early in the summer it occurred to me that it would be informative and inspirational to turn the microphone over to you, our readers, to see what outcomes, actions and dreams GTD is helping you to make real.
I’ve been gratified to have so many people get in touch, and delighted at the rich tapestry of responses. By the way, if you’re still interested in getting in touch with your favourite Next Actions and Someday/Maybe entries, please do – see the link below. You could win a seat at one of our public seminars.
Today I’ll focus on the Projects you sent in. As a reminder, a Project in GTD is any outcome that takes more than one step and that you’ll complete within the next year.
Thanks to Syed Rabbi for this one, which made me smile and I’m thinking many of us can relate to:
Desired Outcome: “Arrange her dream 15th anniversary; this time as mindfully and competently as I did incompetently and unmindfully our 10th. ;O ”
Arif Vakil is meanwhile in a literary frame of mind:
Desired Outcome: “Complete publishing our next graphic-novel titled, Sufi Comics-Rumi Volume 2.”
Arif added as a footnote: “It’s not complete yet, we have three more months to go. We’ll get there :)”
Caroline Bennett is likewise working on a literary masterpiece:
Desired Outcome: “Write the first draft of my first novel by the end of 2015 – In progress!”
Anselm Lionel-Rajah continues the creative theme:
Desired Outcome: “Convert lyrics I’ve written into rough song outlines”
Anselm also mentioned that David Allen had provided some inspiration: “There was an interview that David Allen conducted with Avril Lavigne’s guitarist, Evan Taubenfield, on the GTD site that I found absolutely fascinating. I already practice GTD at work but picking up new ideas as to how to apply those skills to my music was quite interesting and has helped enormously.”
Jacqueline McCullough meanwhile is interested in developing a way to publicly express gratitude:
Desired Outcome: “Start a blog, recording hand written thank you letters sent to people, companies and strangers.”
Jacqueline also provided some context: “Just to say thank you. Thank you for welcoming me with a smile, thank you for making me the best cup of tea I have ever had, thank you for outstanding customer service, thank you for being a good neighbour, thank you for always saying hello in the morning etc.”
To wrap up, here’s one that makes clear how powerful GTD can be in turning the possible into the real. Audrey Seguy had itchy feet:
Desired Outcome: “Move to the south of France with my family.”
Well, I was intrigued. Helpfully, Audrey also shared what happened: “In January 2014, at the Mastering Workflow seminar in London I wrote that one of my projects was going to be to move to the South of France with my family. 19 months and many, many next actions later I’m writing from our new home in Provence. My partner and I are both rock climbers and love the outdoors. My full-time job is running a climbing centre in London and while we’d talked about giving it all up and moving to France it felt like it might never happen at times. Where do we start? How do we get the money? For me, GTD was instrumental. With that outcome in mind we began to break it down into next actions, knowing that some of these could take a while to come to fruit. But going through those next actions wasn’t as difficult as I had expected because each time I felt like I was getting closer to our end goal. We completed the purchase in August.”
Thanks to everyone who got in touch. It was a pleasure to have so much rich material to work with as I put this blog together. I hope it’s inspired all of you to identify the Projects you would like to accomplish. Remember, just being clear about what your desired outcome is makes it more likely to happen.
In my next two blogs (which will come out in November and December), I’ll be focusing on the Next Actions and Someday/Maybe entries you’ve sent in. There’s a free seat at one of our public seminars in the UK for one lucky entrant, so if you’re interested feel free to use the link below to submit yours.
