The Two Sides Of Your Productive Self

The Two Sides Of Your Productive Self

watch time: 5:45 mins Have you ever thought about the two different sides of your productive self? Perhaps we need to acknowledge the Do-er and the Visionary to find the perfect balance of our own...
Sing When You’re Winning

Sing When You’re Winning

est. reading time: 7 mins “Are you winning, Miles?” The person asking is a burly, retired Mancunian who owns the plot next to mine at the allotment. He has a penchant for crooning ballads at the top of his voice as he cultivates the cabbages, cauliflowers...
Good Morning, Beautiful!

Good Morning, Beautiful!

What a lovely way to start your day – “Good morning, Beautiful”! This is how one of my current coaching clients is greeted every morning. The words aren’t from a loved one – although I’m sure that happens, too – but from her GTD® system. I smiled broadly when I...
What Would Maverick Do?

What Would Maverick Do?

“I feel the need, the need for speed.” – Top Gun Whisper it, but more than once down the years I’ve heard it said that Tom Cruise is a fan of GTD®. He’d be a great GTD ambassador if it were true. Let’s face it, he gets things done – over 75 movies,...
Smokey Vs. The Arsonist

Smokey Vs. The Arsonist

This silence was definitely not golden. My audience looked at me expectantly, willing me on, but I had run out of words. I looked over to my parents seated in the second row. They too were encouraging but didn’t have the words I needed. Head down, I made a run for my...
Why Are You Still Here?

Why Are You Still Here?

An action list should be continuously changing. Things get added, things get crossed off as done, and occasionally things get removed because the world changed and they are no longer needed. Above all, it keeps flowing. If there are things on your lists that...
Living The Dream

Living The Dream

As the bank holidays disappear in the rear-view mirror here in the UK, a public holiday that we don’t get will be celebrated in the United States in a few days – Martin Luther King day. As my calendar reminded me about this recently I realised that there’s a line from...
Written In The Stars

Written In The Stars

    I bet you get asked this all the time: Sound familiar? It should – most people have been asked this at the end of a Teams or Zoom call in the hope that they’ll click on the stars and share their feelings about audio and video quality. Now,...
You’re So Money

You’re So Money

Complete this sentence: “You’re so money… a. “supermarket.” b. “you just don’t know it.” If you’re here in the UK you probably chose (a) because it’s the tagline of a major ad campaign for a price comparison website in recent years. If you’re also a movie buff,...
Shirt Happens

Shirt Happens

The shirt had been white. It mostly still was, but the crisp pressed cotton now had a fan-like pattern of tomato guts sprayed across the front. Perfect if I had been heading off to film the climax of a horror movie, but my meetings that morning called for something...
Working On The Weekend??

Working On The Weekend??

Question: What do the following have in common; Buying a bible Selling fish and chips Shooting Welshmen in Hereford Answer: They are all things that used to be illegal if you did them on a Sunday (although it was legal to shoot Welshmen in the 1400s as long as you did...
GTD From the Top – Episode 5

GTD From the Top – Episode 5

Welcome back to GTD® from the Top. In this series I’m aiming to distil the core ideas behind the Getting Things Done® methodology into easily digestible bites. I’m hoping that you’ll use this series to reflect on how GTD might better help you or your organisation to...
Fire and Forget (AKA ‘The BCC Trick’)

Fire and Forget (AKA ‘The BCC Trick’)

“The highest-performing people I know are those who have installed the best tricks in their lives.” – David Allen One of the characteristics of GTD® compared to other content in the productivity space is that it is decidedly not just a collection of time management...
Enigma Variations

Enigma Variations

Enigma: a person or thing that is mysterious or difficult to understand (see Weekly Review®) Variation: a different or distinct form or version of something First, I should mention that many people who tell me they can’t stick with a Weekly Review habit are also those...
Be Calm. Be Patient. Be Furious

Be Calm. Be Patient. Be Furious

I try to be furious every day. This might seem like an unexpected admission from a coach in the art of stress-free productivity but, don’t worry, Furious is a person rather than the description of a frothing meltdown. Jason ‘Furious’ Styles was a character played by...
How I Lost 31kg With GTD

How I Lost 31kg With GTD

I’d like to tell you it was virtue, but it wasn’t. At a certain point, I just couldn’t take it anymore. The desire for change came slowly, then suddenly. I can pinpoint the moment. It was when I saw a picture of myself with a seriously overweight dog on my lap. Lucy...
20/20 Vision

20/20 Vision

If ever there was a time to get our visions perfectly clear, it must surely be in 2020! Often at New Year, people scout around for opportunities and ideas to add to their ‘Resolutions’ for the coming year. Trying to remember or think of great things they could achieve...
How GTD® Enabled Me to Become a Digital Nomad

How GTD® Enabled Me to Become a Digital Nomad

Linda first encountered GTD® in 2011, when she joined Next Action Associates to support the leadership of the organisation with…, well, everything needed to grow a start-up into a going concern. She loves applying the principles of GTD to support her nomadic life and...
Passports and Pinball

Passports and Pinball

Ever seen a pinball machine? Great, then you’ll have a mental image of a metal ball pinging around under glass, side-to-side and up-and-down, flippers flipping and lights flashing for as long as you can stop it from disappearing down the hole. I sometimes use this odd...
Calendar Strength Training

Calendar Strength Training

“If I’m in meetings all day from 8am until 8pm, when am I ever going to get time to do this Clarifying and Organising thing?” “Well, quite” I reply, “and what about actually working on all the items you have already put on your lists?” Following this common coaching...
GTD on the Planet of the Apes

GTD on the Planet of the Apes

I’m not a fan of fitness. What’s to like? Basically it hurts while I’m doing it, again the next day, and then – go figure – it’s worse again on the day after that. Seemingly not a lot of upside in all of that, but by day three after a workout I’m feeling great and...