Leading an informal GTD session

I led my first informal session on Monday this week with a group of 10 people. I was delighted that there was so much interest in the session and ended up with 16 people on the waiting list so I hope to run it again in due course, if the funds for books are available.

I was nervous, and I think I may have spoken a little too quickly, but surprised myself rather and really enjoyed the session. A number of things became clear while teaching:

- I still have a lot to learn! Given that I only been practicing GTD for about 10 months this is a bit of a given. However, it was good to really focus on the both the basics and the nitty-gritty as people who were seeing this for the first time asked questions about it.

- GTD is something that a lot of us do already to a greater or lesser extent. A good number of the people in the group were nodding their heads at certain points. I could see that some of the things that we talked about were already being done, but were not part of the full system, or were perhaps more erratically used. Much of GTD is common sense put into a system that reminds you to keep using those tools.

I hope that I am able to continue to introduce people to the concept and that we may be able to form a group to support our local GTDers.

Getting back to basics

It's been an incredibly interesting process preparing for the informal workshop that I will be leading tomorrow. I have gone back through the basic concepts and almost rediscovered them for myself, as well as for the people that will be attending. I have often seen people remark on how helpful it can be to re-read David's book and I can now see why. Not only that, coming at the concepts from a different perspective, that of a tutor, has prompted me to look for different ways of explaining things and explore the concepts even more deeply to be ready with answers, suggestions or places to go for further information.

I feel nervous, but also quite excited at the prospect of taking the workshop and inviting my colleagues into the world of GTD!

Spreading the word

I’ve volunteered to run an informal workshop on GTD for colleagues at work. I must be crazy! I’ve never really done anything of this nature before but, despite that, I feel that I will enjoy trying to explain GTD and the key concepts to people that know little or nothing about it. I keep thinking back to the interest and excitement that I had when I first read the book, implemented the ideas and started to reap the benefits. I feel that if I could pass on even a small amount of the enthusiasm and interest that I have and help even one person to feel more in control then it will be very worthwhile.

I have been thinking about what points I should put into the 1-1½ hour session and have come up with the following so far:
• Two minute rule
• The four Ds: Do, Defer, Delegate, Delete
• @Waiting-For
• The zero inbox

These are the items that spring to mind most readily when I consider what could be covered in a short space of time, with maximum benefit to the participants. In an ideal world, I would want all of the group to implement everything the book suggests(!), but when this isn’t possible getting started with a few concepts may well get them to look deeper further along the line. I’ll be developing my ideas on how to handle the session over the next couple of weeks and hope to put thoughts here as I go.

Organising my personal life

I just read a really great article by Augusto Pinaud on GTD Times, entitled "When you feel like you are losing control & lacking perspective."

It resonated with me particularly as I have really struggled with implementing my GTD system at home. At work I have found implementation has fitted well into my professional life and made an enormous difference to the way I organise myself and keep track of my commitments. However, I have found rather a barrier in my home implementation. I have tried to bring my ideas home and in some areas it has worked (for example, I no longer have an large pile of paperwork cascading across the dining table), but the sense of ease that I have with my professional work (most of the time) has been hard to come by at home.

The fact that Augusto also found it difficult to bring GTD into his personal life has allowed me to be less hard on myself and given me a spur to work at it more. Let the journey continue!

The joy of being able to ignore your lists

I spent a very enjoyable Easter break ignoring my lists and enjoying the freedom that this gives. This may sound strange to those who are less familiar with GTD, but the lists are not a “task-master”. They are a way to make sure that you know what is on your plate and therefore what you are choosing to ignore at a given time. It is liberating to know that everything is there when you are ready to look at it, allowing your mind to concentrate entirely on enjoying a break, rather than having a niggling feeling that there is something that you’ve forgotten.

Learning to trust your system

There’s a really interesting yo-yo effect as you try to master GTD skills. As a new GTDer, when I first implemented the tools there was a feeling of real elation knowing what I had to do was catalogued and ready to tackle. No more worrying that something incredibly important has slipped through the cracks, or worse, is waiting to blow up when it is most inconvenient. To quote David Allen “organise your work when it shows up, rather than when it blows up”. But it really takes time to learn to trust your system. I find it really hard not to hold onto things in my head, even though I know that I have written them down in a place that I check everyday. I think it may be my brain that is resisting delegating the task of remembering to the system (despite the fact that the system does a much better job!) It is often said that people don’t like delegating tasks as they are worried that it won’t be done well enough, or it will be done better… in this case it may well be the latter.

Trusting the system is something I am working almost as hard on as working the tools.

Outcome thinking

I recently attended a GTD Mastering Workflow Seminar in London, run by Next Action Associates. There was a lot of really interesting and useful stuff discussed, but one thing that has particularly resonated with me is outcome thinking for projects. Previously, my project list was just a list of things that were on my plate and had next actions associated with them. I have slowly been revisiting these and adding a sentence to describe “what done looks like”. This has been surprisingly motivating and helpful, and in some areas, has inspired me to get on with a next action that was feeling a bit stuck.

Visualising the outcome that you are looking for seems to give a real incentive to get to that point and see it done in reality.