Category Archives: Podcasts

Our October Office Hour went into detail on the Capture, Clarify, and Reflect steps. We also discussed procrastination and its causes. That led us to consider closed vs flexible task lists.

Michael Keithley has been focusing on productivity since when paper planners were the only options. He became an early adopter of digital tools, and still has a technology graveyard of PDAs and other electronic productivity tools. For GTD, his first digital tool was Evernote, which he still likes for reference. Later he landed on OmniFocus, and has been using it from early on, to the most recent version. He emphasizes that it’s important for a digital system to allow for sending an email to the list manager.

This is an installation and implementation session on the higher Horizons of Focus. We will spend time exploring if anything has your attention at each of the horizons, and will end with integrating the horizons at the project and next action levels.

David Allen talks with GTD trainer Justin Hale about his journey with GTD. Justin notes that the journey includes cultivating self-awareness about our habits. He emphasizes the importance of deliberate practice to change behaviors. More than a set of hacks, he considers GTD to be a complete system.

Creator of the second-best productivity tool for GTD, Eric Mack is grounded in GTD and knowledge management. David Allen and John Forrister recently talked with Eric about his five principles of productivity software design, in the hope that it might inspire future designers to incorporate some of these principles into their applications.

Prachi has an inspiring success story, based on applying the GTD methodology. She began her studies in engineering, and moved on to create a citizen-led movement to mitigate climate change. She exemplifies the value of externalizing visions, goals, and objectives.

Our most recent Office Hour has another engaging discussion of GTD and productivity. We shared “ah ha” moments about context-based lists and making the weekly review easier. We considered how much the higher horizons need to be detailed out (or not). And we had plenty of tool talk about Google apps, Nirvana, Todoist, paper, and the search for a perfect app.

In this Office Hour, we discussed how to work with others who don’t practice GTD, and how to influence them to work more productively. We also went into some detail on ways to succeed with consistent reviews of your system at various time intervals.

What makes a super list for you? Your super list will be the opposite of what David Allen calls an “amorphous blob of undoability.” We will look at sample lists of projects, next actions, and waiting for items to improve clarity. You’ll learn specific ways to make your lists easier to review, and draw you into the doing. The Q&A included keen questions that revealed subtle ways of reducing resistance to your lists.

David Allen talks about how the last minute may be the best time to do something, but it requires two things.

Join us for a discussion of how two educators apply the GTD methodology. Erik Johnson teaches high school in Chicago, and David Drake is a professor of microbiology at the University of Iowa. They both have a passion for teaching, and have adapted GTD make their busy profession easier to manage.

Deb Smith-Hemphill talks about how to approach using AI with GTD. First she gives an overview of four types of AI. Then she considers how we can use AI more effectively, while staying aware of its limitations. Deb also details how we can get more out of AI by learning how to prompt it better.

We did a live Slice of GTD Life Interview with Drew Domkus, saving time at the end for Q&A from webinar attendees. Drew does audio/video production, social media management, and podcasting. His work as a podcaster led to his induction into the Academy of Podcasters Hall of Fame in 2016. Although his work is in the digital world, he reveals that he uses paper as his list manager.

You may have heard of a text editor called Emacs, which has been around for a long time. This is your chance to hear how Matt has used it to create a GTD list manager. He talks about how he got into GTD, and goes into plenty of detail about the system he has developed, through many iterations, using Emacs.

Bryan has been at the GTD game for years. He talks about his journey from early implementation to refinement over time. He also shows his tool of choice in generous detail. An avid practitioner of Getting Things Done, Bryan is also an Atlassian Certified Expert, SAFe Practice Consultant, and ITIL Strategist.

This webinar recording will assist you in developing a current, complete, accurate, and clear inventory of all your projects — the outcomes you are committed to finish within the next 12 months.

What do you need to know, and when, to stay on top of your projects from start to finish? This webinar examines how you define and list your projects, how you track what’s necessary for completion, and the rhythm for reviewing that assures you are in relaxed control.

Pascal Reischl is a certified GTD trainer in Austria. He will tell you that he has always been interested in technology. Naturally our discussion about his journey with GTD involves plenty of tech talk. But especially when working with people who are new to GTD, he doesn’t push for feature-laden applications. Instead, he says “Start with what you are already using.” He also shares an inspiring story about how putting GTD fully into practice has helped him to be more present with his family, and in every aspect of his life.

You need to control commitments, projects, and actions in two ways–horizontally and vertically. Horizontal control maintains coherence across all the activities in which you are involved. Vertical control, in contrast, manages thinking, development, and coordination of individual topics and projects. In this webinar recording, Ana Maria Gonzalez talks about the relationship between these two levels of control and how you can leverage them both for your productivity.

This is the recording of our Long Lists webinar. We had a lively discussion about how lists get to be long, how long they “should” be, what lists to review when, and how to narrow your focus on any given day.