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Getting Things Done

I’m in Chicago with LotStreetWiz. We are both taking a time management course called the GTD RoadMap, given by David Allen, who wrote the books Getting Things Done and Ready for Anything.

GTD RoadMap course:

The flagship of the GTD (Getting Things Done) seminar series, The RoadMap defines the game and helps you jump into it at a new and expanded level. This lively one-day workshop features David Allen live and in-person as he examines the core principles of productivity improvement, then provides you with a unique opportunity to develop your own specific and immediate action steps to implement them.

GTD l The RoadMap provides black-belt techniques for gaining control of the day-to-day, tools for achieving alignment and balance by viewing your world from the appropriate horizon of your commitments and the master key to getting motivated to overcome resistance and move forward. Essentially the Roadmap will provide you with your own internal GPS reading, so at any time you can identify where you are and what you need to do to get on your game and get going.

For those who are new to GTD, The RoadMap provides high-level overview and introduction to a lifelong set of best practices for staying clear, focused, and in control. For those who have already had experience with GTD in some fashion, it will take you for a spin around the block with the basics and inspire you to a new level of implementation (there are no “beginner” moves in the martial arts).

You’ll benefit from:

…decades of in-the-trenches research on achieving relaxed productivity, plus a wealth of up-to-the-minute tips, tricks, and best practices compiled from the whole David Allen Company team (applying GTD material currently with leading-edge individuals and organizations). Collaborate with David in designing your own action plan to keep you winning at the game of work and business of life.

You’ll learn:

• How to get immediate control of “current reality”
• How to keep track of the total inventory of your commitments
• What decisions are critical to make, about what, and when
• Why most “personal management systems” don’t work
• How to evaluate the best tools to use to stay in control
• Why organizational issues are often personal process issues
• Why it’s so challenging to really change the simplest habits, and the secret key to make it easier
• How to use procrastination to your advantage
• How to continually self-consult to get back “on your game”
• How to install simple tricks that create profound results

You’ll have an opportunity to:

• Corral your inventory of “loose ends”
• Practice important decision-making on the front end
• Evaluate and upgrade your personal management system
• Identify the key conversations to have with yourself and others and set next actions in place to start them
• Have fun engaging directly with the expert Fast Company called “the guru of personal productivity” and Forbes identified as one of the five top executive coaches in the U.S.

Contents include :

• The limitations of “psychic RAM” and how to free it up
• Tools and best practices for capturing and corralling your “stuff”
• The two questions that transform “stuff” into real work
• Gaining “horizontal” control with the Five Core Principles of Positive Engagement
• Gaining “vertical” control using the Six Horizons of Focus
• How to install the two components for permanent change

Participants can expect to leave the seminar with enhanced freedom and energy, knowing that their busy lives are indeed manageable, inspired to enjoy life and work at a new level of effectiveness.

Hours: 9 to 5

Pick your criteria carefully

It’s not enough to measure: you must know what you’re measuring and why it’s appropriate. You should be able to explain why it’s appropriate.

Ideally, when you’re making a choice for a project, you lay out the desired results and the criteria by which you are judging, and the decision is firm that when competing solutions are evaluated, the one that fits the criteria best will be chosen.

Unfortunately, that’s not how governments work. They run the tests or consult their consultants and then pick the one they wanted in the first place. Sometimes they even falsify the data or dictate the conclusions of the report—or simply refuse to publish it. Or, as happened here, they seem blissfully unaware of what’s really important. Ed Darrell reports… how the U.S. National Education Library got new staff.