GTD Insight: How Next Action Thinking Can Fill a Leadership Void

If you haven't caught up with Leadership Journal in a while, their recent edition focuses on teams and how they lead.  I was especially fascinated by an article about how one church went from a one pastor model to a team approach of four men who lead together.

Can you imagine if every church was led by four instead of one?  Blows your mind doesn't it?

The featured church, Next Level Church in Denver, explained how their model allows for deeper service, more humility, greater accountability and a healthy buffer in case one leader falls. It also allows for a community to get things done.  Maybe, just maybe, it decreases the amount of 'leadership complaining'.

All of us complain about our leaders.  I just wish they would do more of this... Why can't he be more like... It drives me crazy when... When you practice GTD, you are putting next-action thinking into play.  You stop looking around and wondering why it isn't moving fast enough and

you
    start
       making it happen.

This of course builds you up as someone who actually produces results.  You are then able to do the work of four instead of one.

My Walkaround Version of GTD

Photo by SD

You know how it goes: if you were on an island...

• and could only bring one book- Merton's No Man is an Island


• and could only bring one food- strawberry Twizzlers (is there any other flavor?)

But what if we were talking about GTD?  Would you bring David Allen's first book from 2002 Getting Things Done?  Maybe his latest book Making It All Work would better fit the bill.

As for me, I'd take a small notebook and a simple ballpoint pen.  That way, I could capture all of my ideas for getting off the darn island.  Let me explain.

Although I don't travel very often for work, my days are fairly pedestrian and therefore my GTD system has to go with me.  Kelly Forrister had a great piece this past week about how she takes her system on the road for three weeks out of every month. Now that's what I call portable!

Here's my mini version of GTD:

1. Small notebook, left pocket of my sportscoat. 


2. Pen, left pocket, dress shirt.


3. Blackberry 8830, right pocket of my sportscoat.

With these three items, I can capture all of my thoughts, monitor email and respond if necessary, take calls, and make it to my 3:45pm daily check-in with my boss.  Once I'm there, I process items from my notebook which are important to discuss and voila!  Pint-sized GTD.

Forget About Strategic Planning

How many people do you know that spend more time planning than doing?  Status reports, benchmarks and meetings can get in the way of old-fashioned doing. 

I'm not really advocating that we abandon effective strategic planning, but sometimes a next-action step is all that is needed.  Case in point- I gave a talk last night to a group of students and their families on the value of Catholic education.  Having given hundreds of talks, I normally prepare a rough outline and then let it happen, relying on instincts and experience.  On this particular night though, I prepared an overly detailed spec of the evening's topic. 

Too detailed.

I was overly concerned with not forgetting an item on my overly detailed outline and therefore delivered an A-minus talk instead of a homerun.  I would imagine that the audience knew nothing of my consternation but I went home and evaluated my preparation and follow through. 

What's a GTD take on strategic planning?  It's not a matter of take-it-or-leave-it.  Rather, it's about integrating next actions with the benchmarks and stages of a good plan.

No Child (Practicing GTD) Left Behind

Imagine a school that allowed every student to grow, learn and prosper.  That was the initial desire behind the No Child Left Behind act of 2002 and while NCLB is controversial, it has proven successful in at least one area- keeping schools accountable.

Now imagine a school in which Getting Things Done was implemented.

Course units might include:

• Time management



• The weekly review



• Setting up a tickler file



• How to close open loops



• Capturing ideas, then integrating them into your system



• Mastering the projects list



• Life goals from 10,000-40,000 feet

Is this vision that far from reality?  My colleagues in education would laugh at the sight of such courses and yet I wonder how Algebra I prepares one for life any better than a course in life goals or time management.

The secret of course lies in integration.  It's not that we need a school for GTD.  Rather, we need people who can integrate GTD into what they're already doing.  Teachers and parents who see the value of putting ideas onto paper and out of the mind.  Administrators who actually maintain a healthy set of lists and projects.  Students who can actually remember a deadline because they wrote it down.

I recently had a friend ask how I got so much done in a week.  Surprised, I had to scratch my head and wonder if GTD had something to do with it after years of practice.  Would your colleagues wonder about your secret to productivity?  As in any classroom, the moment when someone asks is of course the moment in which you know you've set an example.  Now that's GTD!

Carefree GTD

Elegant. I've heard David Allen use this word many times in his writings and training events.  Most men don't use this word, much less in the context of a dayplanner or to-do list.  The dictionary defines it as

"Characterized by or exhibiting refined, tasteful beauty of manner, form, or style."

Now think of the last time that you felt that someone was elegantly dressed or appointed.  I think of a fundraiser that I was attending a few weeks  back.  One woman in particular (she happens to be my lovely wife) was clearly a cut above the rest, dressed stylishly and carrying herself with confidence.

We might also consider this a state of being "ok with yourself", or knowing what you're all about.  In my work, we often refer to this as being mission-based and having a sense of contentment about who we are and where we see ourselves going.  If you work in a competitive niche, this "ok-ness" is essential.  Without it, the soul of your company is lost.

As I think of the word elegant as David Allen refers to it, I'm mindful of a system that is thorough and captures ideas as they come, then processing them into actionable steps.  I think of a net of sorts that can 'catch' what needs to be retained and drop what's useless.

With this said, how carefree is GTD?  Allen wrote last week about creating systems that are not beholden to the urgent.   This harkens back to what Covey called an "urgency addiction" and he noted as far back as 1988 that the truly successful people in life are looking beyond the ringing phone and email chime.

As I was driving to work this morning, I wondered how many miles my car has- 88K or 98K?  It runs like a champ and my commute is so short that an old pick-up would get me there in one piece.  As long as I take good care of it, I (and my car) will be ok.  This is of course how GTD works as well- when you know what you're all about and do your work with consistency you can relax and get things done.

How elegant is that?

GTD Insight #16: Peak Hours for Productivity

When
I read Brian Tracy's Eat That Frog a few years ago, I was like most
productivity thinkers: skeptical.  I wanted to build my daily schedule
so that it would be fun, engaging and full of creative moments.
Unfortunately, I live in the real world and that initial plan hasn't
come to fruition.

Tracy's genius is not so
much a rugged "get it done" mindset as much as a smart way to
counteract procrastination and human nature.  A friend of mine once
said, "Give to God your best time of the day," and I think there's
something to that.  When I get into the zone before 10a.m. my day
generally runs smooth. 

Stephen Smith
has a nice experiment going, measuring his own productivity.  One key
is again this element of using the morning hours wisely.  I've found
that it helps to use those first hours to get things done, but also to
eliminate unnecessary steps in the process.  When I arrive in the
morning at work, there are a few things that I could do but have
stopped doing as it slows me down early in the day.  These include:

• Turning on extra building lights



• Opening up public office doors



• Checking paperwork that I could check later in the day

I'm mindful of St. Francis of Assisi who said in the 13th century,
"Start with what is necessary, then do what is possible.  Eventually
you'll find yourself doing the impossible."  How are you spending your
first five hours of the day?  By tackling one difficult task, you'll
have more energy to accomplish it and you won't have "productivity
guilt" later in the day.  Go for it!