I had the good fortune to give a presentation for UA Conference Europe 6 June where I had a time slot of 45 minutes to share content for a lifetime. My next action after the presentation was to share the various articles that inspired my talk design in the early months of 2014. Not all were directly related, but they all gave me “getting things done” inspiration and got me thinking about the things that I need to or want to get done.
My talk was an introduction to the concept of getting things done. My talk was tool-agnostic, but I am using certain tools: Microsoft OneNote (I use it at work), Evernote (I am user number 640,681 out of the 100 million using the six-year-old app), and Cultured Code’s Things (Mac). Yes, it looks crazy to use three different tools, but it’s working for me so far.
The list of links
- Allen, David (2003). Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Penguin Books.
- Negrette, David (2013). Getting Things Done the David Allen Way with Microsoft OneNote, Second Edition. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
- Wolff, Dominic (2013). Master Getting Things Done the David Allen Way with Evernote: Your 7-Day GTD Immediate Action Plan [August 2013] Edition. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
- A review of using Cultured Code’s Things with GTD
- Getting Things Done: The Science behind Stress-Free Productivity (opens PDF) – very interesting academic article that looks at the science behind GTD
- Reboot article
- Productivity 101: A Primer to the Getting Things Done (GTD) Philosophy courtesy @techwriterkai
- My Life with Email
- Make, Do This article is related to the challenge of perfectionism or imposter syndrome.
- Getting started with “Getting Things Done”
- The Simplest Way to Avoid Wasting Time
- Blast through an email onslaught
- How To Leave Work At 5 P.M. And Still Get Everything Done
- Conscious computing: how to take control of your life online
That last link has a great quote:
The problem is not that we’ve suddenly started depending on technology, but that the technology we’re depending on is poorly designed, too often focused on making money for its creators at its users’ expense.
I said my “next action” was to write and publish this blog post and yet over two weeks have gone by without me doing it. Well, the key thing was to remember to define this task and put it on my list of next actions. As I point out in my slides, GTD never does the work for you. I still had to sit in front of my computer and do the writing. Life happens. 🙂 Hey, it’s a work in progress – for the rest of my life!
Here are the slides for my presentation:
The conversation is continuing in September at TCUK14 where I will be speaking on the same topic, but with the added experience of 3 more months of getting things done.
If all this getting things done is getting to be too much, take comfort in Hyperbole-and-a-half’s explanation of why she’ll never be an adult.