Genuine Curiosity
Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.
On the road with David Allen
This week, I was a part of David Allen's seminar "GTD | The RoadMap" in San Jose, California. In this session, there were over 140 people - all fellow travelers on the path to higher productivity with less stress.
After my last post, I got an email a couple from my friend Phil Gerbyshak of "Make It Great!" asking what I thought of it, and what I came away with in terms of the value of the seminar. I sent him a reply, but thought some of it was worth sharing here.
As you may know, the Getting Things Done books cover specific activities you can engage in to get your life in order, improve productivity, and "get things done." As an adopter of the methodology, one of the challenges I've faced is making enough of the habits stick to realize ongoing benefits from the GTD process.
"One of the biggest inhibitors to maintaining GTD is your addiction to stress. Once the stress is gone, your subconscious sometimes does things to bring it back." |
The focus of this seminar is to ground (or re-ground) you in the basics of GTD, and it builds on this foundation to provide lots of additional color to help you personalize, adapt, and embed the methdology into your own work style.
Prior to the seminar, I was doing a lot of the right things with GTD and have been using it for about 18 months. Although I have been realizing lots of benefits from this methodology, I felt like there was something missing.
The seminar helped me realize where some of my gaps are and identify some actions to bring my productivity, focus, and clarity to the next level. There is also the benefit of meeting others at the seminar that can act as a sort of support group to keep each other's activities 'on the rails' - and maintain a forum to share tips and tricks.
OK, so you've read the books - is the seminar worth attending? Short answer: Yes.
I think it's a lot like golf - the only way to get better is to keep playing and work on your technique. If you want to get *way* better, sometimes you need to buy a few sessions with a pro, who can help you fine-tune your game and smooth out the rough spots in your technique. This seminar is just that - a session with a pro.
David also provides some guidance at the end of the day for making this stick once you get back to the hectic world of work. No magic bullets, but there are some tricks to help you re-learn habits that are more effective and return to your 'zone' when you fall off the wagon. This includes some voodoo using a paperclip that shows the power of belief and the impact of negative self-talk.
Over the next few days I'll share some other things I learned during this seminar. You can also find some interesting perspective on this from Buzz Bruggeman who was in the row ahead of me taking notes on his PC.
Read More
GTD and another meaning for "zero peer pressure"
In a couple of weeks, I'll be at David Allen's seminar "GTD | The RoadMap" in San Jose. I'm really looking forward to it, but I feel a bit like people I know who have maid service, but they always clean up before the maid comes over - so nobody will know how messy they really are.
I have started to brush up on the old "Getting Things Done" techniques (some of which have fallen by the wayside for me). What does brushing up mean? I'm doing things like:
- Purging my reference files to reduce clutter (makes them fresher, and gets the drawer less squinchy so it's easier to get things in and out)
- Purging all my context lists and getting brutal with the question: "Is this item really 'someday / maybe', or is it actually 'never, get out of denial,' buster?"
- Reviewing my lists to make sure my 'next actions' are not 'next inactions' pretending to be actionable
- Blocking time this weekend to do a real weekly review (I totally blew this in July due to all the chaos in my life, and I am feeling the effects in my stuckness)
- Doing a mind sweep, complete with the triggers in the Getting Things Done book
- Listening to "Getting Things Done Fast" again [note: this program is no longer available from Davidco.com, but David tells me there are other helpful tools coming soon, and I should stay tuned]
- Getting "In" to empty, and my email Inbox to zero
That last one is the one that's been taunting me the most lately, since it's just plain in my face all day every day. Since I've been without internet access quite a bit in the last month, the old Inbox stacked up pretty high. I know what I should be doing - I'm just not doing it.
So, this week, I set my self up for discipline by public shaming - a co-worker of mine is also a GTD practicioner, and we've agreed to ridicule each other if our Inboxes are not empty each night (beginning Monday - gotta get a running start for this one). With this new approach, "zero peer pressure" is taking on a new meaning for me.
If you want less vindictive assistance in getting right with GTD, you might want to check out a special typr of virtual book study Rosa is running on Talking Story, as well - great stuff. She calls it "MWA3P" and it merges powerful concepts from her own book "Managing with Aloha," as well as concepts from David Allen and Stephen Covey.
Note: The terms and concept in "Getting Things Done" (aka "GTD") are the killer mojo of David Allen, and he's got rules to keep people from messin' with his flavor - check them out here.
Read MoreBook Review: "Now, Discover Your Strengths"
I just finished reading Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton's book, "Now, Discover Your Strengths."
As the title implies, the book seeks to help you identify your strengths and then spends some time discussing how you can capitalize on those strengths. It even has an online assessment you can take to identify your top 5 strengths (you need to enter a unique code that is printed on the book jacket to register for the assessment).
All of this sounds really cool but, I must say, the book and quiz really left me wanting more. There was nothing revolutionary here for me - perhaps because I've read lots of books of this ilk, and I found this one to be rather basic compared to others I've read.
The analysis of my strength areas seemed fairly on target (in their terms, my strengths are Intellection, Learner, Connectedness, Ideation, and Input). However, I didn't get a lot of substantive information on how to develop those strengths, what kinds of people I should associate with to counterbalance my strengths, or anything like that.
The book also contained a fair amount of material on how to use this method as an organizational development tool. With good faciliation, that might be helpful since it would provide a way to play to the various strengths within the team (though I have been through some great team workshops with other tools).
In summary, I felt this book was a good introductory-level book, and if you're just getting into self-analysis and self-improvement, it could be very useful.
If, on the other hand, you've had experience with things like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test, the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, the Birkman Method, or other tools like them, you may not find a lot of additional learning in this book.
By the way - the tools I mention above are not free, and generally require a paid facilitator. If you're just dabbling, you can get a good (free) approximation of them by taking HumanMetrics' free Jung Typology test. Then, you can read more about the various types online or in the books Please Understand Me II, or Type Talk at Work.
Read More[Updated] Breakthrough performance
For the past two weeks, I've been participating in Lisa Haneberg's "2 Weeks 2 A Breakthrough " (2w2aB) program. Lisa, who I discovered through her Management Craft blog, is also the author of "H.I.M.M. - High Impact Middle Management" which is a tremendous resource for managers at all levels.
Anyway, I was part of the 2w2aB program, which involved picking a specific goal and being willing to accept coaching and suggestions from Lisa every day for 14 days. It also involved a personal commitment to spend about an hour per day working on specific types of activities to advance toward your stated goal.
This was one of those "hurts so good" kinds of activities for me. My goal was to really kickstart a new project which resulted from me taking on some new responsibilities at work. This new project required me to do a lot of networking, discovery, and evangelism and really pushed me out of my comfort zone in a lot of ways (I don't yearn to do cold calls, I assure you).
Lisa's approach was very effective at forcing me to approach my work in a more reasoned, discipline-driven way. It also encouraged me to enlist others in my goal and established a daily discipline routine that I think will help me beyond Day 14 of the program.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Lisa for giving me the chance to participate in the Pilot of this program, and I look forward to what she puts in place as a result of this (she is running 4 pilot teams through the process, in an effort to improve her methodology).
My main take-aways from this process:
- I reaffirmed the importance of specific, written goals
- I realized the power of small, persistent actions toward a goal
- I discovered the effectiveness of asking / allowing someone else to poke me on a daily basis to keep me focused on my goal
- I found I could make far more progress in two weeks than I'd ever have thought possible
- I confirmed that discipline is not just a choice - it's a bunch of choices and opportunities - if you missed one opportunity, get right back on track by siezing the next
This process reminded me of something a friend of mine once told me: "If you figure out what you really want, and ask for it, you just might get it."
The breakthroughs are ours for the taking. Thanks, Lisa.
Update June 15, 2005:
Last night, I got to the end of Lisa's book, H.I.M.M. - High Impact Middle Management, and there is some great information toward the end of the book about how to achieve performance breakthroughs, including how to coach others to achieve their own breakthroughs. Good stuff.