117: What Happens When You Veer Off the GTD Path?

In this podcast, we'll talk about what happens when you veer off the GTD path!

A listener wrote in asking specifically, “…for those who decide to not rigidly conform to the GTD rules, what is their understanding of the principles involved, and why do they choose not to follow the rules in these cases?” 

What an excellent topic. You'll hear from folks what parts of the GTD® methodology they couldn’t live without, plus what modifications or additions they’ve included in their systems. This was a great call, so hit play now!

Resources

• Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition 

• GTD NYC 

• GTD DC 

• GTD Tickler File

• Augusto Pinaud’s 25 Productivity Tips 

• OmniFocus 

• David Sparks MacPower Users 

• Omnifocus Ninja Screencasts 

• Curt Clifton Omnifocus scripts 

• Dan Byler Omnifocus scripts 

• Remember the Milk 

• David Allen Interview 

• David Allen Company webinar on Natural Planning Model  

Download the podcast here!

116: Better To Rise Early Or Be a Night Owl? An Exclusive GTD Virtual Study Group Panel Discussion!

In an incredibly exclusive event, I had heavy hitters Hal Elrod, Craig Jarrow, Laura Vankerkam, and Mike Vardy join me in a virtual roundtable to talk about whether it is better to start your day before the sun rises, or wait until after the sun goes down to really ramp up your productivity. This topic has become increasingly more and more popular as so many people are looking to squeeze in as many hours as they can to get things done. In this episode, we talk about the basics of rising early, what the research tells us, what the blogosphere is saying, and most importantly, how to create a successful plan to help you become more productive, more successful, and more passionate about life!

Plus, you may be surprised to know that Hal wakes up at 3:30AM -- just and hour and a half after Mike has gone to sleep! There were so many marvelous nuggets of wisdom shared by these very well known folks in the productivity and motivational space. You absolutely need to listen to every minute of this recording to soak in all of the fabulous pieces of advice.

Read their incredible bios and at the bottom of this post, you can hit play in the viewer to listen right here!

Hal Elrod

Hal Elrod is the bestselling author of two books: Taking Life Head On! and his new #1 bestseller, The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed To Transform Your Life... (Before 8AM); and Taking Life Head On! (The Hal Elrod Story): How To Love the Life You Have While You Create the Life of Your Dreams. He's been known as "Yo Pal Hal" since hosting his first radio show at age 15, and he became record breaking sales rep at 19. However, his greatest triumph came in the face of tragedy at age 20 when his car was hit head on by a drunk driver at 70 miles per hour, Hal died for six minutes, spent six days in a coma, and woke to the devastating news that he'd suffered permanent brain damage and would never walk again.

Hal defied the odds to not only walk, he ran a 52-mile "ultra" marathon, became a hall of fame business achiever, international Success Coach, Keynote Speaker, and grateful husband & father of two. He was featured in the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series and has shared his story and strategies for success on dozens of TV shows across the country. Hal can be found at http://www.halelrod.com.

Craig Jarrow

Craig is the author of the extremely popular website, The Time Management Ninja. He was featured in Biz 3.0 as the number 3 most influential productivity guru in the country, just behind Tim Ferris and David Allen. That's pretty damn impressive. He's authored hundreds of articles on time management, productivity tools, and goal setting. He's also the author of three eBooks: 31 Days, 31 Ways: Daily Tips for Time Management Mastery; Crush Your Procrastination and You are Stronger Than You Think - both of those are the best of motivation and productivity tips from his blog. I know that we wakes up way earlier than I can commit to. As Craig puts it, his goal is to help us "win the battle against wasted time, disorganization, and all other things evil…” You can find him at http://www.timemanagementninja.com.

Laura Vanderkam

Laura is the author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast which is a compilation of her three popular mini e-books into one comprehensive guide: What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast—to jump-start the day productively; What the Most Successful People Do at Work—to accomplish more in less time; and What the Most Successful People Do On the Weekend—to recharge and prepare for a great week. She also authored 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think; and All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending. She's been interviewed by Matt Lauer on The Today Show, featured on Fox News, Forbes Magazine, FastCompany, CNBC, The Economist, Inc., Time, US News, Fortune ... should I keep going? She can be found at www.lauravanderkam.com.

Mike Vardy

Mike is a writer, speaker, and Productivityist. He is the author of The Front Nine: How To Start The Year You Want Anytime You Want, The Now Year: A Practical Guide to Calendar Management; and The Productivityist Workbook. Mike also co-hosts Mikes on Mics on the 5by5 network. You can find him on Twitter as @mikevardy.

He has appeared in SUCCESS Magazine, The Huffington Post, Lifehacker, 99u, was the managing Editor of Lifehack, an editor for The Next Web, and WorkAwesome.  Mike has spoken at nearly two dozen different productivity and time management focused conferences, including speaking at TEDx twice, and a creativeLIVE speaker. You can find Mike at http://www.productivityist.com.

Download the podcast here!

115: How to Create Focus and Intentionality in 2014 - A GTD® VSG Live Call

Happy New Year! This was a great call with lots of engagement!

A couple of concepts around focus and intentionality have been really hot topics in the productivity space lately, what with the new year approaching and all. A big one is Chris Brogan’s “My Three Words”. And, similarly, in Daniel’s latest interview for GTD® VSG with Timo Kiander, I was really struck with Timo’s approach to intentionality and focus. He explained how he made a conscious choice to gain hours in his day by getting up early to get his workouts in. And he was intentional in his other choices of what to do, or not do, in order to stay on focus.

The focus of the call around focus, intentionality, Horizons of Focus, Areas of Focus and Responsibility, and how we can all benefit from building that into our GTD® systems to support us throughout the year. 

Resources from the call:

• Vitamin R app for the iPhone

• The Power of Intuition: How to Use Your Gut Feelings to Make Better Decisions at Work

• Canned responses (drafted before in emotional state) [Evernote, Text Expander, Email Signatures] [GTD® VSG episode with Tracey Brisson 

• IFTTT

• Lift app

• “Creating Lasting Habits Today!” & Other Books by Daniel Gold 

• Dave Ramsey  (emotional wins to motivate)

• 18 Minutes by Peter Bregman  

• Alarm Clock Sleep Sound Pro iPhone app 

• AM Routine app 

• Sleep Cycle app 

• Philips Wake-up Light 

• Jawbone Up 

Download the podcast here!

114: Timo Kiander, The Productive Superdad Teaches Us How To Live Life To The Fullest

I had the pleasure of having Timo Kiander, the Productive Superdad in our virtual studio.

You're really going to enjoy this interview! Timo is a full-time blogger at ProductiveSuperdad.com, runs the Productive Superdad podcast, has written for Lifehack.org, Dumb Little Man, WorkAwesome.com, ProBlogger, IQTell, Think Traffic, he's been on other podcasts such as Entrepreneur Idea Dads, been interviewed by Time Management Magazine, and so many more.

Most recently, he wrote a book called Online Business Productivity: How to Start a Productive Online Business and Get Sh*t Done - Even When you are Working from 9-5. On top of all that he spends his fee time running marathons and triathlons!

What a great interview and I can't wait for you to listen to this latest exclusive podcast!

Check out this episode!

113: How To Solve the Conundrum of Whether To Use One Productivity System Or Two

In this GTD Virtual Study group live call, we talked about the conundrum of whether to use one productivity system or two. There was a lot of very good feedback and exchange on the call about whether or not to separate work and personal tasks managers and calendars. Thanks to one of our GTD VSG listeners, DeAngelis Bright, for suggesting this topic!

Resources:

• Software / Apps

  • Evernote

  • Omnifocus

  • 2Do

  • Postbox

  • Asana

  • Basecamp

  • Google calendars

  • Nozbe

  • Remember The Milk

  • Trello

• Forums

  • David Allen Company Public Forums

  • Google Plus Productivity community

  • Google Plus GTD community

  • GTD VSG Facebook page

  • GTD Google Group

• Books

  • Control Your Day by Jim McCullen

Check out this episode

111: The GTD VSG welcomes Michelle Gunn as the new co-host and an amazing group conversation on how to overcome overwhelm!

In this episode of the GTD Virtual Study Group, we covered to big topics! The first is my big announcement regarding the format of the study group, and the second is our topic for our group discussion today on overwhelm.

First, my big announcement! On the fourth Thursday of each month, I’ll be releasing an exclusive interview with another expert in the productivity space. I will have recorded that program over the weekend. And, on the second Thursday of each month, we will have the live call. Who else better to have as a co-host then a GTD Virtual Study Group listener since 2009, an avid GTD follower, and someone who has spent her professional life in management, project management, and people management across multiple industries. Someone who is adept at listening to people and organizational needs to help build solutions. That person is Michelle Gunn.

You're going to love this show! Michelle is an amazing moderator and in this first program with her co-hosting, she helped moderate an incredibly amazing and inspiring conversation on how to overcome that feeling of overwhelm. Please welcome Michelle as the new co-host of the program!!

Check out this episode

110: Mike Vardy, The Productivityist, Teaches Us How to Practice Mindful Productivity

You don't want to miss this incredibly engaging conversation with Mike Vardy, "The Productivityist" in this week's GTD Virtual Study Group. There are tons of wonderfully magnificent nuggets in this podcast. You'll learn about:

• the importance of every stage of GTD - from collection, to processing, to organizing, to reviewing, to the actual doing!

• what it takes to really understand how your body works to maximize your productivity. Night owl or early bird?

• how to become more self-aware so you execute successfully on every project

• how to determine which app is really right for you - or is it a notebook and pen?

• whether productivity principles change as technology changes? How do you define expectations?

And, so, so, so much more ... like a great conversation, once again, about really great beers! Here's some really great resources on Mike so you can continue learning even after the podcast ends!

• The Productivityist official website

• The Front Nine: How to Start the Year You Want Anytime You Want

• The Productivityist Workbook

• New eBook! The NOW Year: A Practical Guide to Calendar Management.

• Mikes On Mics podcast

• And, if you really want to go down the Mike Vardy productivity rabbit hole, check out his TEDx Talk on Life Hacks!

Enjoy!

Check out this episode

109: Erik Fisher Teaches Us How To Go Beyond the Todo List!

Erik Fisher, podcaster, blogger, and author, joins us in the latest episode of the GTD Virtual Study Group. Erik wears many hats! In addition to being a husband and dad, he has a day job, runs a successful podcast called, "Beyond the Todo List", and recently co-authored a book called, "Beyond the Todo List: Goals - a step-by-step process to making and meeting the goals that matter".

Erik and I had a great conversation about how he got into productivity, balancing both life and work, and why he continues to learn something new from reading Getting Things Done by David Allen during different periods in his life. Plus, you'll find really great tidbits such as why he believes his superhero name would be, "The Optimizer" and why he believes the perfect system is really about "self-management". There's so much more I really believe you'll learn from listening to this podcast.

Here's some great resources mentioned during the podcast:

• Erik's interview of David Allen on his podcast

• Erik's website

• LIfe balance wheel

• Airmail Mac desktop mail app

• Mailbox iOS mail app

...and of course, the list wouldn't be complete unless we added this!

• Pisgah Brewery's Bacon Beer!

To explain that last link, you'll need to listen to the show!

• Pisgah Brewery's Bacon Beer!

Check out this episode

108: Learning Personal Kanban with Pascal Venier

Pascal Venier was our guest today. He is a Personal Kanban Trainer and Coach as well as the translator of the French version of the great classic by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry, Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life to be published with Modus Cooperandi Press in 2013.

In this episode, Pascal taught us about the history of Kanban; how to setup a Kanban board, the benefits of Kanban and personal productivity, and how to take the system with you in both digital and analog formats. This was a very interesting show and one in which I know I learned a whole lot. 

Pascal can be found online at www.pascalvenier.com and is @pascalvenier on Twitter.

Resources from our program:

• Here are some great photos of Kanban board setups:

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/pascalvenier/9403030085/

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/pascalvenier/9405788004/

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/pascalvenier/9701928254/

  • The Personal Kanban book: http://www.personalkanban.com/pk/personal-kanban-the-book/

  • Personal Kanban gallery: http://yeswekanban.net/

  • On Zeigarnik and the Zeigarnik effect:

    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluma_Zeigarnik

    • http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Zeigarnik_Effect

    • An excellent starting point to discover Personal Kanban is the Personal Kanban 101

    • Pascal's series of posts on Doing GTD Kanban Style

      • http://www.pascalvenier.com/en/doing-gtd-kanban-style-1-2/

      • http://www.pascalvenier.com/en/doing-gtd-kanban-style-2-2/

      • http://www.pascalvenier.com/en/doing-gtd-kanban-style-3/

• KanbanJovi

• LeanKit

• Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life

• How to Stop Doing Busywork, Start Doing Your Best Work - Udemy Course by Gerry Kirk. Pascal is offering us a 50% discount!

Don't forget to sign-up for the GTD Virtual Study Group mailing list!

Download the episode here!