When I wrote my “Value of podcasts for professional development” blog a few weeks ago, I asked readers for their favorites podcasts. One of my directors at UVMHN suggested the GTD podcast series. I’ve 
known since I met Greg Van Buren at the start of this interim CTO engagement back in May that he was a big fan and proponent of the Getting Things Done (GTD) approach from David Allen. I told Greg early on that I’d like to take some time to learn how he applies it in his work.
There are many personal productivity systems and methodologies out there. I’m familiar with GTD concepts but have never really gone deep with it. So why not learn from someone who has? After all, what’s not attractive about the idea of “stress free productivity”?
Greg is paperless from all appearances – how he shows up at meetings and in his office. He uses a mobile device to capture all his notes and to dos. If he does momentarily have paper with handwritten notes, he scans it and copies it into the appropriate note for future reference. And as I have more recently seen he appears to have mastered an organization system for all his notes and tasks within OneNote.
After listening to a few GTD podcasts, I realized again that none of this is rocket science. It’s basic organization of your ideas and work at all levels – from the macro long term goals, to the house and family tasks of today and everything in between. And I realize that I could make a lot of adjustments to improve how I work. That sounds better than saying I’ve realized I’m out of control!
I did feel out of control a week ago heading into the weekend. How much I had not gotten to during the week and how much more I had to do on the weekend before the next work week was overwhelming and stressing me. I counted the hours I didn’t have social or family commitments that weekend and figured, if I could use all those available hours to work, I’d be ok. But that didn’t feel very good either.
But using the simple and fundamental method of GTD – capture, clarify, organize, review, engage – for that current week of work lifted the stress. I was able to identify and focus in on the priority tasks I had to deal with that weekend and enjoy the previously scheduled time with family. It had been several weeks since I’d seen my grandkids and I didn’t want to be distracted by my mental “to do” list while I was with them.
Greg and I have finally scheduled some time together to review how he applies GTD, in particular how he leverages OneNote as an organizing tool. I look forward to learning and making incremental steps. I can’t see me ever going “paperless” but “less paper” would be great. I always work with to do lists, but they need to be better integrated. Having ALL of my to dos organized is the goal.
After I listened to a few of the most recent GTD podcasts, Greg gave me this list as some of the most foundational ones:
- Episode 26 – GTD blackbelt
- Episode 27 – Keys to clarifying
- Episode 33 – Wrangling your priorities
- Episode 35 – The case for capturing
- Episode 38 – The power of outcome thinking
- Episode 43 – The power of the GTD weekly review
We are all a work in progress. I’m always willing to learn something new and share what I can with others. If you are a GTD enthusiast or passionate about another method to organize the seemingly endless list of work we all have, please share your insights and lessons in the comments section.
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