Getting Things Done GTD with Personal Development and Motivation for Success

Just found a great article via 43Folders.com that covers David Allen and the Getting Things Done methodology.

I have ready many articles about GTD but this one is one of the best. If you need to explain GTD to somebody, or want to instill your GTD methodology onto somebody then I recommend sending them the link to this article in order to get them to understand what GTD is all about.

The article covers some history about David Allen and where he got the inspiration from in order to start the GTD system. I have been studying GTD for quite a few months, and I have read a lot of GTD articles and I learned a lot from reading this one.

David Allen sits in his small office in a cottage behind his house in Ojai, Calif., talking business with a visitor. Suddenly he stops. “That reminds me,” he says. He scribbles the words “bird feed” on a piece of blank notebook paper and tosses it into his inbox.

It’s an ordinary moment in an ordinary day. But for Allen and his legion of followers, it holds the key to salvation. He has emptied his mind of a nagging task, placed it into a trusted system for processing, and casually returned to his conversation. That’s GTD, short for “Getting Things Done,” the prosaic title of his best-selling book.

So, read the article and also use this to pass onto people to show them what the GTD process is all about!

After a six months wait, the Apple iPhone is now available. The iPhone has probably had one of the biggest launches from a PR perspective of any consumer device.

Being in the UK, we have not yet been able to see the iPhone in person as we have to wait until the end of this year for the UK launch. Not a bad thing I guess as hopefully a couple of software problems that may get identified will be ironed out. The big issue so far seems to be the lack of multiple email deletion. This is a problem when you use a POP3 email account and receive lots of Spam. I currently use a Blackberry Pearl and this also causes me a problem.

Anyway, with such a powerful machine acting as a phone, combined with a real slick user interface I am guessing that it is only a matter of time before some GTD application is launched specifically for the iPhone.

Apple have initially locked down the OS on the iPhone so that developers cannot develop third party applications that install to the iPhone. Now this was not what the development community were wanting to hear but it does probably make sense as it does not open the iPhone up to problems with Viruses and other forms of Malware that such a prolific release as this is bound to attract.

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If you do not know, I am a real advocate of Mind Mapping. I map everything, and I mean everything!

I also run a Mind Mapping blog, MindCert.com, aimed at Computer Certifications such as the CISSP, CEH, and Cisco Certifications.

I have previously posted about MindMeister, a rather cool Web2.0 Mind Mapping application that is free. Well MindMeister has been out of Private Beta for a while now and I have to say that I am extremely impressed with it.

On my Mac, I favor MindManager from MindJet. I am still on version 6 but will upgrade to version 7 as soon as I get the promised upgrade voucher for beta testing version 7.

I have recently started another business venture, that is a service that performs online vulnerability assessment and management, called RandomStorm. This has been a pretty large project to plan and build and has taken a lot of my time over the past few weeks. One issue that I had with this is the way to share ideas and thoughts between my staff. We have several staff, from sales and account managers to a team of developers. I needed a way to get my ideas across and track the tasks of all my team working on various development tasks. My team are remote and not located in a single office so we had to put technology to the best use. I did look at quite a few online tools such as basecamp and backpack but I really do prefer the simplicity of Mind Mapping and found MindMeister to be the number one choice.
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I know this has been written about a lot in the GTD community, and kind of the reason why I had to buy one. Well, I recently bought my first Moleskine!

So, for those who do not know, a Moleskine is a notebook. An Italian notebook to be precise that was used by the likes of Hemmingway, Picasso, and Van Gogh. Kind of a good creed you could say.

I think I had become allergic to paper. My handwriting sure has deteriorated and I would avoid writing at all costs. Now I find myself carrying one of my little black notebooks with me wherever I go.

I started off carrying paper when I got into the GTD Methodology around six months ago. I loved the concept of the Hipster PDA and as soon as I saw PagePacker on the Mac, it was an instant hit with me. I always had a PagePacker hPDA in my back pocket wherever I went. Having access to note paper at all times is really empowering. We all have those light bulb moments where we remember something that must be done. I know we have all tried to remember these but implementing a tool like the hPDA with the GTD Methodology, especially the weekly reviews really has helped me capture more of my stuff into in, and it has reduced the number of Open Loops in my life. I get a satisfaction out of knowing that my thoughts are captured, into a system that I trust, that weekly makes its way onto one of my lists of next actions. All great stuff.

I was intrigued by the Moleskine. It is after all a little black book, so why do so many people make a fuss about them? It is easy to see once you buy one. I think if you are into Mac’s, and get the whole Mac thing, then the Moleskine works on you. It is elegant, simple, and oozes quality. At the end of the day, it is a notebook, but a very nice notebook at that. The quality of the paper is great, the ink just flows and it has got some admiring looks from the many meetings I now take it into.

I started with a pocket lined notebook, then I got the large lined notebook. Both of these are great and the sort of size you can fit in your jacket pocket. I found the Moleskine Cahiers and bought a pack of three. These are little Moleskine notebooks that fit into your back pocket. Not too expensive either and less pages so less of a risk if you happen to misplace one.

So, my advice to you all is to try one of these magic little books. I know that are not the cheapest little books, but get one and see if you like it. Personally, I enjoy having one and it makes me want to carry it with me wherever I go. All helps towards making out lives easier!

Over the past couple of weeks I have been writing more than ever. Not so much on this blog but I have had to write quite a lot of documentation on a job I am working on right now.

Now, I am no stranger to writing, having authored several technical books so I am pretty well versed in the art of writing. Well, most of my writing to now has been using Microsoft Word. The majority of my books were written before I got my first Mac and well before the advent of Web 2.0. Now, I am using a Mac and also services such as Twitter, iChat, Adium, Skype etc.. In fact, I am pretty easy to get a hold of, and people know this. I have gathered quite a few online contacts and my Twitterific application tweets at me quite a lot. All very good, but all very much against the concept of Getting Things Done!

We must now live and work in the “era of distraction”. This can be a killer when you have multiple documents to write. I guess that some software developers have also agreed with this idea with the release of several applications aimed at removing you to focus solely on the task at hand.

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I have been a great fan of Zig Ziglar since I was intrigued by hearing his name in 1999. I cannot believe that it is 8 years ago now! In that 8 years I must have heard nearly everything that Zig has produced, including reading quite a few of his books and his auto-biography.

If you are not already, now is a great time to subscribe to this blog in your favorite RSS reader so you can keep up to date with all the posts.

Anyway, for those of you who do not know who Zig Ziglar is, or what he does, well, Zig Ziglar is a US speaker that talks on subjects such as goal setting, sales skills, motivation, and relationships. Zig is what I would consider very traditional in his ways and he tries to instill good old fashioned values via his speaking with his famous personal saying being:

You can have everything in life you want, if you would just help enough other people get what they want!

I aim to blog a lot more about Zig Ziglar and other speakers that I also listen to as I have gained a lot from listening and studying the methods and values these people speak about.

Anyway, the reason for this blog entry is that Zig has just embraced the Web 2.0 community and he is now doing a weekly Podcast. This Podcast is made up of audio and some video Podcasts. Some of this is new material and some is snippets from existing records from Zig. If you like Steve Pavlina, you will love Zig Ziglar.

Be sure to check the Podcast out. You can also subscribe directly in iTunes and copy it to your iPod etc.. Let me know what you think and I will also write more about Zig.

I know this is not GTD related but I found a blog that had linked to DidIGetThingsDone.com and they had a cool blog entry that has 125 cool code snippets for web designers.

Now I know a lot of my readers are fellow bloggers and these types of code snippets will work fine within WordPress so I thought I would share the tips here as well as saving to delicious etc..

I hope you enjoy this find.

Just found a great GTD list over at Zen Habits. Why reinvent the wheel, so you may as well go ahead and check it out!

Over 40 blogs now that cover GTD, wow, we are gaining some real traction!

Thought I would bring you all another book review as I have just finished reading the auto-biography of Duncan Bannatyne, titled “Anyone Can Do It“.

Duncan Bannatyne has become well known in the UK but I guess that outside the US he is would be not as well known. People in the UK will know Duncan Bannatyne from the Hit TV show called “Dragons Den“. Dragons Den is now in its third year and has been a total surprise success for the BBC.

For those of you have not seen Dragons Den, it is a one hour TV program that normally runs around 10 weeks and it is one of my pick of TV shows that are worth the time investment. Dragons Den has a room of five so called Dragons, each a Self Made Entrepreneur Millionaire, or what Duncan calls a SMEM in his book. These Dragons all have a pile of cash, ready to invest in the ideas of the Entrepreneurs that the shows producers line up to pitch for the investment. So, this is like watching real life entrepreneurs pitching for investment, under the intense scrutiny of five SMEMs and the TV Cameras. All of this makes for compelling watching and great for watching peoples reactions under the pressure applied to them.

Anyway, back to the book. So, Duncan Bannatyne is one of the Dragons on Dragons Den, so I guess it was inevitable that an Auto-Biography would ensue.

The book is about Duncan’s life and how he has amassed a fortune of over £100 Million and inclusion into the Sunday Times Rich List. Duncan really did come from quite humble beginnings from Clydebank in Scotland. Hewas a late starter in the business world andhe started by owning and operating Ice Cream vans when he was 30. He then took a few risks that paid off and the book makes for very interesting reading on how a normal person can make a fortune just by working out simple maths against lucrative business deals.

Duncan has quite a story to tell that involves time spent in Prison, Drug Busts, Ice Cream Turf Wars and also telling some City Stock Brokers where to go very impolitely!

I picked up this book and could not put it down. I read it in a matter of days, taking every opportunity I could to read it. I really found it a motivating read, and if you are trying to be a Self Made Entrepreneur Millionaire, as I am, it is worth the £10 investment as learning from other people is one of my major beliefs for success.

The book can be found on Amazon.

There has been quite a lot of buzz around the GTD community about the long awaited OmniFocus from the Omni Group.

Anyway, there is an Alpha Introduction and Feature Demo video posted on the Omni Blog.

The video is around 26 minutes long and provides a great overview of the features within OmniFocus.

Be sure to check out the video. Well worth the time investment!