master "Getting Things Done"

I’ve been having trouble staying on the practice – but listening to David Allen’s last book using my ipod on a long car trip was really helpful in understanding the principles and the value of the practice. Let’s see if I can empty my work email inbox today!

What would David Allen’s corporate “Getting Things Done” approach have to do with an ancient Hawaiian shamanic practice? Probably nothing, but as taught by Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len through marketing guru Joe Vitale, there’s a haunting similarity in the idea of “Getting to Zero” so that we can be acting from the inspiration of God instead of Memory, and the idea that we should get everything out of our head and onto paper, and get all our inboxes empty, so that we can be free to let inspiration flow.

Perhaps the technique is very different, but they have been complementing each other wonderfully for me recently as I’ve used the Ho’oponopono prayer to “clean” my relationships and as I’ve also emptied out my inboxes. I’ve been noticing the clutter fall away and a higher order of organization flow into place as I’ve done it.

David Allen has started a program called GTD Connect. GTD standing for Getting Things Done, the name of his program and of his first book. I’m excited to have downloaded a bunch of podcasts from the GTD Connect website (for subscribers only), and also I’ve found a way to show I’ve mastered GTD. David mentions a belt system, so you can be at the white belt, yellow belt, all the way to black belt. I’m wondering if I should consider mastering GTD to require that I be at the black belt level. This will definitely take some time!

It really hit home being at the David Allen seminary all day Tuesday that it’s so important to ask the question, what’s the very next small scale action and write it down every week for all my projects (and a project is a desired outcome requiring multiple steps that can be done in a year or less).

It’s really amazed me at how much work went into every little part of the GTD method and philosophy, and how well all the pieces fit together.

So my next step in building my mastery is to process my inbasket into projects and next actions, one sitting at a time, until I get it done.