Zerebria

The problem

GTD fan as I am, I usually put a strong brain effort at the planning stage of a project, so I can later enter ‘executive mode’, following my self-instructions in a Robocop-like manner. Working like that guarantees (more…)

The correct adoption of the Getting Things Done methodology, besides a boost in our outcomes, can also cause some important psychic side effects. David Allen himself frequently acknowledges it, sometimes (more…)

I feel terrible. My throat is spiked with thorns, I have this intermittent pain in my articulations, I’m cold, I’m hot. A few minutes ago, I went into the shower before removing my soaked sheets, after a night of what only very generously could be named as “sleep”. I remember a moment after shower, when I (more…)

Say you love David Allen… (O.K., say what you want). Long and steep is the road from messy to productive, but gratifications are spread like sweet fruits all along the way. It is not about upgrading; it about growing. Once you get  it, Allen’s Getting Things Done system is a very tight tool to use; as he himself states in “Making it all work”, with a delicious lack of false humility, (more…)

One of the parts of the Getting Things Done methodology that I found most difficult to apply at first was writing down “purposes and principles” for each project (more…)

That’s the title of the productivity prompt #11 in David Allen’s ‘Ready for Anything‘, which I’m currently enjoying (to say the least: it’s like a productivity earthquake). Allen makes a unique work in (more…)

I’ll admit it: everything I do, I do it for my fiction. I honor writing as the art with the biggest powers, when considering its effects, and the degree of intimacy, elevation and sometimes “possession” it grants (writing, in its finest hour, becomes invisible, the words stop being “black boxes” with a meaning inside and become something similar to music). (more…)

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As a product of a typically non-productive culture (sorry for the tongue twister), I have found a very useful tool for implementing the GTD method in monitoring workflow interruptions. The first thing I noticed was (more…)

In full obedience to David Allen’s teachings (there might be taller or stronger firemen, but he is the one who took me out of the flames), I periodically review my medium and long term goals. I have them written down in a list with a deliberately conventional, impersonal format, using infinitive verbs: “work as…”, “live at…”, “become…” (more…)

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…”but I used to have a calendar!”

Don’t worry: you still do. It is just that it is not going to be that populated anymore. Allen’s methodology reduces its using to:

a) events with a fixed date (dentist, birthday, deadline set by somebody else) (more…)