Updates: 1st GTD Practitioner Meeting
Our meeting started with the debriefing of what the GTD practitioner group is about, the purpose, intention and objective.
Natural Planning Model
We started with Natural Planning Model a google doc where we collaborated to arrive at the consensus of what the Big — WHY? and big WHAT for us.
After covering the big WHY and big WHAT the next obvious question is the big HOW, we haven’t rushed in answering it, everyone in our group was of the opinion that we will get the answers as we tread the path and it will grow on us.
After NPM we started with a brief introduction round of all the members. Who they are, what they do, what interests them.
Individual Expectation
After the introduction round, everyone stated what’s their individual expectation from each other, the group. It was noted down so that the Practitioners group is able to fulfill it and the interest of all the team members are kept in mind.
After listening to the expectations, we moved straight away to ask where each group member was in terms of their GTD practice. The idea was not to compare each other but to realize that there is room for everyone to improve and reach for GTD excellence.
Rajiv — Build a system that works for you
During our discussion we realized that weekly review is a magical portal to get back on GTD bandwagon.
Best Practices
Some best practice shared by — Arun Kumar
1 Hour time boxing method
Part of Reflect Stage | Weekly Review
Reason to come up with this method — For many months and years out of sheer discipline I have carried out weekly review without fail but it used to take a huge amount of time on an average of 3 hours and maximum 10 hours. One day I realized that there is no such thing as weekly review and that I am spending too much time on it. let me just box it down to exactly 1 hour.
How do you do it — Simple just start a one hour countdown timer and start doing weekly in order of items which are important.
Why it works — Anything which is less important will not be covered in weekly review and my mind will be ok with that (other side would have been losing my mind on spending too much time on weekly review)
Emergency weekly review
Part of Reflect Stage | Weekly Review
Reason to come up with this method — There would be times when our days will be so packed that we might not be able to do our weekly review, on the weekly review day or that weekend goes by. We miss weekly may be because we are traveling, tired, not in mood or hungover etc. And once we start missing the weekly review multiple times. We tend to lose faith and form an opinion that weekly review doesn’t work and GTD doesn’t work for me.
Imagine you got up late one day and you just have say 15 minute left to catch the bus for your office or school. What do you do? You get into an emergency mode, that is you don’t take a bath, instead you just brush your teeth, wash your face, put on deo, wear clean ironed clothes and catch the bus. On similar lines Emergency weekly review is a special review which is either limited by a time period say doing emergency review in say 10 min or it could be limited by no. of critical items which needs to be done say 5 items from the weekly review checklist.
Why it works & Benefit — With emergency weekly review in place you have a safety net cover for yourself. Ensure that you park Weekly Review as a repeat or recurring event in your calendar (note your calendar is a hard landscape and it’s so magical that anything that is mentioned over there happens) and it reminds you (say) 10 min before the event. When the reminder rings it’s up to you whether you would like to honor it by doing it or not, but the good thing is that your system is set for weekly review.
Shortest weekly review
Part of Reflect Stage | Weekly Review
Reason to come up with this method — Some people might find GTD weekly to be too overwhelming for them, there are 11 actionable items in the weekly review and those could grow in numbers. There could be someone who would say I don’t want to do any GTD, just tell me how I can do a weekly review in the simplest form.
How do you do it — Simple ask 2 questions
How did your current week go by? Was it to your satisfaction? — Yes/No/Maybe — (with some reason)
What needs to be done next week?
Why it works/Benefit — Once a person is able to do a shortest weekly review, he gets confidence to re-design it or change it furthermore to make a weekly review that is a right fit for him. if your weeks fall in place, your months will fall in place too and you will start meeting your quarterly goals.
[Action]/[Info] method
Part of Clarify Stage | When parking items in calendar
Reason to come up with this method — Sometimes the items parked on the calendar are not for the purpose of taking action but for information purposes.
How do you do it — Say I have two calendar appointment
[Action] Rajiv’s birthday
[Info] Neha’s birthday
The difference in both the birthdays is that I am going to show up at Rajiv’s birthday party, and for Neha’s birthday it’s just an information for me max I will wish for her birthday.
Why it works/Benefit — With this method you are not overwhelmed with your calendar and have good grip and confidence on your time schedule.
We took a hard stop at the end of the 1 hour meeting.
And now eagerly awaiting the next group meeting.
If you are interested to join our GTD practitioner group, India, just ping us and we will add you.
