Having trouble with Blogs??? Try some Brain-O!!! ;-) All kidding aside, the internet is so full of interesting and helpful information. In what category do you put exploring the web for new ideas? Is that planning or doing? It may be obvious that I haven’t read the book yet. But I have heard a routine by Larry the Cable Guy! Git-R-Done, that’s close, isn’t it? ;-) And I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express once.

[…] Anyway, funny that 43 folders mentioned the “Mindsweep”, because I am in the process of doing it today. […]

Aahh… finding the best strategy for GTD! I think it all comes down to looking for ways that best suits you as an individual.

The trick is to find what suit and then actually DOING it. Nothing works like ACTION.

[…] I’ve really gotta dig deep and get back on track of the GTD (getting things done) world. Merlin’s got a great overview of how to jump back in: Back to GTD: Do a fast “mind-sweep” […]

Awesome mind sweep concept you have there.

Another source of encouragement for me to get things done !

Thanks a bunch !

[…] A typical Self-Development Sunday activity for me might include planning meals, grocery shopping for healthy foods, doing a GTD sweep, stating new goals and evaluating progress toward existing goals, exercising, meditating, reading, catching up with a good friend, or spending some quality time with the dog. The activity that you choose is, in some ways, less important than the way that you perform it. Self-Development Sunday activities should be chosen to make you feel less-stressed and more in-control of your life afterward, and performed with mindfulness. Think concentration and questioning, instead of running errands. […]

Quick Mindsweep…

Whenever you fell off the GTD wagon one way to get back on track is to restart collecting. A quick mindsweep is how to do it. Merlin Mann made an excellent posting about it. You can read it here. What…

[…] I admit I never fully applied Getting Things Done to my daily life. I use some of the organization techniques, but I’m currently too stubborn to change existing methods to fit the GTD program verbatim. One important takeaway I internalized is the need to clear your mind of all those nagging tasks by writing them down. 43 Folders offers some good tips on accomplishing this using David Allen’s mind sweep technique of collection. david allen, gtd […]

Oh—this is just what I needed! Things have been, no scratch that, I have let things spin out of control (full agency acknowledged), and I was trying to blame it on my particular work environment. What’s worse, I have been thinking of doing a GTD session here in my library—and would have no credibility if I couldn’t pull it off myself. Just the dose of encouragement and accountability that will help to get back on the horse.

Hi there!

I think in this great article is a slight mistake.

You wrote: “If you’re really behind in collection and suffer from distraction, I would (non-canonically) suggest even a sparing use of the two-minute rule.”

But if you follow the instructions of DA you shouldn’t do anything else in the collection phase then collecting your stuff. The two-minute rule is ment for the processing phase where you decide what NAs are related to your collected stuff. And if the NAs are less than two minute actions you should do them right away.

To sum it up: DON’T DO or PROCESS stuff in the collection phase, just collect every open loop.

Greetings from Germany

Wolfgang

Correction:

NOT: This great article is a slight mistake. I MENT: This great article HAS a slight mistake.

Sorry!

Wolfgang

The key psychological insight of GTD is that rapid progress occurs when you take large, unformed tasks, and break them down and organize them into smaller, sequential steps for exactly what to do and when. The book provides lots of guidance and examples for how to do this … It helped me a bunch.

[…] Pas capable de dormir. Plus capable. Trop de choses dans ma tête. Je sais, je sais, faut que je fasse un mind sweep. Un inventaire des trucs que j’ai dans la tête… […]

[…] It’s five in the morning. Can’t sleep. My mind is full. Should do a mind sweep to clear my mind. I can’t. I am almost obsessed by blogging. Ever since I decided I could put more effort in this blog I am constantly thinking about the blogging process (this guy is no stranger to that)!  […]

Thanks for the wake up call! I had been feeling a little overwhelmed the last two weeks to the point of sluggishness and hadn’t been trusting my kGTD system to be up-to-date. Instead, I’ve just been going day-to-day with written to-do lists which is not the way to be.

I took just a slight diversion to download and install Minuteur (as suggested in the comments of your last post about a timer), and had to do 2 back-to-back 10-minute mind sweeps to get the stuff out of my head.

I realized that I there was stuff that I wanted to do, while I was neglecting some pretty important non-fun tasks that are approaching deadline status. Now I have a clear path for the rest of the day and then some. Now, time to get cracking on that next item!

[…] Back to GTD: Do a fast “mind-sweep” | 43 Folders Back to GTD: Do a fast “mind-sweep” Whether you learned GTD from the book or heard it from The David himself (via one of his excellent seminars), you know that the vital first stage of Getting Things Done is Collection. […]

Getting things done - again…

I have applied the principles of David Allen’s excellent book Getting Things Done a couple of times now and this most recent time have done it thoroughly and stuck with it. If you have lapsed like I did you will…

Oh, man, you’ve been inside my house, rifling through the piles on my desk, AND peeking into my pointy little head!

Have you had good luck using Collection and mind-sweeps to get back into Getting Things Done?

Absolutely not.

As far as I can remember everything I’ve collected is a thing that I’ve more or less forgotten about. There are actually a couple of things that I sort of want to do after the bit of capture I did some… hmmm… “more than weeks” ago, but I can’t find a time to start it (there is actual work, there are blog feeds, there are forums, wikis, podcasts, eating, sleeping,… :D )

[…] Merlin’s tip for doing a fast mind-sweep is critical to GTD success, even for those who haven’t “fallen off the wagon.” The recent 43 Folders entry rightly points out the importance of this sweep for getting back on track, but I find that it helps on those days when I experience Idea Floods. These floods may be a product of inspiration, great coffee or some other brain chemistry magic. Either way, they can make it hard to focus on the action at hand. By doing several of these mind sweeps during a day where the Idea Floods are really rolling, one can keep on task and get back to the ideas when time permits without having that disturbing open loop in the background nagging and stealing focus. […]

[…] I’ve fallen a bit off the GTD wagon of late. How do I know? Well, I missed 2 things I should’ve easily gotten done for one. Another clue is that I feel like I have too many things to think about and I just know I’m forgetting something. This is bad. Merlin Mann talks a bit about getting back on the GTD wagon by doing a Mind Sweep. This is good advice for anyone who, like me, has not bet Getting Things Done. The takaway for me is to always remember to completely separate planning from doing…. […]

I fell off the wagon when my computer with my GTD TiddlyWiki died. I decided to find an online solution and chose Airset (airset.com). No, I’m not paid by them. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s suiting my needs for now. I also carry around index cards and jot stuff down on them or in my moleskein. The trick is remembering to enter that stuff into the online system. I used to do this every Friday or Monday. But I’ve been so busy lately that I’ve failed to do that. I’m coming back to it though. I’m also planning to start doing this will my family and do a family mind-sweep once a week. The kids and the hubby don’t use my inbox. I haven’t quite got them on the GTD bandwagon.

Well, I got started on GTD, but I never did the full GTD collection dump, I kind of skirted around it thinking I’d make time for it. Well, your return to GTD is just the motivation and the application I needed to inspire me to really practice GTD and to start it off right this time.

Blocked out the time Sunday.