Francisco Saez

Basic GTD: Emptying the Inbox

Thu, 23 May 2013 19:29:31 +0200

To achieve a stress-free productivity, emptying the inbox should be a daily activity.

8 Things to Do in your Waiting Times

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:13:54 +0200

Do not you get bored when you are waiting for someone? Do you mind? If you are prepared, waiting times can be very productive.

How NOT to be a master of productivity

Thu, 16 May 2013 16:56:51 +0200

How NOT to be a master of productivity:

Mastery of personal productivity is achieved by dominating the concepts and workflow, rather than the tools.

Eliminating the Unnecessary

Mon, 13 May 2013 16:09:19 +0200

Eliminating the Unnecessary

Goals, Responsibilities and Next Actions

Thu, 09 May 2013 18:39:19 +0200

Goals, Responsibilities and Next Actions:

How to prioritize your actions according to the stuff that really matter.

The Pursuit of Mastery

Mon, 06 May 2013 16:37:41 +0200

The Pursuit of Mastery:

The pursuit of mastery is a key motivational behavior in today’s world.

“The desire to do something because you find it deeply satisfying and personally challenging inspires the highest levels of creativity.”

~ Teresa Amabile, professor at Harvard University

Everything in alignment

Thu, 02 May 2013 18:38:00 +0200

(post originally published in FacileThings.com)

“Convergence is the state of being where everything in our lives is in alignment.

We have good relationships with family and close friends, we’re excited about work, we’re in good health, we do more or less what we want to every day, and we know we’re making a difference in the world.

…to achieve convergence, two separate (but related) activities are required: saying goodbye to unnecessary tasks, obligations, and expectations — then welcoming in a wide range of other things that enrich our lives.” ¹

To achieve this balance, GTD provides you a really useful tool called the Six-Level Model for reviewing your own work.

Click here to know how to implement these 6 Levels of Perspective in your life.

¹ From the book The Art of Non-Conformity, by Chris Guillebeau.

How to fix your life

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:37:00 +0200

How to fix your life:

A few months ago, David Allen, personal productivity expert and creator of Getting Things Done (GTD), gave an extensive interview to The Atlantic that was published under the title of David Allen on How to Fix Your Life. This is a collection of his most valuable insights on how to address several common issues of our today’s world.

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Basic GTD: How and why you must collect everything

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:40:42 +0200

Basic GTD: How and why you must collect everything:

Collecting is the first phase of your personal organization system, in which you try to collect all your incompletes and stuff in one location: your Inbox (not to be confused with the e-mail inbox)…

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Checklists, a very productive asset By Francisco Sáez • April...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:15:33 +0200

Checklists, a very productive asset

By Francisco Sáez • April 22, 2013

Checklists are one of the most powerful—and forgotten—organizational tools in GTD. They help you complete tasks without making mistakes, since they contain a list of checkpoints that allow you to remember all the details of the job to be done.

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Fear as a motivator

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:05:37 +0200

Fear as a motivator:

We resist change until the pain of continuing in the current situation exceeds the pain of the change.

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Basic GTD: The Calendar

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:50:49 +0200

Basic GTD: The Calendar:

In GTD, the Calendar is used in a very different way than in other traditional management systems.

Two ways of thinking, one objective

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:18:22 +0200

Two ways of thinking, one objective:

Surely you are aware that there are times in your life when you have thoughts like “What can I do to be more competitive or productive?”, “How can I improve my skills and advance my career?”, “Should I move to this or that city?”. This kind of big-picture thinking is called divergent, and is the one you use to generate ideas when you face a problem.

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Why you should have a side project

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:08:15 +0200

Why you should have a side project:

It seems that side projects are only an entrepreneurial thing, that they are done just by people who seeks a new or alternative way to get money and make their life. Of course, that might be the target of a side project, but you do not need to think about the creation of a company to work on a side project. Having a personal project, apart from your usual work, has many other benefits.

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How to fight interruptions

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:53:06 +0100

How to fight interruptions:

Today, our productivity is always threatened by the existence of constant interruptions that we cannot control (do we really want?). An interruption is anything that prevents you from starting and ending an important task. It is hard to do the important and ignore the trivial when the universe is conspiring against you.

Some of the following measures to fight interruptions will not please many…

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Basic GTD: Get it all out of your head

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:23:23 +0100

Basic GTD: Get it all out of your head:

“There is usually an inverse proportion between how much something is on your mind and how much it’s getting done.” ~ David Allen

Deliberate practice... or how to be an expert

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 16:44:00 +0100

Deliberate practice... or how to be an expert:

The Swedish psychologist K. Anders Ericsson has devoted much time to research into how experts in different fields (such as medicine, music or chess) acquire a higher level of performance, and how significant is deliberate practice in that process.

The conclusion of his research is…

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Being a professional doesn't mean working more

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:04:28 +0100

Being a professional doesn't mean working more:

The term workaholic is used to define people who are addicted to work. In the best case, this problem comes from having a strong motivation for what you are doing, but far more often it comes as a result of poor organization which, over time, has led you to spend more hours at work in order to achieve the results you need. Instead of refining the way you work to become more efficient, you have decided to use brute force…

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Time, energy and money

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 19:56:21 +0100

“Wealth is the freedom and the ability to choose what to do with my time.” ~ Chuck Blakeman

“While you’re young, you’ve got all the time and all the energy to enjoy life, but no money. When you get to your middle years, you’ll have all the money and all the energy, but no time. And when you’re retired, you’ll have all the money and all the time, but no energy.” ¹

This is, unfortunately, the great paradox of our modern society. But it need not be so. Your vision of life can include time, energy and money equally at all ages. Just stop thinking about retirement and set the goals that will lead you to enjoy all your time.

And start.

Now.

¹ From the book Making money is killing your business, by Chuck Blakeman.

Is GTD only for geeks?

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 18:46:45 +0100

Is GTD only for geeks?:

Surely, much of the success of GTD is because, at the beginning, it was widely adopted by the high-tech world—bloggers, programmers, geeks, etc.—, which certainly helped to spread its benefits quickly and virally…

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