My GTD Article Selected by Whakate as Best Blog Post of July for GTDtimes

Hey good news for a relatively new blogger, your truly. My article "Ancient Cheating and a Modern Twist" that I wrote in July for the personal productivity site GTDtimes was selected for Best Blog Picks for July by the international life design blog , Whakate (A word from New Zealand, of Maori origin, meaning “to squeeze out” or “get the essence out of” something). Life design I think is a wise choice to get away from the cheesier asssociations with "self-improvement". The article is about two powerful benefits of writing things down on cognitive function, writin' stuff down makes you even smarter.

So here is their listing for Best (Blog Post) Picks for July '08. I am a ways down the page in the personal productivity section under GTDtimes, right above Merlin Mann's 43Folders article on email. Take that Merlin. I enjoy that fact even though I somehow doubt the Merlin is feeling threatened just yet. So my thanks to the folks at Whakate.

Photo courtesy of Timothy K. Hamilton over at Flickr

David Allen Stopped By...

I am experiencing a "Holy Smokes" moment right now. I just stopped by at the comments section of my latest article at the GTDtimes, which is about how...

...the smartest people are the ones that realize that they have a big, powerful, dumb part of themselves that has a whole lot to do with what they do. They structure their lives in a very intelligent way that manages the dumb and powerful part. The dumb people think they're smart all the time.

I was just checking in to see if any new comments had popped up. I do this from time to time as the notification system for whatever reason only works inconsistently. And sure enough there is a new comment there...but it is by...get ready for it...David Allen. Really.

For anyone who is not a GTDer (I won't be mean and say, who lives in a cave), this would be a bit like having a Mac zealot write a blog entry about some thoughts on the Mac OS. And suddenly Steve Jobs drops by to say, "Hey, nice write up. I enjoyed your ideas. Let's touch base sometime." And you rub your eyes, and it's actually still Steve Jobs.

So have a peek at the Big Kahuna's comment and enjoy my moment with me. And by the way, the part in italics is not my summary of my article. That is David Allen's thumbnail of it from the comment he left. It's always nice to get a reader who gets the gist of your article. But you don't really expect to have the guy whose extraordinarily successful system you're writing about stop by to say hello, much less to have clearly read your piece. That's not to say I didn't have a very distant hope for it...but I certainly didn't expect it.

And it's nice when life drops these unexpected moments in your lap from time to time.

This is Your Elephant on GTD. Any Questions?

I was going to forgo posting this feature article I wrote for the GTDtimes, but I've been getting a good response to it over there so I thought it deserved a brief mention here. Though the piece is aimed at Getting Things Done, it actually is about essential knowledge for acquiring any complex skill. 

The article is about the way that our automatic and unconscious processes tend to wander off in a different direction than the goals we deliberately se, and that we may very much want to achieve. Our conscious desire to learn the skill is like the rider on an elephant. And the unconscious part that keeps us from going to the gym or from using a new parenting skill, even when we fully intend to follow through, is like an elephant the rider is perched upon. The only way this gigantic beast can be influenced is by training and repetition, as it very much has a "mind of its own". And getting angry with it or berating it is pointless.