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

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.

GTDtimes Article: Ancient Cheating and a Modern Twist

I was surprised this morning to see my second article already posted over at the GTDtimes, exploring how writing can be used to "cheat, and increase our cognitive capacities in two different ways, both powerful.  David Allen often refers to this as clearing out our "psychic RAM". I mentioned previously that I am pleased to have been taken on as a regular contributor to their well known productivity blog.

Image courtesy of "cheetleys" over at Flickr