Today’s post is from Mike St. Pierre of The Daily Saint.

When I was first introduced to GTD some five years ago, I was immediately drawn to David Allen’s appreciation of “the right tool”.  It was as if someone out there was as quirky as me, caring about such little things as the kind of pencil you used or the way in which you organized your PDA.  Amazing!

Since then, I’ve been mindful of a number of good articles on GTD-related tools.  These include:

• 5 Simple and Effective GTD Tools
• List of GTD Tools
• Top 5 GTD Computer Tools

I recently discovered a phenomenon called “tool boredom” and you’ll probably know what I’m talking about.  Your cell phone was so cool and then you saw the new iPhone 3G ad on TV.  As a result, your tool looks tired and so ordinary.  Yet, you can’t just jump ship and go out and sign up for another cellular carrier’s two year contract.  What to do?

I use a Blackberry 8830 which I find to be very utilitarian.  No camera, no fancy ads on TV.  It just works but occasionally, I admit that it feels ordinary and un-iPhony.  I’m not in a position where I can just pay an early termination fee to drop Verizon and head over to AT&T. Instead, I do the following:

1. Discover new things that the tool is capable of.  I recently learned how to watch TV shows on my Blackberry- very cool!
2. Dress it up.  A silicone skin costs less than two cups of coffee at Dunkin Donuts so head over to Ebay and make a purchase.
3. Entertain the fantasy of trading. On CraigsList there are countless people in your area who are looking to trade productivity tools.  People want planners.  They are interested in gadgets.  Joe from the next town over is looking for an audio recorder, etc.  Check it out and find out who is willing to trade what.  If nothing else, it will jog your creativity about tech tools and who knows?  Your unsexy gadget just might look new after all.

Today’s guest post is from Mike St. Pierre of The Daily Saint

I tend to believe that a hearty practice of GTD helps teams achieve more.  My team recently had a series of related decisions to make and we had struggled to come to a conclusion for some time.  I decided to put Getting Things Done into play and accomplish the following:

Change your context. Sometimes it helps to change your physical location when making a decision.  Booking a conference room instead of the ordinary meeting space might pay dividends for your group.  Context can also include looking at long range plans as opposed to the details of daily life at work.  Meeting at different times about specific things is a lot more productive than trying to hit everything in one sitting.

Close the open loops. This is perhaps the greatest skill of leaders in addition to setting vision for the team.  Forcing (gently- possible?) the group to make a decision is absolutely essential.  GTD is certainly applicable in this regard.  Any loop that is open will come back to you so tackle it early and often.  (See this interesting take on whether all loops are created equal)

Remember your runways and landscapes. Your group might be struggling to make a decision because it’s too bogged down in the day to day and can’t see the broader view.  Give them permission to think as big or small as is helpful.  When Charlie from sales gets off on another tangent, confidently say, “Thanks Charlie but we’ll tackle that at another meeting.  Today, we’re honing in on XYZ.”  It works, trust me.  (See Patrick Lencioni’s take on how teams work)

Accept the fact that your group needs you to have backbone. At the end of the day, after you’ve invested in your group and they know that you respect them, they still look to you to make a decision.  It’s as if they are saying, “Now that we’ve all had something to say, what do you think boss?”  Put it out there and don’t be bashful about pointing the team in a reasonable direction.  You’re not about command and control, but about direction and flow.  (See David Allen’s piece on the Huffington Post in this regard)

The worst thing to do is expect a “good” decision to come from a “bad” process.  To the degree that you can set your team up for success, extraordinary things will follow.

If you haven’t caught up with Leadership Journal in a while, their recent edition focuses on teams and how they lead. I was especially fascinated by an article about how one church went from a one pastor model to a team approach of four men who lead together.

Can you imagine if every church was led by four instead of one? Blows your mind doesn‘t it?

The featured church, Next Level Church in Denver, explained how their model allows for deeper service, more humility, greater accountability and a healthy buffer in case one leader falls. It also allows for a community to get things done. Maybe, just maybe, it decreases the amount of ‘leadership complaining’.

All of us complain about our leaders. I just wish they would do more of this… Why can’t he be more like… It drives me crazy when… When you practice GTD, you are putting next-action thinking into play. You stop looking around and wondering why it isn‘t moving fast enough and

you
start
making it happen.

This of course builds you up as someone who actually produces results. You are then able to do the work of four instead of one.

Today’s post is from Mike St. Pierre of The Daily Saint

You know how it goes: if you were on an island…

• and could only bring one book- Merton’s No Man is an Island
• and could only bring one food- strawberry Twizzlers (is there any other flavor?)

But what if we were talking about GTD? Would you bring David Allen’s first book from 2002 Getting Things Done? Maybe his latest book Making It All Work would better fit the bill.

As for me, I’d take a small notebook and a simple ballpoint pen. That way, I could capture all of my ideas for getting off the darn island. Let me explain.

Although I don’t travel very often for work, my days are fairly pedestrian and therefore my GTD system has to go with me. Kelly Forrister had a great piece this past week about how she takes her system on the road for three weeks out of every month. Now that’s what I call portable!

Here’s my mini version of GTD:

1. Small notebook, left pocket of my sportscoat.
2. Pen, left pocket, dress shirt.
3. Blackberry 8830, right pocket of my sportscoat.

With these three items, I can capture all of my thoughts, monitor email and respond if necessary, take calls, and make it to my 3:45pm daily check-in with my boss. Once I’m there, I process items from my notebook which are important to discuss and voila! Pint-sized GTD.