New Up Close with David Allen -- procrastination, deadlines, travels

[John Forrister]

Hi GTD Connect members,

After an update on his recent trip to Thailand, David talks about a couple of subtle angles on procrastination, including a subtle reframing of deadlines that helps you do better work -- ahead of schedule. He also discusses the work of B.J. Fogg on 'tiny habits,' for making bigger changes by narrowing in on very small adjustments. Here's a link to B. J. Fogg's TEDx talk.

Link to audio on GTD Connect. You can also get this through the members-only podcast feed.
https://gettingthingsdone.com/connec...1&trackid=1326

 

[Longstreet]

I enjoyed this session. I particularly like David's stance on assigning "false deadlines". I prefer to refer to them as "self-imposed" deadlines. I have found in my GTD practice that assigning these to things that I need to get done, or are languishing on my next actions lists, works quite well. Cheers John and David!

 

[John Forrister]

Particularly for creative projects, I like to allow time between drafts. There may be a final due date for the project, but I tend to back up from that and plan one or more deadlines such as first draft done, second draft done. I don't think of those as false deadlines, but more like the true deadline for that specific phase of the project. That's not how I did it in college, when my standard operating procedure was to stay up all night and turn in an agonized final version, with the drafting done, but not done well, in my mind.

 

[Longstreet]

Yeah, John....I have students like that. I work hard at breaking them of that "wait to the last minute" type of work. I did a lot of that too as an undergrad many years ago. But it simply does not work in a graduate biomedical program.

You work very much the way I do with "self-imposed" deadlines of different components of a much larger deadline. Cheers!