I often work with people who have tried GTD and after a while quit using it. Some drifted away, others deliberately dropped it because it wasn’t working for them. Where does the use of GTD fall short? Let me just share three common problems that I’ve observed.

GTD relies on the use of “contexts” to use time more efficiently. The idea is that it is better to make phone calls all in a batch, then handle email in a batch, and so on, rather than switching from one “context” to another. For someone with more than a hundred items on their daily task list, this may be true. For example, imagine an interior designer working on multiple client projects at once. It may be helpful to keep track of what needs finding by store and by client. Or imagine an executive in charge of two regional offices, spending some time each week working in each – they need a way to sort for what can be done now, in the place they are. But most people have, not hundreds but maybe a dozen or a few dozen items on their daily list. The time it takes to track the contexts – entering them into the system with each and every task – actually doesn’t pay any dividend. And having to look at multiple contexts rather than just one list creates pockets where tasks can be overlooked. My suggestion: use contexts only if your work warrants it.

GTD calls for a weekly review of outstanding items to let go of tasks that may have seemed useful once but no longer have a good claim on our time. This is good hygiene: it keeps the list “clean.” It’s sometimes not enough for the many people who struggle with letting go of tasks and admitting that those items won’t ever get any attention. GTD is not helpful for people who have a hard time dismissing tasks whose “use by” date has passed. If this is a particular problem for you, I suggest looking at Mark Forster’s SuperFocus system. It is the most effective way I have seen yet to train a brain to sift, sort, and let go of old tasks that may be hanging on, crowding out new and more interesting possibilities.

GTD calls for one or more “collection buckets,” tools into which you put tasks to get them out of your head. Many people find it too hard to maintain their GTD system because they have too many such buckets, and they don’t empty them often enough. Suppose I have my master list in the calendar program on my computer. As I’m out walking I think of another task not on my list, so I get it out of my head by putting it into another collection bucket, in this case by calling my office phone and leaving myself a message. That will work just fine provided that I check that secondary “bucket” (my voicemail) and empty it into my master list. If I collect notes on the back of business cards, voicemails, emails, and scribbles on index cards, I must have a reliable way to dump those into my main collection bucket. The only solution for this is a bit of discipline in order to make the system work. To my knowledge there is no task management or productivity system that can get around the need for one main collection point and the willingness to use it.

Have you tried GTD? What did you observe? If you’ve stopped using a system, why? What does your productivity system need that it doesn’t haven now? Leave a comment here.

I’m dipping into the archives to offer you, my readers, a few yummy posts from those past Januarys. You know, since I can’t serve you cake digitally.

In case you thought that clutter and excess stuff was a new problem, enjoy this excerpt from a book describing what was in someone’s “garage” 3,000 years ago. Are there things in your life that are “unfit for service?”

If you aren’t making the progress you’d like, ask yourself if you need someone on your team to supply what you can’t – a tax planner, an assistant, a coach, an organizing trainer, a graphic artist, or better, an information designer. Two years ago I hired a virtual assistant, and shared with you all the questions I asked to help me choose the right person. When interviewing, remember – money is the last question you need to ask. If the person can solve your problems, a million dollars may not be enough. If they aren’t a good match for you, two cents may be too much. Is there someone you need to add to your team? (Quick update: my very skillful assistant resigned last year to accept a full-time position. Sometimes we business owners rearrange because we’re ready to, sometimes because we’re forced to. I have rearranged my business to function without an assistant for the time being. But I really appreciate all that Christine brought to my business in the 20 months we worked together.)

Finally, are you using your office real estate to the max? Consider whether you’re keeping the right occupants in your space.

Wishing that your short January days are long on productivity and ease!

I’m talking about a time-management method called the Pomodoro Technique. First taught in the early 1990s, the technique was developed by an Italian named Francesco Cirillo. Pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato, and it refers to the kitchen timer shaped like a red, round tomato.

How can a kitchen timer help us to deal with interruptions and get more done? Here’s a quick introduction to how the Pomodoro Technique works.

The idea is to choose a single task, then work on your chosen activity for just 25 minutes. Set your ticking pomodoro timer, then sit down to write that report, pay those bills, file those papers, or whatever. After each 25-minute session, take a 5-minute break. After every 4 sessions, take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes. Use your breaks to move away from your desk, stretch, get some water or a snack, or take a bio-break. (Move your body; reading email does not count as a break.)

One of the reasons we suffer so much from interruption is that in addition to those calls for help that come from family or co-workers, we are our own worst interrupters. Our minds are constantly checking in to see what we might be missing, what else is happening besides what we’re doing, and to check on the passage of minutes. These internal interruptions make it very hard to concentrate on one task even for a short time, much less to reach that easy, immersive flow state.

Why does it help to work with a timer? Setting a kitchen timer allows us to relax into a task. We know that we won’t lose track of time. The timer has got that job covered and will ring out when our time is up. And we are less likely to feel anxious about the size of a task when we know that we’re just going to take it in one 25-minute chunk at a time.

Why does it help to work with a ticking timer?

For years I worked with a silent digital timer. My kitchen timer was maddeningly loud. I found it hard to concentrate. But with no reassuring sound, it could also be hard to believe that the timer was really doing its job. I was sometimes tempted to “check up on the timer” to see how long I had left to work.

If the Pomodoro Technique sounds intriguing to you, you can download the originator’s e-book for free. Details are in the resource box, below.

And if you’d like to take the Pomodoro Technique with you wherever you go, there are smart phone and notebook apps galore. My favorite is one by Navel Labs, which includes a space to note what you’re working on – an essential tool for those with attention deficits but helpful for those of us who are garden-variety distracted.

A softly ticking timer can provide a kind of white noise that helps to filter out distractions. People with attention deficits often find it easier to work with a bit of background noise and activity, which the timer can provide.

And there’s more – much more – to this simple technique. Applying all the features outlined in the e-book provides a way to improve our ability to estimate how long a task will take, overcome procrastination, and soothe anxiety about working on certain tasks. But you don’t have to use the whole program to receive the benefits.

If the only part you use is to work in timed 25-minute increments followed by a short break, you will establish a habit of working at a sustainable pace, without interruption.

One final reminder: choose your task before you start the timer. Focus is essential to the process.

Have you tried the Pomodoro Technique? What was your experience? Leave a comment here.

Then I calculated what faster reading would mean for me. Between newspapers, magazines, and books, I spend 30 minutes to an hour reading every day. If I could just double my reading speed, it would save me hours every week, and weeks every year. Who wouldn’t want that? I sure do.

I tested several methods of increasing reading speed, which I’ll tell you about in a minute. First, I’d like to share one simple technique you can use that can significantly improve both your reading speed and your comprehension – that is, how much you understand and recall of what you’ve read.

Many people are slowed down in their reading because their active minds are wandering as they read. This was one of my problems. Every idea, every sentence sent me off in some other direction, at least for a few seconds. Another habit that can slow our reading is the practice of re-reading a section.

To help address these issues, keep a plain index card or blank paper with your reading material. Place the card ABOVE the sentence you’re reading and push it down the page as you read. Set a pace that’s just a little ahead of your habitual, comfortable reading speed.

Using a card to help push your eyes along does two things. First, it prevents re-reading by covering up previous paragraphs. And it urges us, like runners in training, to pick up the pace a bit. When our minds are fully engaged in keeping up with the advancing card, there is no time for woolgathering. And when we are more focused on our reading, our comprehension improves as well.

This was one of the happiest surprises that I found. When I read faster, I also got more out of what I had read.

This technique alone increased my reading speed by 100 percent, and I’m not unusual in this result. Doubling your reading speed is in easy reach for most people.

If you’d like more help to read faster, there are lots of resources available.

To get dramatic results with a minimal investment, you might try Bobbi DePorter’s book Quantum Reading, the Power to Read Your Best. At just 55 pages, this little book contains just a handful of quick strategies along with a brief explanation of how and why they work. But if you put those strategies into practice, you’ll get a great payoff in faster reading speed and more free time.

Another book is 10 Days to Faster Reading by the most famous name in speed-reading, Abby Marks Beale. Co-authored with The Princeton Language Institute, this book is both comprehensive and simple. If you learn well from a book, this is a great one.

If you’d rather take an online class, Abby Marks Beale offers Rev It Up Reading. This online course consists of nine modules of half an hour each. It includes automatic timers so you can track your improvement, and there is email support available at all times. The course currently costs $199, which buys you access for a limited time, after which the course goes away. You can find all the details at RevItUpReading.com.

If you’d rather own your course permanently, another option is the Photo Reading CD course by Learning Strategies Corporation. Photo Reading contains all the basic principles of other speed-reading programs, with the addition of CDs aimed at improving memory and related skills. Some of the language and imagery is somewhat esoteric, to go with the company’s other offerings, which include dousing, feng shui and subliminal learning. And there are suggestions that a reading speed of 45,000 words per minute, while not typical, is possible. Whatever you think about those aspects, the course does work to double and triple your current reading speed. The course is currently listed on the Learning Strategies.com website at $530.

As with learning any new skill, practice is key. But the investment of time in improving your reading speed will be repaid in hours and weeks.

And I believe that the best plans are as simple as possible.

So here’s my resolution for me and my wish for you for 2012.

Here are a few ideas to please the solo entrepreneur, the small office, and the individual client. As for your own inspired ideas, please post them in the comments.

Note: Not all of these ideas fall within the $25 limit set by the IRS for tax-deductible gift limits. Too bad. While money is not the point, we would like to express our full thanks. Write your senators and representatives to raise the limit on tax-deductible gifts next year, but for now, forget the cost — just let them know how you feel.

(photo courtesy of www.fitzsu.com)

The 1.3 liter Menu Water Pitcher provides “spa water” at the office – add lemon, mint or basil sprigs, apple slices, or other flavorings. It’s healthy, it’s beautiful. Find it at  fitzsu in Los Angeles. (About $70)

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Strike a blow for Urge the world toward greater civility! New York Times columnist Philip Galanes has written SocialQ’s, an entertaining and useful guide to 21st-century etiquette. Emoticons in your business correspondence? Silver spoon missing after the neighbors come to dinner? Sister re-gifting what you gave her, and giving it back to you?? Galanes addresses modern social quandaries with wit and intelligence. (Publisher’s price $23, sells for about $16 on amazon.com)

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Eco-friendly. Fun to use. Helpful. Ships flat. (Did I mention fun?) the bamboo desktop dry-erase board from Three by Three, available at SeeJaneWork will please lots of clients, and bring warm thoughts of you every day. (About $ 14)
Are your clients equal parts analytical and creative? Or do you need a nifty gift that travels well? The Revolver notebook is a sturdy, attractive, and useful example of the book inder’s art. A quick flip of the covers changes the Revolver from plain paper for free-form imagination to ruled pages for no-nonsense jotting. Mails neatly. (About $ 12-19, depending on size)

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Maybe you and your client have achieved the extraordinary this year – slain dragons together. Or maybe you happen to know they don’t want another “thing” in their office – but new experiences are always welcome. Maybe this is the year for Edward Tufte’s information design class, “Presenting Data and Information.” Tufte, a retired Yale professor and a towering figure in information design, has created a class that will forever change the way you think about a PowerPoint. (About $380 per person)

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Just when I thought chocolate could not get any better, enter Recchiuti, San Francisco’s chocolatier supreme. Conveniently, they offer a “sharing box”  that let’s everyone have a mind-blowing taste. Don’t be surprised when they start dropping hints once they’ve run out. (About $100)

I wish you all the very happiest of holidays!

"Forest Interior" by Paul Cezanne

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.

- Thornton Wilder

At this time, I am especially conscious of how grateful I am for you, my clients, friends and readers. Thank you for your presence in my life. I wish you treasures galore!

1. An A is 92 or above; 60 percent and below are failing grades.

This is the biggest myth in the world of work, the trickiest to unlearn for those of us who were once good students. It prevents us from aiming high. I could make an annual plan of which I was certain that I could accomplish 100 percent. It would have to be a smaller plan than I’m capable of, though. To really achieve, it’s necessary to aim high. Reach for the stars and grab the moon. What if I plan to double my business but only succeed in increasing it by 60 percent? Am I a failure? Probably not.

2. There is an end to the term and there is graduation.

In school there is a final exam. You work, learn, build up your knowledge until at some point the subject is declared “done.” Not so in your business. You will never be done. There is no final exam. The work, the growth, the clients, and the challenges just keep coming. You can create some temporary end-points for yourself. It’s a good idea to make a plan for a limited amount of time (month, quarter, and year) and give yourself some reward for achievement during that time, kind of like the summer vacation you enjoyed as a child. Creating intermediate goals help to keep us motivated and reminds us of what we’ve achieved. Those goals help to mark off progress in an otherwise-unmarked landscape. But unless we create and declare one, there is no end of the term.

As actress and author Carrie Fisher remarked, there’s no point at which you can say, now I’m successful; I think I’ll take a nap.

3. You can be behind, and you can be caught up.

If your teacher provides a syllabus with reading assignments all laid out week by week, you know whether you are behind or caught up in your work. And there are a few things in business that operate like that syllabus.  For example, your bookkeeping might be current, and your orders may all be fulfilled within six hours. But for many of the tasks we do in our businesses, there is no such thing as that magical state of “caught up.” Too much time, energy and concern are spent wishing to get the feeling of being caught up. If you hear yourself wishing that you could catch up, try re-framing that desire. Rather than trying to “catch up,” try to “advance.” Set a schedule each day with blocks of time allocated to various tasks and projects. By the end of the day, some projects will be done, some will require more work in the future, but all will be advanced. You can move things ahead or you can leave them as they are, but you can never catch up.

4. Once something is assigned, it must be done.

One skill we didn’t need to learn in school, but one that can be crucial in life, is how to “un-assign” something – when to let go of tasks that have languished too long. If you don’t get an assignment done, it is possible in the world of work for that task to hang on literally until you die. And that is exhausting. But deciding to let go of something can be difficult. Try making a rule for yourself. If a task hasn’t been done in a month, take it off your list. Clearly it doesn’t have to be done. The proof of that is that it wasn’t done and you’re still here to tell about it. One time management system that is particularly effective at training its users to let go of undone tasks is Mark Forster’s Super Focus process, which requires that tasks be either worked on or dismissed – no loitering on the task list allowed!

For those of us who enjoyed school and were rewarded as good students, our entrepreneurial selves have a few things to unlearn once we leave the ivy-covered walls of school.

What have you had to unlearn in order to build a business you love?

Show yourself some love!

How can I motivate and reward myself when I am both the boss and the employee?

So, one of the skills I teach in my Plan to Thrive productivity program is how to use a four-month rolling plan to keep up your momentum. And one essential part of the rolling plan is a way to reward success.

One of the most difficult parts for some people is designing a reward that is truly motivating and appropriate. It is an exercise in knowing oneself better. Crazy, right? You’d think we’d always know what we like, what we want, what moves us. But we often don’t.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve worked with people who say, being able to pay my bills will be my reward! (Would that launch you out of bed? Me, neither. Covers, meet head.)

Or there’s what I call “the Mercedes Syndrome,” which causes otherwise creative people to resort to some luxury trinket that really won’t motivate them at all. Sometimes those trinkets even bring more problems than rewards. (Can you say “repair costs?”)

And here’s my own recent story: In January I made a four-month rolling plan that included doing something  important. Not fun, not richly rewarding, but difficult, necessary, and important. I thought about what I would give myself when I achieved this milestone. And things began to get a little bit interesting.

Some typical rewards — a massage, a new adventure such as my recent sky-dive, a red briefcase, gold glasses, a weekend away — seemed all wrong for this assignment. I needed something that would respect the difficult aspects of my assignment and not cheapen my effort with trivial rewards.

I sat with the question for as long as it took (often the key to success.) And finally it hit me: I envisioned a group of professional women whom I admire joining me for a social occasion, like afternoon tea, and celebrating the completion of my gnarly goal.

Yes, that was it. To receive their support and the looks that I anticipated around that tea table, I was willing to keep moving until the thing was done.

I didn’t finish in the winter or spring, but by the end of summer, it was complete.

And then I hit a wall. I found it more difficult to invite my friends to tea than I had found jumping out of an airplane at 15,000 feet. Entrepreneurship is nothing if not an education in self-knowledge.

I enlisted the help of a friend, who coaxed me through the process of setting a date and making the invitation for my reward. And it was perfect.

Last Friday I sat at a corner table in Lovejoy’s Tea Room in San Francisco surrounded by some of the most interesting women you could ever meet:

Marnie Reasor, homeopathic practitioner (check back soon to see her new website!)

Helen Ingwersen, professional organizer for San Mateo, Santa Clara, and other parts of the San Francisco Peninsula

Katherine Krebs, meeting planner extraordinaire

Olivia Kuser, artist/gardener/savvy auntie, and all-around wise and beautiful voice

Deborah Frangquist, vocations coach

Yuriko Romer, documentary filmmaker whose project about the most famous woman in judo was recently funded on Kickstarter

Kathy Wadill, author of one of my very favorite organizing books

As I looked around the table, I thought of the women who were not able to join us, and the inspiration of their work was part of my reward, too.

I considered taking a photo of the group around the table to share with my readers, but decided against it. The experience was the reward; no photos necessary. But trust me, it was a beautiful sight!

With NAPO founder Ann Gambrel, 2011

On October 15 I’m teaming up with Geralin Thomas, owner of Metropolitan Organizing and expert organizer from A&E’s Hoarders, to present a workshop especially for newer organizers and those who are wondering whether organizing might be right for them.

It’s called “Building an Organizing Business You’ll Love,” and we have packed so much information into this workshop that one conference session isn’t enough to hold it all! (More on that later…)

Whether you’re still in the planning stages or whether you’ve already begun to work with clients, this session will help newer organizers make the right moves, in the right order, to build a successful and sustainable organizing business. You’ll learn why it’s important to choose a business focus, how to begin developing a written plan (one you’ll really use!), one never-fail method to begin finding clients, and what business tools you’ll need to serve those clients in a professional manner.

Does that sound like almost too much for one conference session? That’s what we thought! But Geralin and I want you to get the information and tools you need, so we’ll be offering two group coaching opportunities at no charge to everyone who attends our workshop. That way, you’ll have multiple chances to ask follow-up questions and get live help to begin putting your plans into action.

This session is part of the West Coast organizing conference sponsored by NAPO-SFBA, but you don’t need to be a member of the San Francisco chapter or of NAPO in order to attend. This conference is open to anyone who is an aspiring, new or veteran professional organizer or seller of organizing-related products and services.

The cost for this entire one-day conference, including lunch, is $365, and NAPO members get a discount. Registration is still available, but it’s filling up fast, so don’t wait. To get all the details and to register, visit NAPO-SFBA and click on the button at the top that says “Events” then “Regional Conference.” You can download the whole gorgeous brochure that describes all the programs being offered throughout the day at the beautiful Berkeley City Club.

Geralin and I hope to see many of you there!