NewHabits Programs in Kingston and Port of Spain

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I’ll be offering my live programs in Kingston and Port of Spain this year, on the following dates:

Kingston:  Thursday March 4th

Port of Spain:   Thursday and Friday March 25-26

Both programs include 6 weeks of e-learning that starts right after the class is concluded.  For more information simply click on the above links and you’ll be taken straight into a page with a short video explaining what the classes are all about.

Why GTD is Like My Mother’s Recipe for Ox-tail Stew

istock_000011945640xsmall.jpgRecently on Facebook, I had the chance to answer a question about my motivations for creating my recent video:  Permanently Fixing the Weekly Review.

Here was my original post:

I just finished a video that focuses of fixing the problems many of us have been having with the weekly review. It calls for a major upgrade in time management
systems based on systems that use lists, like GTD
®. I’d love to hear
your thoughts! http://mytimedesign.com/wordpress/fixing-the-weekly-review/

Here was the response I got from Coach Kelly, who works with GTD®, I believe.

Getting Things Done – Official GTD Page

Coach Kelly here–Francis, perhaps it’s just me, but I can’t tell if you are a fan of GTD or not? Your approach seems to be about what’s wrong with GTD. It’s fine to realize GTD does not work for you (it’s not for everyone) but does there have to be something wrong with GTD (or other approaches) for your approach to work? Seems like a negative approach.

Here was my response:

When I bumped into some limitations I was forced to do some things differently — which I think most people do at some point. Then the game changed for me — instead of trying to “follow it” I started to use what I learned from it and other systems as the starting point in upgrading to a system that worked for me.

But I’m no different from most people, I think. Only a few people are able to follow the system perfectly — most have to make their own modifications to fit their life, culture, job, family situation, techno-savviness, etc.

In the case of the video I just did, there are lots of people having trouble with the weekly review (as I did), and it happens when the number of time demands they have to deal with exceeds their ability to use GTD’s recommendations around “scheduling” and “listing.” That doesn’t happen for everyone, but it happens for many people, some of whom could benefit from the “re-balancing” I talk about.

Now…. that might be WAY too much of an answer for a Wall post… hope it doesn’t take up the whole page!!! LOL 

I didn’t quite say everything I wanted to, due to space limitations and I thought I’d add a bit here that might illuminate the angle that the 2Time blog takes.  It involves Jamaican ox-tail stew.

When I was a broke university student, I was forced to start cooking for myself one summer to preserve cash.  A friend convinced me that cooking Jamaican food wasn’t that hard (even for a beginner like myself) and  I called home to get some recipes, including one for my Mom’s Jamaican ox-tail stew.

I followed her recipe as closely as one could given the distance between Kingston and Ithaca, NY.  The result was close enough… a good tasting ox-tail stew.  Kinda like what I remembered.

That was in 1986.

Over time, I actually learned how to be a better cook, and eventually learned to follow the recipe more closely, replicating more of it by using better ingredients.

However, the time came when I wanted to cook ox-tail using my own recipe, not my mother’s.  When I had learned some more about the fundamental principles of cooking I experimented a bit and over the years I developed my own recipe, which is spicier and sweeter than hers.

I still love hers… but I wouldn’t trade it for mine.

Getting Things Done, or GTD®, and ALL the time management systems that I have found in books, tapes, websites, programs etc. are all about selling good recipes for time management.  They tell you exactly what to do, in excruciating details at times, and lay out the exact steps that must be followed in order to implement them.

Of all the commercial systems I have found, GTD® offers the best recipe to follow.

However, I think it’s more powerful to each people how to cook… or in other words, how to craft their own time management system, or upgrade.

What I have tried to do here on the 2Time blog and in the NewHabits and MyTimeDesign programs is to do just that — teach people how to do their own upgrades — in the belief that when people know the fundamentals of how stuff works, they are empowered.

This seems to be particularly true in the field of time management, which is about building habits, rather than selecting cooking ingredients.

Our habits are personal… and idiosyncratic.   We each have our own, and the vast majority find them difficult to upgrade. With better understanding comes more success, and systems that work better because they match our individual needs and habit-patterns.

Cookbooks and recipes are much easier to change… simply add another tablespoon of salt, and take away the pimento, while substituting fresh onions for onion powder, and a different result is produced in a matter of minutes or hours.

Perhaps it goes without saying that habits, on the other hand, take a long time to change.  Simply handing someone a fresh set of habits to follow in a new system isn’t enough.  Most people respond by instantly customizing  what they are given into something that they can actually use without being overwhelmed.

Unfortunately, this blog is the only one that I know of that aims to help people learn the fundamentals of time management, in order to be able to take charge of, upgrade and implement their own system.

Hmm… that sounds a bit arrogant.

Here’s a better way to say it:  This blog is the only one that accurately describes what people are already doing… taking charge of , upgrading and implementing their own time management systems.  Precious few are picking up commercial systems and implementing them as they are designed, and instead they are doing thing THEIR way… to paraphrase Frank Sinatra.

So, at the end of the day, I love my mother’s recipe for ox-tail, and I love GTD®.  I just don’t follow either set of instructions any longer.

They simply aren’t substitutes for what I can do on my own, now that I understand how to cook, and how to upgrade my own time management system.

P.S. Here is the link to the GTD® Facebook group:  http://www.facebook.com/gettingthingsdone

 

Mission Control Productivity, FranklinCovey, GTD and Getting Things Done are registered trademarks of the David Allen Company (davidco.com.)  2Time is not affiliated with or endorsed by the David Allen Company, Mission Control Productivity or FranklinCovey.

I Just Closed The MyTimeDesign Store

Yesterday morning, I closed the doors over at the MyTimeDesign store.

MyTimeDesign 1.0.Free and MyTimeDesign 2.0.Professional are no longer available to the general public but I do plan to offer both products again in the near future (after making a few upgrades to the 2.0 product… perhaps to a 2.1.)

It  was a great experience, and I was able to put together a series of new videos for public consumption – something I have never done before.  I found that I loved doing them, as they helped me to explain some tricky ideas in a much clearer way than ever before, and I plan to do more of them in the future.

At the moment, however, I am changing gears to teaching and coaching mode so that I can deliver these courses in a way that inspires the participants to actual habit change!

I’m pretty excited — the truth is that I don’t like the selling anywhere near as much as I do teaching — and I can’t wait to get started.  The First class is a small and intimate one so we can get a lot done to upgrade each person’s time management system.

I’ll be in the class as well, looking to upgrade some parts of my own system that will take me to an Orange Belt.  At the moment, I don’t have a good enough system for at least one of the fundamentals – “Warning.”

I’m looking forward to all of it!

P.S. If you’d like to be placed on the early notification list for the next release of MyTimeDesign, simply click here to be taken to the MyTimeDesign signup form.

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Fixing the Weekly Review Video

Many people have a major challenge in dealing with their weekly reviews – that portion of time that many set aside to review the time demands in their time management systems.

These reviews simply aren’t getting done to our satisfaction.  They are often set aside as a dull chore because they end up taking much too long.

In response to some of the struggles being experienced, I put together a 28 minute video that takes a deep dive into the problem.  It’s creating quite a stir, because I argue that an over-reliance on lists of various kinds is actually the cause of the issue.  (Essentially I share some of what I learned when I had to confront the same problem.)

This sounds simple enough, except that there are a LOT of people who love lists, and there are many time management systems that are built around lists of different kinds.

I have never heard anyone say the things I say in this video, hence some of the stir that it’s caused.  A few sacred cows are being threatened (and you’ll see that my ideas run against “sacred” ideas of some!)

This is no small set of superficial ideas that you have heard before.  In fact,  I probably should have saved this content for a pdf report.  It’s pretty meaty, and those of you who really like thinking deeply about time management will see where I had to make some statements that I simply didn’t have the time to prove in depth… you’ll what I mean.

Check it out… and let me know what you think.  Click here to be taken to this free video — no registration is required.

P.S.  It’s a 28 min video, so I just had a transcript made for those who prefer to read new ideas rather than listen.

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My Free and Professional Programs – Still Available

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks, as I have opened the store over at MyTimeDesign.

The good news is that the store remains open until February 12th.  At that point, my plan is to close it down, and remove the products from the open market.  I’ll be offering it to some of my private clients who I coach in small groups in companies.

So if you’d like to give yourself the chance to register in MyTimeDesign… act soon.

The information page can be found by clicking here:  http://mytimedesign.com/registration/

These aren’t big programs by any means, and there’s actually an application that’s required to enter MyTimeDesign 2.0.Professional — something that might seem kinda stupid, but check out the information page and you’ll see why I’m limiting the program in this way to a select few.

However, all that’s required to do the MyTimeDesign 1.0.Free program is an email address, so it should cost most people basically nothing.

I’m going to throw in some bonuses early next week for those who are interested in the Professional program, so stay tuned!
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