GTD - Robert Talbert, Ph.D.

Nothing works without review

The last piece of the Summer Challenge is about making all the habits work via the review process.

Two important questions about Inbox Zero

The Inbox Zero concept elicits a broad range of responses from academics, mostly negative. Here are the two most important questions we can ask about it.

GTD

My 2021 productivity setup: Part 2

Part 2 of an update on my GTD setup, focusing on the tactical side with an analog twist.

GTD

My 2021 productivity setup: Part 1

Part 1 of an update on my GTD setup, focusing on the digital/strategic side.

Academia

Working in context

So you made a Next Actions list. How do you decide which actions to do? The constraints on those actions give us a clue.

Academia

Working mindfully with projects

How do you give appropriate attention to things you want to do, that require multiple steps?

Balance

Clarifying what you captured

Anything that we capture in our attention needs clarification about what it means to us. Here's a process for doing that.

Summer Challenge

Building the habit of Capturing

We kick off the Summer Challenge by building the habit of ubiquitous capture.

Academia

Introducing the Summer Challenge

This summer I'm starting a weekly series focused on building habits, practices, and mindsets to inoculate against burnout and exhaustion in the Fall.

Academia

Using OKRs for better goal setting

The concept of OKRs (objectives and key results) is a healthier and more productive approach to goal-setting than traditional methods.

GTD

On building a practice of writing

Some thoughts on how to build a consistent practice of writing.

GTD

How GTD has helped me during the pandemic

Getting Things Done (GTD) has played a big role in helping me not just survive but sort of thrive during the last year.

Productivity

(Repost) Planning as an act of hope

How do you approach planning short- and long-term goals, when you have no idea what the next 120 days will be like, or even if you'll be around at the end of it?

Leadership

The urgent and the important

Distinguishing between the urgent and the important, and having the discipline to work on important tasks that aren't urgent, is a critical and difficult task.

GTD

The current state of my GTD tool setup

Here's where I have landed in terms of my tool set for GTD: the tactical and the strategic.

Productivity

Morning and afternoon rituals for peace and productivity

Rituals and routines provide structure and motivation for life and work. Here are morning and afternoon routines I've adopted that I've found helpful.

Flipped learning

Managing time in flipped learning

Three aspects of appropriate time management when running a flipped learning environment.

GTD

My GTD reboot part 3: Getting Apps Done

In part 3 of my GTD reboot series, we look at GTD software applications and how I choose them.

GTD

GTD Reboot part 2: Workflows

In this second post of a series on rethinking GTD: How do changes in philosophy lead to changes in workflows?

GTD

My GTD reboot, part 1: Rethinking the system

Recent events have caused me to completely rethink how I'm using the Getting Things Done philosophy. First of a three-part mini-series.

Productivity

Working in a semester that's one month long

How I'm learning to love constraints, as I put an entire semester's work into a single month sprint.

Productivity

Planning as an act of hope

How do you approach planning short- and long-term goals, when you have no idea what the next 120 days will be like, or even if you'll be around at the end of it?

GTD

Start the semester at Inbox Zero

Professors joke about drowning in email, but it's a problem that hampers our professional work. Here's how to get to Inbox Zero and stay there.

Productivity

Grading with GTD

How can we get academic grading under control so it doesnt take over our lives? The core habits of Getting Things Done can help.

Productivity

Using Google Drive, Mendeley, Evernote, and Trello to manage a remote collaborative research project

In working on a major literature review project for my sabbatical with a remote collaborator, I rigged several useful online resources together to provide a usable framework to get the work done.