Getting Things Done (GTD) and ADD

Although I probably would have never thought of this myself, it seems a natural match:  ADD and GTD.  Meg Edwards, a coach at The David Allen Company, her article makes a pretty good case that GTD would be a great way of helping the child/adult struggling with ADD to stay organized and on task.  Let’s face it; don’t we all suffer from this just a little?

A Quick Afternoon Pick-Me-Up

I discovered a great afternoon pick-me-up recently that I felt I should share. If you’re like me you often get that mid-afternoon slump where you feel just a little less motivated than normal. Maybe you have a meeting to lead or a presentation to make in the afternoon and you feel less than confident or have a lack of “gusto”. Well, I have found that doing a quick tidying up does a world of good for me.

Let me explain. One recent afternoon, about 2:30 or 3:00 I was finishing up completing the last stage of my caffeine processing when, standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom I noticed how out-of-whack my shirt was. Naturally, not wanting to look like a slob, I completely un-tucked my shirt, tucked it in nice and neat. It was then that I noticed one of my shoes was coming untied, so I bent down and retied tied it. Of course, you can’t just tie one shoe because then one is tight and one is loose, so I tied the other. Suddenly, with my freshly-tucked shirt and tightly tied shoes, I had a new burst of energy and confidence. I’m not 100% sure why this works, but I have tried it several times since then and it hasn’t failed me yet.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

How To: Remember Names After Meetings

If you work for a company that has lots of meetings with lots of different people and have the same trouble remembering names as I do, I have a great tip for you. Over at his blog, Gurno.com, Adam Gurno has posted a great tool for remembering those names. I used to use this at a previous job when I had meetings with people that I didn’t often interact with. It works really well and is very simple. Basically, the idea is to draw a rough map of the meeting area and map out where each person is sitting. This way you can have a mental image of which face was where and a hard copy of each name in each position to go with it. That way when you see one of your meeting participants again you have a better shot at remembering their name.

I used to employ this method my simply drawing the table and participants either at the top of my paper or in the margin. I would suggest being subtle about this and let everyone believe that you’re just really good with names and faces.

Adam expands on the basics of this method with some very good ideas, so it’s definitely worth checking out.