Priacta

What’s the best strategy for personal, business, or career growth in a rapidly-changing world? What’s Priacta up to right now? The same answer addresses both questions. This quick article will give you an instant life, productivity, and business skill and provide insight into our company.

As innovation and better communication accelerate the pace of change, how do you survive and even thrive? To find the answer, first recognize that programs (specific approaches) change, but principles (fundamental truths packaged for application) remain more-or-less invariant. Look for correct principles and live by them.

Here’s one powerful principle for success in a sea of change.

Golden Opportunities, Sudden Threats

Donald Sull’s 2005 Harvard Business Review article (”Strategy as Active Waiting“) points out that golden opportunities are essential to success. However, they come rarely and you can’t force them. You can only 1) watch for them, actively scanning the horizon, 2) prepare so you have resources to seize them as they arise, then 3) commit those resources at the right moment.

Simple, powerful, relaxed strategy. However, timing is everything. Windows of opportunity open and close quickly, so you have to be ready, you have to act fast, and you also have to choose your opportunities carefully.

Donald also points out that sudden threats also arise and have to be addressed head on or else. In my experience, threats and opportunities appear simultaneously with increasing frequency. Innovate or languish. Apply now or other job candidates will do it instead. That’s the nature of competition, and competition, in business, creates a better world for everyone. Compare the level of service you receive from many government agencies with the level of service you receive from companies in highly competitive markets. Which do you prefer?

So how do you prepare and respond to these opportunities and threats? [Click here to read the rest of the article...]

Client Question: “I feel like I’m spinning my wheels, not really accomplishing the big things in life. My goals are not clarified or mapped out, and I don’t have a system in place that allows me to see that I am moving along, that I am progressing. What’s the answer?”

Coach Answer: Although you do need to identify and write down life goals, you need more than that to really move forward. The easier the approach, the more likely your success—if your approach is sound. With Total, Relaxed Organization training (which simplifies and improves on basic GTD principles) you just need to add two simple things to start realizing the progress and accomplishment you’re missing. Here they are. [Click here to reach your goals with less effort...]

Q: “I have an email that I want to send as a task to somebody else. How can I do this?”

A: Before I explain how to do it, let me caution as a productivity coach. Just making a task show up in someone’s task list isn’t always the best idea. It’s usually best to forward the email and ask them to accept the assignment.

If you’re not getting good results that way, then their email handling and/or workflow management may need help, and I’d recommend TRO training for them. TRO is a highly simplified yet more powerful approach to GTD principles, and it’s as little as $59. See Tim Kwiatkowski’s great review of TRO for an overview.

So what exactly are the problems with auto-assigning tasks to people, and how do you tell when it might work for you? [Read more...]

Probably the easiest place to get distracted (and waste time) is surfing the Internet. Hyperlinks lead everywhere, and there are so many interesting things to read and watch and do. This is a huge time drain for the typical person, and if you struggle with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) it can be almost insurmountable.

So how can you conquer these distractions? I have a couple suggestions to share in this and future posts. Here’s the first. (Read More…)

Image by Gabriella Fabbri.

Trog Bar displays your meeting agendas automatically, at the right times, if you process tasks and appointments correctly. It’s easy once you get the hang of it. Here’s how to make it work.

First, remember that Total, Relaxed Organization and GTD teach you to assign contexts and/or categories to your tasks when you process them. We refer to this as tagging. With that in mind, we’re ready for the rules for agendas in Trog Bar. [Read More...]

It must be the best-kept secret of Microsoft Outlook.

Many of my coaching clients are floored when I show them how to create tasks from email in Outlook. They say, “Wow, that was worth the whole $900 [cost of Premium Remote Coaching]” or “Nobody in our organization knew how to do that!” That last one came from a brilliant guy in a huge firm with a lot of IT support staff. It seems easy to some, but others don’t know it’s even possible.

Honestly, tips like this help, but they aren’t the real point of Priacta’s coaching and training. Principles, like those we teach in Total, Relaxed Organization, are invariant and apply anywhere. Tools, on the other hand, are just helps for applying principles effectively, and tips are usually just smart ways to use tools. Tools change, but principles are permanent. (See our 4-faceted training model for an idea of how they interrelate.)

So here’s the free, $900* answer. Hopefully this tip will help you work faster, so you can focus on more important things, like really getting control of your time and tasks. [Read More...]

Change is hard. So how do you stack the deck in your favor when you’re trying to make and sustain productivity changes (like learning Total, Relaxed Organization or GTD, or breaking an unproductive time use habit)? A slick, free, and effective tool called RescueTime is your powerful ally in changing time use. As a productivity coach, I love this tool, both for myself and my clients.

Run, don’t walk, and install RescueTime now. I mean it. [Read More...]

The president of a large organization once related that Frances, his beloved wife, fell down the stairs and lapsed into a coma. He was gravely concerned and took up vigil by her bedside. For about 18 days she lay motionless, not moving a single muscle. He cried, as did the children and grandchildren. Then one day her eyes opened, and he raced to her side. He said, “You’re back. I love you.” She replied, “I love you, too, Tom, but we’re in serious trouble.” He thought, What do you know about trouble, Frances? She said, “I forgot to mail in our fourth-quarter income tax payment.”

If tasks are constantly on your mind or cause stress, your time management system needs adjustment. Tasks weigh on your mind when you aren’t confident that you will be reminded at the right time. In GTD or TRO parlance, that particular task still isn’t collected or processed adequately. What can you do about it? [Read More...]

Evernote is a universal note-capturing and organizing system. It is now free and—surprise!—gaining popularity. Their 3.0 Web version was recently released for public beta. (You need an invitation to beta test it, ask me for an invite if you need one.)

So what can you do with it?

Who should use it?

[Read More...]

GTD and Total, Relaxed Organization (TRO) teach simple processes for relaxed control of your tasks AND the stuff that accumulates in your life.

However, it’s common to read David Allen’s great book, collect everything to a massive “Inbox,” and get stuck. This can also happen to TRO trainees if their Self Training is interrupted or technical glitches crop up.

Whether it’s due to uncertainty or interruptions, that huge pile looms and weighs on your mind. What do you do? [Read More...]

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