A simple yet powerful behavior that produces great value #GTD

#GTD Collect/Organize Dynamic

The primary question I bring to a parent/teacher conference

Calendar & looking forward habit

Legend:
ES = Elementary School
MS = Middle School
HS = High School

Using a calendar to cultivate a looking forward habit is a great game to play with your kids, especially in the early years.  It introduces them to the concept of time.  I think the key is to have a healthy dose of fun stuff to talk about to get them excited about coming to this magical tool we call a calendar.

"Hey, look here.  I see your birthday is one month away!"
"Wow, only 1 week until your birthday!"
"Your friend is coming over for a play date in 2 days."
"I see the school dance is next Friday."
"If you could plan a cool trip this summer (3 months away), what would it be?"

If you start in the early years, when you get the the later years you won't have to introduce "here is a calendar and here is how you use it."  It will be natural - hopefully mystical and magical, too.

Baseball, GTD, Playing with checklists

(Fixed technical problems with last post. Thank you Duece)

We live in the Northeast so our baseball season is just getting underway (we still have snow on the ground!). I don't know about you but spring is a very hectic time for our family. There are a ton of school events, spring sports and more.

One of the things that keeps me busy is coaching my son's baseball team. Our routine looks like this:
- I leave work
- I drive home
- I pick up my son
- We drive to practice... oops, what do you mean you can't find your socks? Your hat, too?... we are late
(that was last year)

This year I thought, "Hey, another good opportunty for a checklist! Also, a good time to create a 'target' area for all our baseball 'stuff.'" Helping kids create checklists and creating a named space for stuff has really worked for our family. This was a fun GTD moment that was light, playful and meaningful. We are off to a good start!

Seeing R.E.D.S. = up to date GTD system, great tip from Meg Edwards

Pandora's Box versus Sanctuary: "Mom, Dad... can I have a cell phone?"

This question is coming at you faster than you know it. Many of you are already there. You can also substitute iPod Touch, computers, TVs, Wiis, Xboxes and more.

Are these good ideas or bad ideas? Honestly, I am not sure. There is always a new technology introduced where the "good versus bad" debates rage on.

I wanted to share with you a simple rule that we have used with our kids since day one that seems to be working well. Our rule is built around the idea of "sanctuary." We define it as a place where you can be the real you. Where can you be the real you?  Where can you escape the influence of YouTube, texting, Skype, gmail, Google Buzz, Facebook, Twitter, your friends, your family?  Where can you get closer to your own thoughts?  In our house, the best answer to this question is... in your bedroom.

So, to tame Pandora's "technology" box we came up with this family golden rule:

You can use technology downstairs. We reserve upstairs as our technology free sanctuary - especially our bedrooms.

Interestingly, it has given the kids (and adults) a reason to leave the distractions of the digital world behind. We enter a space that, by design, has no digital distractions pulling on them. As they say, "form equals function." In this space you will find books, toys, journals and the comforts of your bedroom.  My timing on this was lucky.  We created the rule before the kids already had technology in their rooms.

We set up and use our technology in the "public" spaces of our home. As parents, this allows us to see what is going on and engage in conversation.  This creates many teaching moments (that go both ways!).

This simple rule has been on my mind for a while and I've wanted to share it with my Zone by Zone friends.

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Now, the other thing that has been on my mind is my blogging. You may or may not know that David Allen has invited me and Meg Edwards to co-author a book with him on the topic of GTD for kids/family. A very exciting project!

This is taking most of my focus and time. But I've resolved to get back to doodling and writing for the Zone by Zone blog. So please do check back from time to time.

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

And how do you deal with obstacles?

I walked past this tree today and the following thoughts flowed through my mind:

- Some times we have obstacles
- Integrate
- Embrace
- Create something new that will make people stop and think








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I love using GTD to plan the summer with the kids. Fun stuff! (video)

Summer is upon us here. I love using the question, "What do you want to do - or turn into reality - by the end of this summer?" as an opportunity to practice the GTD principles of "Capture" and "Outcome Thinking" with the kids. I put my new Flip camera to the test as I capture our process on video.

We are in typical Saturday form here. The video pretty is relaxed and real time - thank goodness for baseball hats to hide the bed head!

Here is the video. I hope you enjoy it.



Capture Gear

You will see we continue to use our standard 3x5 cards as our standard capture gear. I have these things stuffed everywhere (on the table at breakfast, in our cars, next to the kids beds). The kids have really taken to using them for all forms of capture and play. After all shouldn't capture be play?

Breakfast with the kids (My First Blog Video)

I can check "create video blog" off my project list. I finally did it!

This is a video of our setup for our morning breakfast routine. Pretty simple to do and the results of "capturing" ideas and pictures with the kids is always entertaining and great fun.

We've got quite a stack of cards going now. I am thinking about putting them in a time capsule and sharing them with them in 5 to 10 years. (oooh... that is a good thought that is not yet on my project list. Got to capture that one!)