What's the next action

The Dave and me on CNN!

09 02 07 - 19:05 - Bookmark this post

A couple of days ago I was approached by an editor of CNN for an email interview about my weblog. It would be used in an article about GTD and David Allen. I just got a message that the article is online. From the whole interview, only a couple of lines are used. It's a nice article, but to give you the whole picture, here is the complete emailinterview with David Williams from CNN.

1) Tell me a little bit about yourself? Where in the Netherlands do you live? What do you do for a living? How old are you? That sort of thing

I am 33 tears old and live in Utrecht, in the middle of The Netherlands. I am a Brand Director at Rhinofly (rhinofly.nl), a dutch internet communications agency. I have been involved in the dutch weblogcommunity since 2000 and have been active in writing for a dutch weblogmagazine ( aboutblank.nl) and the organisation of the Dutch Weblogawards, the Dutch Bloggies (dutchbloggies.nl)

2) Tell me a little about your blog. How long have you been doing it? Do you just blog in English? Why did you decide to start blogging about GTD?

My blog Whatsthenextaction.com (WTNA) has been online since november 2005 (In which I am wrong, it should be november 2004! - FM). I have had, and still have some other blogs. I have been active since 2000 with a personal weblog that is offline now. At Rhinofly we also have a company weblog ( frank-ly.nl) where I am very active and last but not least, I also keep a weblog about my new born daughter.
All these blogs are written in Dutch, except for WTNA. I started blogging about GTD because I read the book and found a wealth of information online I wanted to share with and transfer to others. Also, the book made me want to implement GTD in my own professional and personal life and I felt a weblog was the appropriate way for me to track my development. I started writing in english because of two reasons. I always wanted to write a blog in another language than Dutch because of the larger possible audience and to train myself in another language. The other reason is because a lot information is already available in English it was easy for me to connect to that in the same language (comments, trackbacks, links) so I decided to write in English.

3) How long have you been doing GTD? How did you learn about it in the Netherlands

GTD actually came to me in one of those "cosmic happening of coincidences". I was not happy with the way my life was organized. I always felt I was running behind the facts, projects were running sloppy...I am a big reader of weblogs and for some reason, I came across two articles in the same week describing GTD and the book by David Allen. I read some more about it and about personal productivity in general. I decided to order the book at Amazon and give it a try. It stayed untouched on my desk for three months or so. I was too busy with other things to actually start the book. But one evening I started and I read it front to back in 2 evenings. And I was converted. I really felt a connection with the GTD principle and I understood how it might help me. And besides that, things could only get better productivity-speaking so why not give it a go? So I started implementing the principle one step at a time while also starting up my weblog. I am still working on implementing GTD. Recently I wrote an article where I explain it really takes up to two years to really understand the principle and to start grasping the bigger picture. It is dead easy to get an in-tray, labeller and some folders. But to understand the meaning and the background of it all. It truly is a martial art :-)

4) Why do you think David Allen is so popular with bloggers? What about it makes it so attractive to tech community

I have been thinking about that and I feel there are some elements in GTD and David Allen that makes it attractive

1. David names the tools. He talks about the labeller, folders, In-tray etc. All standard tools for any office warrior. But it's also a starting point to tweak, hack and play with those tools. How can you most effectively use this in-tray? How do you design your desk layout so everything is in perfect place and form? They are all simple tools you can get anywhere. So it's easy to play with them
2. It is a very yes/no driven principle. The core of GTD lies around the question "Is there an action involved?" and this only knows two answers. Yes or No. One or Zero. It is a very mechanical-like approach of a human problem. But that is the surface. As I said above, the core principle of GTD is more fluent and martial arts than just "follow the five steps and find Zen like peace". But you find this hidden layer once you worked and played with the mechanical top layer
3. The principle leaves parts open for discussion and personal involvement. It doesn't really say "you should first do this in this manner and do that in that manner" It gives direction. Better yet, it gives control and perspective on your work and your life. How you fill this is your own choice. I think this really resonates with a techie crowd for some reason.
4. Cosmic coincidence :-) But the main reason, I think all pieces just came together on the right time at the right moment. If David Allen released his book in the 70's, the following might have been very different. If someone else came along a couple of years earlier than David Allen with a similar principle, it also might have created an online following. When the book was released, the internet was also changing. New ventures, web 2.0 if you may, came along and we all started suffering from information overload. Along comes this guy from California with a magic cure against this overload. The webcommunity embraces it and because of the mechanical toplayer, creates webservices and applications around the GTD principle. The David Allen Company is also very active online with forum, GTD Connect, blogs etc. This makes the connection even stronger.

Like this article? Subscribe to the RSS feed! Used tags: cnn, gtd, interview, lifehacks, productivity

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Wow, well done! Congratulations, my friend!
Brett - 09 02 07 - 22:20

Hi Frank,

Congrats! Mr. Williams approached me also but backed off when I refused to reveal my identity :/
Not that I have any secrets, let’s just say that I’m careful on the internet for personal reasons :)
I never heard anything from him again…

Too bad he took only a little piece from your elaborate answer to him!

Never mind though, you are mentioned in one article alongside The David… cool! :)

-gtdfrk
gtdfrk - 09 02 07 - 22:33

Super impressive – well done!
Matthew Cornell - 09 02 07 - 23:55

Frank, thanks very much for your willingness to participate and share your experience with GTD. It’s been part of my vision for many years to be able to play with a global group of radical non-joiners who could find each other and “not-join” with each other to share best practices and a like direction and energy. Obviously you’re one of those! My only regret is not being able to be in a zillion places at once to hook up with all the folks who’ve resonated with my GTD approach. In any case, we’ll certainly stay in touch however we both best can do that… and again, thanks for being willing to play with the media over here that seem to have found a story in our story. – David
David Allen - 10 02 07 - 05:57

Hey Frank,

Cool to see your comments in this well written story.

Congrats, – Taco
Taco Oosterkamp - 10 02 07 - 09:06

Hey all

Thanks for the nice comments. As gtdfrk already mentioned, more people play a role in the article. Ethan Schoonover from Kinkless GTD talks about his app and Ed Eubanks gives a comment about how he uses GTD. Make sure you check out his columns on ATPM! Very indepth!

And ofcourse, thank you David for your nice comments and insights on your vision for a global network. Glad to be part of it!
Frank Meeuwsen - 10 02 07 - 13:03

[...] In a brief interview at CNN.com best-selling author David Allen presents the core ideas of his simple but effective productivity system called GTD (Getting Things Done) and even a fellow blogger, Frank Meeuwsen from the Netherlands got the chance to contribute to the article. [...]
Dennis - 10 02 07 - 18:01

Frank,

thanks for the comment at “A Pile of Coins”, I’ve added the link to this interview to my article.

[...] Since CNN only published a few lines, Frank posted the whole interview at his blog [...]
Dennis - 10 02 07 - 23:28

Congratulations. I am most impressed. :-)

I note you speak of November 2005 as the start of your blog, but the archives stretch back to November 2004.
Pascal Venier - 11 02 07 - 22:24

@Pascal: You’re right….I already found that out but didn’t edit it. Untill now :-)
Frank Meeuwsen - 11 02 07 - 23:12

Great post, Frank. They should have used more of your interview. I posted about your interview, with my thoughts, in my article, Why is GTD so popular?:

http://zenhabits.blogspot.com/2007/02/wh..

Keep up the great work, Frank!
Leo - 12 02 07 - 05:49

Hi Frank! I use the GTD method for a few years now and just got the idea to organize a training for my team members to teach it. Started to google and I didn’t realize that the GTD scene has grown so much in the meantime. Great to see you’re quoted at CNN.com and you have a post of the Daid Allen on your blog too! I’m impressed and even more motivated now to spread the GTD word!
All the best – and by the way congratulations with your daughter!

Edwin
Edwin Nieuwenhuyse - 14 02 07 - 21:07

Ha, cool! And what a nice incoming link from CNN.com, thinks my search marketing brain…
Ruben Timmerman - 14 02 07 - 21:15

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Frank Meeuwsen