David Allen Recap: 10X Your Productivity

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there.

Welcome back to the Lead On Purpose podcast. It's that time when I drop the key leadership highlights from our previous full length episode. We were fortunate enough to have the amazing David Allen join us. David is the founder and CEO of the GTD method, the Getting Things Done method. Time magazine heralded his book as the self help Leadership book of its time. Now he is the leading expert in productivity, there's no doubt about that. And in chatting with him in our episode, you know, we went deep on how his methodology actually works. And you know what? It's so simple. It is a really simple system and if you take the time to implement it, it can have profound impact on your personal and professional life. And I know when you're out there leading your life, leading your family, maybe even leading a team, that time is of the essence. Certainly one of the big things when I have a CEO come to me or a leader of some description that I'm about to work with, it's a potential client. One of the big things they want me to help them resolve is time management. But time and time again would prove that they don't need help with time management. They need help with life management, me management them, self management. It's the individual, it's not the time. Time is fixed. Time is what it is, right? But it's the individual that needs the help. And this methodology, I really resonate with it because it's simple and it's impactful. So I want to share with you three key takeaways before I do. So please do me a massive favor. Please take a moment to leave a rating and review. It might take 30 seconds or 40 seconds, but honestly, it really helps me to grow the podcast. I've been running this show for about a year and a half now. Been really, really fortunate to interview some phenomenal people. And I know some of you have reached out to me privately, in person or via message to say how some of the guests and some of the shows have really impacted your thinking and Your leadership. So it's my turn to really ask you for a huge favor. Please take turns, just a moment to leave a rating and a review. It really helps me to impact more leaders and to grow the reach of the show. So first big takeaway is this ambient anxiety creates the subliminal stress that most professionals endure. So ambient anxiety, it's just in the background, it's constant, never goes away. It's always there. And what David was saying was that ambient anxiety is often created because we're not emptying our heads. We're carrying around all of these tasks, these potential conversations that need to be had, these to do's get it out of your head and onto the page. Next big takeaway was this. Focus on your breathing to get present. Now, that's not rocket science, but honestly, that is so powerful. You know, it's about getting present so you're not distracted by the past or the future. When you're focused on the past, you know, sometimes that can bring back regret, shame, guilt.

Regret for sure is a big one, right? Focusing on the future, often that can create anxiety, worry, stress. But when you're really focused on the present, that's just going to take all of that anxiety and worry away. And it helps you to get truly present by going back to your breath. I recently was working with a client, North America, and he was really challenged by some of the stressful things going on in his life. And I stopped our coaching session and I said, hey, let's just take a moment to breathe. And I guided him through a box breathing methodology. And within two minutes, everything had changed for him. He was calm, he was centered, he was relaxed. He even felt joyful just by breathing. So if you're listening to this right now, just check in. Are you breathing deeply and fully or are you carrying stress? And are you breathing shallow with your chest? Take a moment just to check in. Before I share the last key takeaway with you, I want to remind you of the upcoming event which will be held on June 10 in Christchurch, New Zealand, in person. The High Performance Leadership Program is a full day intensive that I run. All participants will get access to my full leadership framework. And I'm also bringing along special guest, Kieran Reid. Kieran's a former All Blacks captain. He played professional rugby for many years. I'm super excited to welcome him along. And if any of you are interested, if you would like to come along and join us, simply go to my website, jjlochlund.com and you can check out the leadership training details in there. Or get in touch with me or my team by dropping me a line on Instagram. JamesLochlanOfficial through Facebook. Or drop us an email. Jamesjlachlan.com so, last key takeaway. This is an absolutely brilliant one. So if you've got pen and paper, this is the one I really want you to write down. Your head is for having ideas, not for holding them. Just think about that for a moment. Your head is for having ideas, not for holding them. That goes out to you. You're listening to this right now. There's something in your head that doesn't need to be there right now. Like, oh, I need to get fuel tomorrow morning. Oh, yeah, I better have that chat with that person. Oh, I better call that person back. Oh, I better book that thing in. Oh, yep, that light in the spare room. Need to fix that. Get all that out of your head and onto a page. Make time to empty your head, dump it all on a piece of paper. Right? Your head is for being creative and having great ideas, not for retaining information. Yes, that's one of its functions, but that's not what it's excellent at. And you as a leader, my mission is to help you operate in your zone of genius. And there's no way that you will operate in your zone of genius if you're holding lots of extra data and information in your head that's non essential. Get it out of your head and onto the page. So, look, I hope you really enjoyed those key takeaways. It was short and sharp. But if you want to go and experience the full GTD methodology, please go back and listen to the previous episode. You will love it. And if you want to maybe go and listen to it on Blinkist or get, you know, get yourself actual copy, head off to Amazon or even better, head to your local bookstore, grab one there. But I just want to encourage you guys to keep focused on your leadership development, your personal growth and think about the ramifications, the consequences, the good benefits that it has for everyone around you. Be the leader of leaders. So get out there and lead your life on purpose.