Your hidden methodology

Be like David Allen

Right out of college, he became a heroin addict, and he was briefly institutionalized.

He had 35 professions by the time he was 35.

He became an ordained minister for the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness.

He then consulted for Lockheed Martin’s human resources department, working one-on-one with executives to help them get organized and become more productive.

David Allen, a drifter for the first decade and a half of his adult life, was then encouraged to write a book about his productivity methodologies.

So he wrote Getting Things Done, which became a corporate productivity manifesto.

And now his vocabulary is standard fare for modern productivity enthusiasts:

Terms like “inbox,” “next actions,” “two-minute rule,” “weekly review,” “someday/maybe,” “mind like water,” and “open loops” entered the lexicon of knowledge workers worldwide.

Getting Things Done has been published in over thirty countries and translated into more than twenty-eight languages.

David Allen, an individual with a messy, meandering career, created a new category - the “GTD” category - despite his apparently aimless trajectory.

More than 300 third-party apps have been developed to help people implement the GTD methodology - none built by Allen himself.

Companies like OmniFocus, Things 3, Todoist, Nirvana, TickTick, and Everdo, all explicitly market themselves as GTD tools or GTD-compatible systems.

The point is that Allen, as a solo consultant with a book, created such a strong category that software companies started building products around his framework.

If an ex-heroin addict and job hopper can design a new category (albeit unconsciously), why can’t you do it consciously?

Let me tell how you can start to do this: record yourself describing everything you do all day.

Yeah, it sounds unnatural, but trust me.

I was on a live AMA with Tim Stoddart and Darrell Vesterfelt - two preeminent digital marketers.

Darrell said there’s magic in recording yourself talking to yourself, describing what you do, and giving that to your AI.

And what you thought was just random ramblings, your AI will pick out the patterns and break down your hidden methodology.

And your hidden, unconscious methodology, once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

And once you see it, you can design a category out of it.

And if it’s truly valuable, you can write a book about it.

And if you write a book about it (and you promote it correctly), you’ll have a passionate fan base who’ll adopt your methodology and start using your vocabulary.

On Friday, April 10th, I’ll show you how you can do that.

And I’ll even demonstrate this live.

And if you want me to work on your company to help you design your own category, fill out this questionnaire, and I’ll apply my my Claude Cowork skill to create the beginnings of what could be a unique category.

Register here, and I’ll see you live April 10th, 12 PM CST!