The GTD® India family includes professionals, house wives, creatives and entrepreneurs.
People from all walks of life embrace its productivity mantras.
But when Rajiv walked into a workshop, he wasn’t going to be satisfied with testimonials and promises. The wealth management guru was looking for the hard ROI of GTD!
This Practitioner’s Spotlight is all about his journey and how the Senior Vice President of Motilal Oswal Wealth Management realized compounded returns from his GTD investment.
Rajiv S Mehta
Q1. How did you discover GTD?
A: I consider myself as fairly organized. However, many times, there still used be a lingering feeling that somehow there’s probably something I should be doing that I have not. Two years before read about GTD online and then went about reading David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done” & “Making it all work”. Started implementing the framework and wanted to dive deeper so attended 2 levels of GTD workshop in personal capacity.
Q2. How has GTD helped you with your business?
A: One of the most important and quick learning from GTD was The 2 minute magical rule. You will be surprised how many 2 minute actions you can perform even on your most critical projects.
On the overall, one is able to see things with whole new dimension & clarity. GTD methodology did not offer any solutions, but it promises an approach that can help find solutions.
Q3. Since you’re into wealth management, what would you say is the ROI of diligent GTD practice?
A: This will be one of the multi-bagger investments with compounded returns, 100% guaranteed. As David rightly mentions, the framework helps in trusting your decision as a right choice rather than hoping that you made a right choice.
Q4. Please do share a few areas of your personal life that GTD has positively impacted?
A: The biggest positive impact personally is It helps me feel good about what I am not doing when I know everything that I am not doing. I am perfectly ok on not to decide about something as I have system to get back to it.
Q5. If you were introduced to GTD a decade earlier, what would you be doing differently today?
A: It would have helped me earlier on how to match the moments of existence to the purpose that I would most like to pursue the most. Would have acknowledged the truth earlier that there are only so many hours per day, even as we push frontiers of sleeplessness. There are only so many people with whom we can maintain serious connections & only so many things we can do at a time. Would have learned to eliminate distraction about I was not doing.
Q6. How is Getting Things Done different from the other productivity practices and methodologies you may have tried?
A: Every practice has its own pros and cons. Many other methodologies help addressing important aspects of work and/or life, but there still remains a sense that somehow there’s probably something we should be doing that we have not, which creates tension. GTD is holistic in that sense and has ability to address all areas of work & life in its totality.
Q7. What part of implementing GTD did you find the most challenging and how did you overcome it?
A: Without a doubt it was weekly review. I didn’t have a dedicated space of my own earlier, so I used to go out to coffee shops during the weekends to do my weekly reviews.
Q8. Will you give us a peek into your GTD set-up? Is it pen and paper based? Is it digital? A mix? What are some of the tools you’re using?
A: My GTD set up is hybrid.
· Physical – I enjoy using pen and paper for collating thoughts/meeting notes/ideas as it propels the flow of thinking.
· Digital – Use Todoist to manage my Calendar/Next Action/Project lists and Evernote to manage my digital storage.
Q9. How do you ensure that you stay on the GTD wagon?
A: I am coming to realize that GTD system is designed to allow me the flexibility to fall off every once in a while because the system is trusted.
Even now, I do fall off the wagon, however every bounce back is faster. Weekly Review helps the most.
Q10. Last but not the least, what’s your advice for GTD practitioners who are just starting out?
A: This methodology is useful when read, but transformational when experienced. So read the book, attend the workshop and just go ahead and experience it yourself!
I believe our work should be an expression of our most creative selves. I work with business owners and their teams to achieve stress-free productivity.