This article brings together selected writings by Francis Sopper, CEO of GTD Focus, exploring the path from knowing GTD to doing it, and what it takes to reach excellence.
“Sometimes, I catch him on YouTube watching videos of Japanese joinery,” my son’s wife told me once.
I wasn’t surprised. Both of them are designers who admire the process of fine crafting. And yet, for all my son’s refined skill and aesthetic, I don’t expect him to produce reproductions of fine furniture any time soon. You can learn a great deal from the web and still be a long way from the doing.
I get it. I went to the web for instruction on lubricating my bicycle chain. I still won’t touch the derailleur. I leave that to Woody at the bike shop. And if you asked my friend Scott about an important lesson he took away from med school, he’ll reply without hesitation: “Never touch the pancreas.” It’s well beyond his line of practice.
One of my clients performs an advanced heart surgery known as TAVR. After watching him work, wondering the entire time how a human being could even do that, I joked, “I’m sure I could find a how-to video on the web.” He laughed and said, “Yes, there are a couple out there.” And yet, no one’s going to watch a few videos and open up a storefront TAVRs R Us.
What’s interesting is that the path to excellence, whether it’s joinery, derailleurs, or invasive cardiology, follows the same underlying process: instruction, guided practice, critique, independent practice, more critique, refinement, and more critique still. That cycle continues until you decide you’re finished with getting better.
Once you get past what you can figure out on your own or learn from a video, excellence comes from consorting with excellence. And to reach it — and stay there — requires persistence through the steps backward just as much as through the steps forward.
Spectator or Performer?
There’s an old joke about a tourist walking down 7th Avenue in New York City. He stops a passerby and asks, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” The New Yorker sighs and says, “Practice, practice, practice.”
Recently, a client asked their boss to be reimbursed for GTD coaching. When the boss heard the price, the response was: “Can’t you just watch some YouTube videos?”
It depends. Do you want to be a spectator or a performer?
The path to the big stage is the same regardless of the discipline: instruction, guided practice, critique, independent practice, critique, refinement, and critique. That’s true for surgery, for joinery, and for building a GTD system that genuinely works, one that you’re no longer consciously managing because it has become second nature.
How GTD Focus Supports the Journey
At GTD Focus, we can’t replace a valve in your heart or adjust a derailleur. What we can do is support your movement through life with clarity, purpose, and effectiveness by engaging what David Allen calls the five phases of workflow.
We’re here through every stage: instruction, guided practice, critique, independent practice, refinement, and beyond. Our programs are structured to meet you wherever you are on that path.
Our Foundation program builds the essential workflow process from the ground up. Our Strategy program helps you manage the complexity of dynamic change. For those already working within a GTD system, our other coaching programs go further: Integration helps you move beyond consciously managing your system; Vision and Refocus creates the space to understand not just what you do, but why; and The Five Horizons is an intensive, deeply personal engagement toward your most satisfying life, with one of our most experienced coaches as your guide.
Your Success Is Our Business
A year ago, GTD Focus redefined what finishing a program means. Our coaching programs no longer end after a set number of sessions — they end when you succeed. Each program has a defined scope, sequence, cadence, and success target, built around how the mind retains and retrieves information.
Because skill development and the cadence of guided practice matter more to outcomes than time spent in sessions, each program is built around GTD competency standards. Stick to a cadence of at least two sessions per month, work the guided practice, and we’ll stay with you until you meet them.
It’s been working. Most people reach the standard within six to ten sessions. Start now, and in four months, you will too.
Are You Ready to Move From the Audience to the Stage?
Book a free 30-minute call with one of our coaches. We'll listen, ask the right questions, and figure out together whether we're a good fit.