The Kairos Assessment

Most productivity systems are built for how people should work. The Kairos Assessment reveals how you actually do.

 How This Fits Into GTD® Coaching

What is the Kairos Assessment?

The Kairos Assessment is a set of 53 straightforward questions designed to capture your reflexive responses to information, how your attention activates, what it locks onto, and what it ignores.

As part of the GTD coaching process, the Kairos Assessment is used to tailor your system from the very beginning.

The result is a detailed profile of how you process, manage, and transfer information across six key cognitive channels.

Thinker

Listener

Observer

Mover

Reader

Talker

Why This Matters

Much of the friction people experience, losing focus, feeling overwhelmed, and struggling to follow through, isn’t about discipline. It’s the result of trying to work against how they operate on a cognitive basis.

We don’t have one single attention system. We have multiple processes competing for input, each activating and resting in different ways.

Always-on radar

Some attention processes act like radar, constantly scanning and are hard to switch off.

Effortful engagement

Others require more stimulus to engage and more deliberate effort to sustain.

The Kairos Assessment makes those patterns visible.

Cognition Isolated From Emotion

Unlike traditional assessments that blend personality, emotion, and performance, the Kairos Assessment isolates cognition and separates it from how you feel.

It gets underneath skill and aptitude to something more fundamental: how your mind is wired to engage with information.

Think of it like handedness. It doesn’t determine what you’re capable of, but it dramatically affects how you perform best.

53
Questions


6
Cognitive Preferences


1
Profile of Your Mind

What Happens With Your Results

Once you complete the assessment, your coach reviews your full cognitive profile before your first session. You don't need to interpret it on your own, that's what the coaching is for.


In practice, your results do three things:

They Give Your Coach a Head Start


Rather than spending the early sessions

figuring out how you engage with information, your coach arrives already oriented to your preferences, such as where your attention activates, where it requires more effort, and where friction is most likely to show up as you build your system.

They Give You a Framework for Approaching the Friction.

Most people who come to GTD coaching have already tried implementing GTD on their own and have hit a wall. Your Kairos profile makes it possible to name why, whether it's the weekly review, the wrong list structure, your tools, or the clarifying process, and to adjust the approach accordingly rather than pushing through the same resistance.

They Put You and Your Coach on the Same Page.

The profile gives both of you shared language for the work. Instead of "I just can't seem to stick with the weekly review," the conversation becomes specific, grounded, and solvable.

What Happens With Your Results

Once you complete the assessment, your coach reviews your full cognitive profile before your first session. You don't need to interpret it on your own, that's what the coaching is for.


In practice, your results do three things:

They Give Your Coach a Head Start

Rather than spending the early sessions

figuring out how you engage with information, your coach arrives already oriented to your preferences, such as where your attention activates, where it requires more effort, and where friction is most likely to show up as you build your system.

They Give You a Framework for Approaching the Friction.

Most people who come to GTD coaching have already tried implementing GTD on their own and have hit a wall. Your Kairos profile makes it possible to name why, whether it's the weekly review, the wrong list structure, your tools, or the clarifying process, and to adjust the approach accordingly rather than pushing through the same resistance.

They Put You and Your Coach on the Same Page.

The profile gives both of you shared language for the work. Instead of "I just can't seem to stick with the weekly review," the conversation becomes specific, grounded, and solvable.

How It Fits Into the GTD Coaching Process

The Kairos Assessment isn't a standalone tool, it's woven into every level of the coaching process. At Level 1, it shapes how your system is initially built. At Level 2 and beyond, it helps your coach identify why certain habits are sticking and others aren't, and how to adjust as your context evolves.

To find the assessment itself or explore the methodology in more depth, you can visit the Kairos Cognition website.

 Visit Kairos Cognition

Once you understand these patterns, you and your coach can begin to design a system that works with your attention, not against it, reducing friction, improving focus, and making consistency easier to maintain.

GTD Founder David Allen

David Allen - Founder of GTD

"Discovering what is really under the hood of your car can make a world of difference in how you drive and utilize its power. The Kairos Assessment does the same thing for the mind, producing awareness for creating the best strategies for our own thinking and working. It has been a brilliant resource for me personally, as well as for hundreds of our clients."

Here's What Users Say About the Kairos Assessment

Here's What Users Say About the Kairos Assessment

The Kairos Assessment is included with every GTD coaching program at GTD Focus — no additional cost.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Kairos Assessment

How long does the assessment take?

Most people complete it in 15–20 minutes. The 53 questions are designed to capture your reflexive responses, so the faster you answer, the more accurate your results tend to be. There's no need to overthink it.

Is this like a personality test?

No. The Kairos Assessment doesn't measure personality, emotion, or aptitude. It isolates cognitive preference: how your attention activates, what it tends to lock onto, and where it requires more effort. Think of it less like a personality profile and more like finding out whether you're right- or left-handed. It doesn't define what you're capable of, but it does reveal how you engage most effectively.

How accurate is it?

The assessment is designed to capture instinctive responses rather than considered ones, which is what makes it reliable. Most clients say the results feel immediately recognizable, not surprising, but clarifying. It's grounded in neuroscience and has been used by GTD Focus coaches for over a decade with hundreds of clients.

What if my results don't feel like me?

It happens occasionally, usually when someone overthinks their answers or answers based on how they think they should respond rather than how they actually do. If your results feel off, your coach will discuss them with you directly, the profile is a starting point for the conversation, not a verdict.

Do I get a report I can read on my own?

Yes, you'll receive a full profile of your results. That said, the most useful place to engage with them is inside your coaching sessions, where your coach can apply them directly to how your GTD system is designed and adjusted over time.

Is it required to start coaching?

The Kairos Assessment is included with every GTD coaching program at GTD Focus and is completed before your first session. It's one of the things that makes the coaching customized. Your coach arrives already oriented to how you think, rather than spending the first few sessions figuring it out.

Can I share my results with others?

Yes, and many clients do. Because the assessment is based purely on cognitive preference, not personality or performance, it's easy to share with a manager, assistant, or partner without it feeling evaluative or loaded.

Ready to Put This Into Practice?

The Kairos Assessment is most powerful when it's applied inside GTD coaching. If you're ready to explore which program fits where you are right now:

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