As our connectedness increases we are gaining access to more and more opportunities, but this creates strain on the standards we use to organise ourselves – these standards need ongoing upgrades to make sure we can keep kicking goals.
Getting Things Done is the popular productivity system developed by David Allen over 30 years of coaching Fortune 1000 executives. The result is an incredibly thorough and enlightened set of ideas about how people organise themselves, how to implement lasting habits, and most importantly – how to get to that place where you are ready for anything.
Remember that the key to Getting Things Done is not actually getting a lot of things done, it is about clearing your head and having all of your commitments in a trusted system so that you can focus and be mindful with whatever is happening right now.
This isn’t about being lazy or not having anything to do, in fact quite the opposite:
The “ready state” of the martial artist is not a passive, reactive or finite one. It is a totally dynamic, alive, creative, and expansive. But it’s not free. It is enabled by increasingly refined training and experience with work and life.
The GTD system
The minimal version of GTD is “Focus on positive outcomes and continually take the next action on the most important thing.”
The baseline version is “Get everything out of your head. Make decisions about actions required on stuff when it shows up—not when it blows up. Organize reminders of your projects and the next actions on them in appropriate categories. Keep your system current, complete, and reviewed sufficiently to trust your intuitive choices about what you’re doing (and not doing) at any time.”
Now let’s break that down into meaningful pieces:
COLLECT
Get yourself a pen and some paper and take 5 minutes to write down everything on your mind that you have to do. This could be something small like returning an email or something big like starting a business. Don’t try to do anything or filter anything – just write it all down. Your list will probably end up being anything from 50 to 200 things long.
PROCESS
This is where you will clarify each thing on the list. Start at the top and for each item ask yourself “Is there a next action?” If not, throw it out. If there is then you are either going to do it now (if it takes less than two minutes), Next (within the next few months) or Someday (who knows when, but you want to do it). If the action relates to a particular time then it belongs on your Calendar. If it will take more than one action to complete then add it to your Projects list.
ORGANISE
Group all of the things into their lists and give them context. You might tag with contexts like “phone calls”, “in the office”, or by areas of focus like “health”, “social”, “career”. The idea here is to make it easy to find the relevant list of things depending on your current state.
REVIEW
You will review all of your lists whenever your mind isn’t okay with everything. Now and Calendar a few times per day, Next and Projects every day or two, Someday every few months. Keep your system current, complete, and reviewed sufficiently to trust your intuitive choices about what you’re doing (and not doing) at any time.
DO
You now have an epic list of all the things you want to do, organised and reviewed. You are ready to make the Next Action that makes the most sense – based on your current location, available time, energy and priorities. If not, then there is a leak somewhere in your system and you need to fix that.
That’s it! Now here are some of the distinctions I have found particularly useful:
The Tools
The original book was written in the time of paper filing cabinets, so if you read it you will learn about old gems like the ‘tickler file’ and more. These days there are hundreds of computer and mobile applications that will try to help you – but the reality is that you will need to figure out what works for you. At first I recommend using a paper notebook so that you don’t get distracted by the flashing shiny bits of a new toy. The GTD principles apply to whatever medium you choose. I would recommend that you use something that is with you all of the time so that you have a single source of truth. It needs to be a trusted system or none of this will work because you will keep things in your head.
Next Actions
If you are going to use just one aspect then it should be the concept of the Next Action, because that is really what separates GTD from the common todo list. David describes next actions as changes that you want to make on the world, or, “the next physical, visible activity that needs to be engaged in, in order to move the current reality toward completion.”
Either you need new tires or you don’t. At some point, the tire thing crosses a very distinct line. Before then, not needed. After then, needed. Once they’re needed, there are no ABC categories for tires. They also don’t quite fit into the “quadrant” matrix. Either they are a project to be done as soon as we can or they are not. Period.
When you break it down to this level it becomes very black and white, so the way you write them is very important. It should be a statement that you can tick off as being complete. As Merlin Mann describes – things like “get new work”, “lose weight” and “buy christmas presents” can’t really be “done” because they are each a complex multi-action Project. Converting these to next actions would make them look more like this:
- Find old resume in filing cabinet
- Call gym to see when membership expires
- Start a running list of everyone I need to buy Christmas gifts for
Now those are things you can tick off as being complete. They are your next actions.
The Horizons
If you are worried or stressed and don’t know why, look to the horizon. Start at the next action list and zoom out until you have clarity. Do this as often as you feel you need to, and at least weekly. This is a really powerful aspect because it is so natural. When you zoom out you are going to go from your daily actions to your weekly projects that stem from your current areas of responsibility which flow from the yearly goals that match your career, lifestyle and purpose. Wherever you get stuck you need to zoom in and figure it out.
Clarity of your big rocks while knowing the next actions will give you the awareness you need to change the world today.
Get started now, and ask yourself: What’s on your mind?
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Also see:
GTD notes from the collective through Kindle Highlights
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (2002)
Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life (2004)
Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life (2009)
David Allen Authors@Google Talk
Merlin Mann interviews David Allen
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