Imagine that you are walking back from work… excited that another successful day has gone by… when all of sudden you realize you never called mike… he is your best friend and today is his birthday… but you were so busy the whole day that you never had a chance to call. . “no problem” you think to yourself - “as soon as I get home I’ll wish him happy birthday” but when you get home, a pile of unopened mail greets you by the door, unwashed dishes are calling your name and you get distracted by other exciting house chores… The next morning, feeling like a horrible friend, you wonder “how can something so important slip my mind” The reason is simple - your brain is for having ideas, NOT for holding them.
With a never-ending stream of demands for you attention, both at home and at work, things are bound to slip through the cracks. Only when your mind is clear and your thoughts are organized can you achieve effective results. This is where Getting Things Done, or GTD for short, comes into play.
It is a framework designed to help you keep track of tasks, ideas and projects. The Getting Things Done system is made of 5 simple steps - capture, process, organize, review and engage. Everything begins with “capturing” all ideas, tasks, projects, to-do items and other random bits of information that come your way every single day.
These are things like emails, letters, calls and action items that come from talking to other people or they can be ideas and tasks that are born in your own creativity and imagination. Wherever that information comes from, you need to capture it, or externalize it so you don’t have to keep it in your brain. Now that you have all this information captured, it is time to make sense of it so you can actually move forward with your goals, instead of wanting to pull your hear out from the information overload.
Step number 2 in GTD is processing. For every item that you captured ask yourself the following question - is it actionable? The possible answers are two - YES or NO.
If the item is actionable, like an email from a colleague asking you about an update for the project you are working together on, ask yourself a followup question - would it take 2 minutes or less to complete? If the answer is “yes”, go ahead and do it. If the answer is “no”, you need to put this action off for later by adding them to an action items list (more on that in step 3).
If it will take you 30 seconds to reply to your colleague’s email, it makes sense to take care of it on the spot and move on. If you need to have a 20-minute conversation on the topic, it is best to schedule it. If the item you are processing is “not actionable” - like a confirmation of a payment you made for your monthly internet bill - you have 2 choices - discard it or keep it as reference in case you need that info down the road.
Repeat the same process for every piece of information You’ve processed the information, things are already looking up for you, now you need to organize it. This is where the magic happens. You have an action list from all the actionable items that you did not already do in the previous step.
Now you need to organize and prioritize them based on the following 3 criteria: - by project, by time and by context Actions related to particular project, such as building a deck for your next presentation, or organizing the halloween party for your kids, can be grouped together. Actions that have some sort of a deadline, or a time specific (like Mike’s birthday) should go on your calendar so you can take care of them when the time is right. You can also group actions by context, such as phone calls you need to make or groceries that you need to pick up.
Of course you can also mix and match and put things in more than one category - like that video you need to create on Friday, the 17th. This is where you need to tweak and personalize GTD to fit your needs. You know best how to group and prioritize your items.
One thing to always keep top of mind though is this question - what is the next action? If you sit down to call Mike for his birthday, but don’t have his number, you aren to being very efficient. The next action should’ve been “find Mike’s number”, not “call Mike”.
Asking yourself that question will help you sequence things better. Now, you’ve organized your action items, the sun is shining brighter and the world is a happier place. But what about the non-actionable items?
That’s easy. They can either be kept for reference - like that manual for your TV that you don’t need until your kid turns on the spanish closed captioning and you need to figure out how to reverse it. Or they can be deferred for later - like that idea for a business that you would like to keep and revisit in 6 months when you have more time - add it to a “someday maybe” list and create an action item to review this list in 6 months.
Done! High five! All the random information is now organized and you are ready to take over the world.
The next step is Review. With so many demands for your attention, things are bound to go out of place. This is where the review comes into play.
Every week, review your items and make any adjustments if needed. Is everything where it supposed to be? Is there a pile of information somewhere that you need to process?
A weekly review is essential to keeping everything running smoothly. Every month, take some time to review your short-terms goals. Are your action items moving your towards your goals, or are you just keeping yourself busy?
Are you saving for that car, are you learning the Spanish you want or are you in reaction mode? Schedule these regular reviews and reflection periods so you can ensure the train is heading down the right tracks. The last part step in GTD is called “engage”.
This is where you actually roll up the sleeves and get cracking. You calendar should contain all the tasks that you need to do today. Your project list will tell you what you need to do to move a project forward.
Your contexts will help you batch things together. As you go about your day, crossing all of those items, next information is bound to come you way. Now you know what to do with it - capture it, decide if it actionable, if the answer is yes and you can get it done in 2 minutes or less, do it, if not add it to the appropriate action list.
If the information is not actionable, it gets stored or ends up in the trash. Nothing to it. You are now as cool, calm and collected as a buddhist zen master deep in meditation.
Now, Mike will never have to spend another birthday without wishes from his best friend.
