David Allen, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love GTD

I have these little things in life – I think you might have them too: they’re called commitments. These little things make me wake up with an anxious sweat, trying to work out how to deal with that three page essay due in 45 minutes.

But this year will be different. I know it will because I wrote it down somewhere on some arbitrary date which means I have to stick to it. This year, I will be organized.

A quick visit to Wikipedia to prove that Sharks can get sick (and yes they can) and two hours later, I can now attest to the fact that some stupid man from the 18th Century smeared himself in vomit to prove a point. Oh and that Getting Things Done seems to be all the rage right now in terms of organisation.

Getting Things Done is the love child of productivity consultant David Allen. It’s not so much the actual system but the end result that seems to work. The principle is, that by writing every single little thing done I’m meant to keep my mind clear so I can focus on the task at hand. It also makes sure that know what the next thing you should and can do is (for example I can’t install software on my laptop with installing Windows first).

The book itself is about as interesting as a monkey flinging poop at zoo patrons – interesting enough if you have spare time but otherwise don’t bother. The key concepts are pretty basic and are as follows:

Collecting

You use an inbox for everything that comes into your life. I use Microsoft OneNote and have a page dedicated to today. Whenever something comes up, a piece of information, something I may have to do, I write it down and tag it as To Be Processed. So after a while you’ll have a list of things in your inbox that are relevant to you.

Processing

About five times a day, I will go through the list of things that have collected in my inbox and then either mark them as actionable items, projects or supporting information. An actionable item is a task that you will have to do, while a project is simply something that will require multiple steps to complete.

For any actionable item, I mark it with a context. A context is merely a place, situation or category where you can do tasks, for example, the contexts in my life are: @home, @school, @work, @personal, @library, @morning. They can be places, times, people, etc. If the item will only take a few minutes then I do it straight away, otherwise I defer it, or delegate it. If I have to discuss the item with someone I also tag it needs discussing, or I am waiting on a resource (a resource can be anything) I tag it waiting on.

For something that becomes a project, I create a new page in the project section and determine what the next step or action that I need to do in order to come closer to completing it is. I also choose to write down every step and resource needed to complete the project at this time as well.

If an item doesn’t require an action then I chuck it in a file I have called supporting documentation or the appropriate project file for reference, throw it away if its not needed, or chuck it in a folder called someday/maybe. The someday/maybe folder represents all my long term dreams and hopes and includes things like what movies I want to watch, and where I want to be in a years time.

Organising

Normally, you’re supposed to create a number of lists that determine what you do. OneNote keeps this easy, as all I have to do is to go to tag summary and I can easily see all the next actions for my projects, or the next actions that are possible in my current context.

I also use a calendar for all my hard deadlines, which are things that are set in stone, like parties with fixed dates, assignment due dates, etc. My calendar currently is just Microsoft Outlook.

I also chuck anything that needs reviewing in a separate calendar in Outlook (if you use Outlook you’ll understand). For example if I get a form inviting me to a study camp which is in six months time, I might put in a reference file and mark it for review in five months time or sooner to the date.

Review

I review my lists or tags in OneNote at least once daily, or when ever I am free. Reviewing is essentially checking my waiting on, and discuss with tag lists to see if I can now perform any additional actions. Reviewing also means making sure that everything is up to date and that all actions that have been done are marked off.

Doing

This is where I do stuff obviously. Once I’ve found the next possible action I get it done.

This is how I organize my life now. It currently seems to be really efficient and has helped me quite a bit. If your an avid OneNote user like me, then you’ll want to check out these tutorials, which I used to setup my system.