Loreta O'HanlonThe “Getting Things Done” or GTD system is a well known and widely used productivity methodology that many people swear by. I was particularly interested in exploring GTD because of its endurance as one of the most popular productivity books. It was first written in 2001 by David Allen and its popularity doesn’t appear to have waned over the past 20 years.
Getting Things Done is quite a lengthy read and sometimes seems a bit more convoluted and long-winded than it should be. Below, I’ve tried my best to summarise the main steps of the GTD methodology into less than 1000 words. I’ve also put together an infographic for anyone who is more of a visual learner.
Table of Contents
What’s it all about?
A common problem for many of us is “information overload”. There are only so many things we can keep in our heads at any one time. Trying to remember various things we have to do is very stressful and physically, mentally and emotionally draining. This leaves no space for the mental capacity and freedom in thought that is required for creative and innovative thinking, to learn and get into a state of “flow”.
Explore more: Ties into the idea of “attention residue” in Deep Work by Cal Newport.
Main idea: Your brain is for having ideas, not for storing them.
Five Steps of the GTD System
Step 1: Capture
Having a system in place to quickly and effectively capture our thoughts and ideas eases this stress. Essentially, we’re taking the thoughts from our mind and storing them externally so we can come back to them and evaluate or deal with them later.
Externally storing thoughts and ideas is just the first step. When I first started doing this, most of the things i did manage to get out of my head and onto paper were never looked at properly again. The main reason for this was because I didn’t actually have a defined system in place.
My “system” was ad hoc and haphazard. Thoughts were spread across several different notebooks, scribbled on random pages (or not written down at all). Essentially because they were moderately difficult to access, there was a high chance I would not revisit the ideas or action items again. Or if I did, it would be at too infrequent an interval to make an impact.
You could potentially decide on capturing this information in digital, written or even audio form (e.g. a simple voice memo on your phone or laptop). Or it could be a combination of all of the above. The main thing is to find a system that works for you, is not overly complicated and is always easy to access.
Step 2: Clarify
The second step is to clarify the information you’ve captured in your system. This essentially means reviewing what you’ve captured and deciding what steps, if any, need to be taken next.
When you review the items you’ve captured, you’ll need to ask yourself the following question: “is this actionable?”.
If it is actionable, then ask the question: “could I action this task in 2 minutes or less”. Where something can be quickly dealt with, it’s best to do it there and then (e.g. shooting off a quick email).
However, if the task requires a bit more time to complete, you should add it to a list of actions that you need to review. We’ll look at this as part of step number 3 in the GTD system.
Where a piece of information that you’ve captured is not actionable, you’ll now need to decide what to do with that.
Allen suggests either placing this type of item into one of three categories:
- Discard it (i.e. don’t look at it again)
- Potentially to be reassessed at a future date
- File for reference
Step 3: Organise
Once you’ve decided what needs to be actioned, you should now look at organising your action items.
This involves reviewing your action items and organising them into “buckets” depending on the level of work that needs to be undertaken (consider how much energy the task will take to get done), the category they fall into (e.g. business, personal, family etc.) whether they are high, medium or low priority and whether they are time sensitive.
If something takes more that one action to complete, it should be considered a “project”.
You really should focus on organising your action items at regular intervals. Perhaps set aside up to one hour every week where you look at only this.
Step 4: Reflect
In order for your GTD system to operate effectively, you’ll need to conduct regular reviews of your action items, projects and overall goals.
First, look at your calendar and action items daily. Obviously you need to do this to see what’s to be done next.
Secondly, and as mentioned above, you should review your captured items on a weekly basis.
Thirdly, periodically reflect on your overarching purpose and goals. This is important because the more granular tasks and projects you’re working on day in, day out should align with your ultimate goals. Otherwise, what you’re engaging in is mostly “busy work”.
Step 5: Engage
Now, after all that idea capturing, organisation and reviewing, it’s finally time to do some work! The fifth step in the GTD system is “engage”.
To decide when to do what, you’ll have to go back and look at the “buckets” you organised your actions into in step 3 of GTD.
Context
Allen suggests categorizing your actions into categories based on context. For example, my main context categories will include: family, personal and business.
How much time is available
This is self explanatory. Look at your calendar and assess how much time you will need for each item on your to-do list.
How much energy you have
Know your own rhythm. At what time of the day are you in a position to concentrate best? Most people tend to be cognitively sharper and have greater willpower at the beginning of the day. However, you might be completely different, so schedule your day in a way that suits you. Try different schedules and see what works best for you – you may be surprised.
The priority of the task
Decide which task is most important/urgent and start with that. Is there something pressing that you’ve recorded in your calendar that needs to be looked at today?
Stephen Covey (7 Habits of Highly Effective People) devised a useful quadrant to determine what you should be working on as a priority, which you can find here.
Getting Things Done Summary Infographic
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