johnwin

The Getting Things Done (GTD) system of, well of, getting things done is extremely simple in concept but do not be mistaken – there is a real need to work at your system to get it to a state where you can trust it and know that you are getting everything done, when it need to be done by and freeing up time to do even more.

There are 4 basic tenants to the GTD system, these are as follows:

1. Capture all the things you need to do and record them in a trusted system. These are referred to as ‘In Boxes’, discard all things that do not require an action.

2. Decide which of the above are projects (things that require more than 1 action).

3. Decide on your Next Actions for all items in you inboxes and record them in your system based upon the context in which you can action them (very important!).

4. Carry out regular reviews of varying depth of insight – short, medium and long term goals.

This first instalment will take a quick overview of the above.
Clearing Your In Boxes

The first question you have to ask yourself is ‘what are my in boxes’. It sounds simple at first doesn’t it? You have the physical post that drops through the door and you’re electronic in boxes on your pcs. But is that all? What about phone calls requiring you to do something? How about all those ‘honey-do’ notes? And the favours you promised to carry out for friends and neighbours? All the stuff just buzzing around in your brain that you are sure you will not forget? I’m also sure you have a pile of stuff in a junk draw somewhere in the kitchen that hides a number of actions you need to do?

It was a real eye opener for me to list all my In Boxes. It is also a good idea to try to reduce your total number of boxes to reduce the risk of item falling through the net. To this end I have asked my wife to email me all her ‘honey-dos’ – she was sceptical at first but now she sees that they actually get done so she sees the power of the system.

The GTD book calls the collation and recording of the contents of all your Inboxes as mental RAM dump. This is a great way to describe the process. The book goes on to explain that once you dump all the stuff that nags away at you as an internal dialogue you can achieve a clearer way of thinking and be freed from all those little pulls on you mental powers. This is slightly esoteric for my liking but I do see some truth in the idea.

At this point you will be like I was – terrified by the sheer volume of what you need to get done. In the words of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – DON’T PANIC!

This is a good bit – throw away everything that you either do not NEED to action along with everything you DO NOT INTEND to action. I was amazed by how many things fitted into this last category – I took the view that if it had been on a to do list or in an In Box for more than 3 month I was not going to get it done and so in the bin it went – most satisfying!

Is It An Action or Is It A Project?

Under the GTD system this classification will most likely differ from your current thinking. GTD classifies a Project as any item captured in an In Box that requires more than a single ‘thing’ to be done to it for it to be complete. As a result a couple of examples from my Project List demonstrate the huge difference in scale of ‘Projects’ as defined under the GTD system: Procure Manufacturing Building for ********* Ltd; Clear out garage ready for summer.

The first item is obviously a project – I have A LOT of work to do before the facility is up and running to my client’s satisfaction. However most people would consider clearing out the garage as a single ‘to do’. But this is why clearing out the garage is too difficult for most of us to tackle it. The reason I never get around to this job is that in the back of my mind I know it is not a single action – I need to take a load of junk to the local tip, the I need to fix the up-and-over door, then paint the floor, then see what shelving I need to install, buy the materials, fix them, stock take all my screws, nail etc. . . . . . . . . . .

I hope you now see the logic that even the most mundane Project deserves a level of project planning to get you over the hurdle of just getting on with it. I was much more willing to action the requirement to take all my junk to the tip this weekend than tackle the large but un-planned task of just ‘sorting out the garage’

On the flip side of this is my weekly ‘to do’ of putting the bin on the boundary of my property every Friday morning before I go to work for collection by the bin men – this is an action and not a Project.

You need to compile a full list of ALL your Project to use in you weekly, monthly and quarterly reviews – more of which later.

Next Action and Context

GTD works on the premise of Next Actions – what is the very next thing you need to do to move a project forward (or simply do something that needs doing). So in my example of clearing out the garage my next action is to go in there and put all the stuff for the tip to one side ready to fill the car and take it there.

You will quickly compile a very long list of Next Actions. This can be daunting – but GTD has another neat trick to teach us: Contexts. What is the use of seeing everything you need to do in your life when you circumstances at the time preclude you form action on the majority of them?

Everyone’s list of Contexts will vary but the following is a list of my contexts (the figures in brackets show how many live actions I have in each context)

@Calls (12)
@Computer (27 – down to 26 once this article is published!)
@Errands (28)
@Home (47)
@Office (67)
@Waiting for (17)

Buy maintaining you lists by Context it means you can review only those next action that you can currently action. For example items in my @Calls list can be done anytime as I always have at least one phone available to me, where as I can only action items on my @Errands list when out and about in the car with no pressing appointment to attend. @Computer items can be worked on either at work or at home.

Reviews

This is a huge topic and one that I cannot cover in this first article. All I will say here is that you need to make a full review of your In Boxes, Projects and Next Actions at least once a week to be sure you are capturing everything and making progress on all your projects.

Next time . . .

I hope this has provided a useful introduction to GTD and I expect you are all thinking how you can PDA-ise the process of setting up your trusted system of running GTD? Next week I will look at In Boxes and creating Next Action lists in more detail along with a nice flow chart to help you Get Things Done.

All ideas, terminology and the system described above are the brain child of David Allen. The words above are mine but the ideas behind them are all David’s