Getting Things Done

Day 34 / 365

source: unsplash

Getting Things Done or GTD is a time management method that focuses on moving your ideas and plans from your mind to a paper and breaking them down into smalls steps that you can actually execute and, well, get things done.

David Allen, the mind behind GTD, claims that it’s important to put details about things we are working on and future plans into an organized system which is external to our brain. This allows us to focus on the task at hand without worrying about the tasks we have left incomplete or not yet started.

Incomplete and undefined tasks cause stress

We all know how stressful it can be when we have work to do but we have no clue when or how we are going to do it. To show how planning can help reduce this stress, David Allen proposes the following exercise-

• Pick an incomplete task that has been annoying you.
• Write a single sentence that describes a successful outcome for the task.
• Write down the immediate action you need to take to move towards the successful outcome.

Try this out and compare how you felt before and after this exercise.

The GTD technique

GTD consists of 5 steps — collect, process, organize, plan, and do

As soon as you have things to do collected in your “inbox” you can follow the steps in this flowchart to process and organize them

• If the task can be completed in less than 2 minutes, then do it immediately
• If it is not a single step task, then set a reminder to plan out the steps to complete the task.
• If it is not meant for you, then delegate the task to someone else and set a reminder to check on it.
• If the task has to be done on a specific date then put an entry on your calendar.

You can repeat these steps daily or weekly depending upon how fast your “inbox” fills up.

Our minds own reminder system is extremely inefficient and rarely reminds us of things to do when we need to do them. This is why its important to plan and write down tasks that can be carried out in the future without much thinking.

This story is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — The Millenium Seed Bank