What is GTD?

Introduction to GTD

“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” David Allen

GTD is short for Getting Things Done. It’s a productivity and time management system developed by American business consultant and writer David Allen. In 2001 Allen published the first edition of his bestselling book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, in which he outlined his system. After that, Allen formed the David Allen Company, an executive coaching firm that teaches people the Getting Things Done methodology worldwide.

In an earlier post entitled Productivity – What does it mean and why does it matter? I outlined the importance of personal productivity, so you might think I should give this GTD thing a go. You might also be thinking, I can’t really afford an executive coach, and I don’t want to read a lengthy book that is boring and dry. I can reassure you that his book is none of these things but fear not—no need to read his book or enrol on his consultancy program. Just read the blog post below, and you’ll get an overview of GTD.

You’ll also be pleased to know that you don’t have to invest in expensive computer apps; you only need a pen and paper to start. GTD is a system that you can implement on paper and electronically, but it is all about the methodology, not the tools. So here is a quick general thought on productivity, whether you practice GTD, Eisenhower Matrix or any other method, if the system you have developed is too focused on the tools you are using, then you are doing something wrong. Anyway, back to GTD.

As quoted above, David Allen once said, “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.”

David is convinced that the average person tries to store everything necessary to their lives inside their brain. This makes their brain work overtime in trying to remember all the daily things like buying milk or picking up the kids from music lessons. This, in turn, means that your mind doesn’t have enough ram left over to process the thinking. Allen believes that if we have a system for processing our everyday tasks and clearing our minds of the clutter, we free up space to think and be creative. It also makes us less anxious, stressed and overwhelmed.

The five steps of Getting Things Done.

In essence, Getting Things Done consists of five steps that you need to carry out consistently to achieve stressless productivity.

STEP 1 CAPTURE:

Step one is to capture everything that comes into your head. These could be small things, such as: Remember to buy the milk or large things, such as Do Your Tax returns. It could be easily actionable stuff, such as writing emails or more fuzzy concepts that are not immediately actionable, like reverse Brexit or abolishing the Monarchy.

You can do this using a notebook, paper sheet, or digital capturing tool. What tool you use is not relevant. It is important to get your thoughts out of your head and into an inbox whenever they come to you. An Inbox is what GTD calls where you store all your ideas. Think of it like an email inbox. Don’t worry about ordering any of your thoughts; this will come later. Also, feel free to have multiple inboxes; I do as long as you check them. For example, you could have a notebook for offline and a digital capturing tool for online.

STEP 2 CLARIFY:

The next action step in GTD is Clarify. Go through everything you have captured and decide what needs to happen next. Ask yourself if it is actionable, yes or no. Actionable items include Taking out Trash, answering emails, and cleaning your kitchen. Non-actionable items are things like pondering the meaning of life, finding aliens on planet Zork, and visiting gorillas in Africa. (Okay, the last one you could technically do)

If anything on your list is not actionable, decide whether you want to cross it off, leave it somewhere for reference or put it on hold to revise later. For example, maybe after COVID is over, you could travel to Africa to see that Gorilla.

Now on to the actionable items. You need to make several decisions here. First, how long will it take? If it takes two minutes or less, do not procrastinate, do it now! Take out that trash, send that text, and put the dirty clothes in the washing basket.

After you complete the quick tasks on your ToDo list, you need to ask yourself whether tasks left you need to complete yourself or can delegate. Don’t worry; everyone can delegate, even if you don’t have a PA. Most people don’t. For example, could your child take the dog for a walk? Could your husband clean the kitchen?

Do you need to complete the remaining items on your list on a specific date? If so, put it in your calendar or write it on your To Do list a few days ahead of deadlines. This ensures that you do anything in a stress-free and timely manner.

Some tasks are quick and easy; others might require many steps, days, weeks, or even months to complete. In GTD, we call them projects. For example, don’t write: ‘spring clean the kitchen; instead, write: ‘Clean out cabinets, mop floor, wipe tops, descale the kettle.’ You get the drift; divide more significant to-dos into small actionable steps.

STEP 3 ORGANISE:

Once you have gone through the inbox or inboxes, you need to organise the items within them. This often happens in tandem with the previous step. Here you put everything where it belongs. Events on your calendar, to-dos in the right project section, the reference material in the relevant reference folder and so on.

In classic GTD, each task also gets a context label. So, you might label a task according to where you need to complete it, i.e., in the office, in the shop at home and so on. You might also label it according to your needed tools, such as on a computer or phone. A third label is to do with the amount of time a task takes. Nowadays, where most of our portable devices can do almost anything, labels for specific gadgets or places have become somewhat irrelevant. Who hasn’t checked their work email at home or ordered groceries at work?

STEP 4 REFLECT:

Once you have captured, clarified, and organised, GTD is keen for you to reflect. We can spend hours capturing tasks, but if we don’t reflect on what we are doing, we will end up with a long and disorganised list of endless tasks that simply stress us out and lead to us not doing anything. The weekly review is an essential component of GTD and forms part of the reflection process. Once a week, you set aside some time to review the past week and plan the week ahead. This allows you to stay on top of things and to work on tasks that take your life forward.

STEP 5 ENGAGE:

Finally, we have step five, known as engaging. This means completing your tasks at the time and place that you had planned to do them.

Conclusion

Of course, there is much more to David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology than the above. However, rather than being exhaustive, I intended my blog post to be a concise overview.

Need help with productivity? Get in touch with Life Organised, and we’ll set you on the right track.

trabantbettina

Bettina Anna Trabant, Founder of Life Organised, your professional organising and decluttering service in East London. Eco-conscious minimalist and avid tea drinker,