“Getting Things Done” in a Nutshell

Posted January 4th, 2007 by Chris Gurney

Getting Things Done (commonly abbreviated as “GTD”) is a book written by David Allen that prescribes a methodology that one can follow to achieve “stress-free productivity”.

I first read David’s book more than a year ago and, since putting GTD into practice, have found that it indeed works. The concepts worked so well for me, in fact, that I have since hosted presentations on the subject, and plan to write more about implementing GTD later on in my blog.

To start, however, I wanted to provide an overview of what GTD was that I could refer future readers back to.

In a nutshell, the Getting Things Done methodology prescribed by David Allen is as follows:

Collecting

This means getting all of your “stuff” in one place where you can think about it. “Stuff” is anything that you feel that you need to do something about: this could be email, a messy closet, or the rattling that your car’s engine is making. Collect these items (or a representation of each) in a physical “In” basket, or virtual one such as your email inbox. If any physical items are too big to put in the In basket, write down a note on a scrap of paper (e.g., “messy closet”), or as I like to do, write a simple, one-line email to yourself.

Processing

Once you have everything in one place, look at each item one by one and determine if there is an action is associated with it. Don’t spend more than two minutes on each item, and work from the top of the stack to the bottom. This takes practice.

If there is no action associated with the object (i.e., as David says, if it’s not “actionable”), your options are to:

• Eliminate it. Hit the delete key, or throw it in the trash if it’s a physical object. You’ll end up deleting a large majority of your email when you get into this. There will be a lot that you’ll just look at and go, “this doesn’t really require my attention, or isn’t that important”, and you’ll wipe it out.
• Incubate it. This might be something you think you might do someday. Stow it away for reviewing later.
• File it as reference material for some other project. In the physical realm, it is recommended that you keep a clean, alphabetized filing cabinet. For email, generally if it just includes an attachment, I’ll save off the attachment under a sub-folder in “My Documents”; otherwise, I keep a bunch of email folders in Outlook that relate to my active projects, which I’ll file it under.

If the item is actionable, determine exactly what the next action associated with the thing is. As mentioned, if the item has more than one action associated with it, it’s considered a “project”; figure out what the first action is required to get the ball rolling on the project. Otherwise, your options at this point are to:

• Do it. If it takes less than two minutes to do, go ahead and complete the task.
• Delegate it. If the action requires somebody else’s attention, forward it along. Note that if you’re ultimately responsible for the task getting done, make a note that you’re waiting for that person, and the date on which you passed it along to them. You’ll end up putting this note in your Action List (which I describe later).
• Defer it. If the action item is something you need to address as soon as you can, add it to your Action Lists (which I also describe later). If the action is to be completed on a given date and/or time (such as an appointment), add it to your Calendar.

Organizing

So what do you do with all of the Action Items you have identified, and with all of the stuff you haven’t thrown out?

An Action List is simply a list of all of the next actions you have identified above, organized by context. For example, this means that you’ll end up categorizing all of the next actions you can do while you’re at the computer (abbreviated to @Computer), at a phone (@Phone), at home (@Home), while you’re out running errands (@Errands), and so on. In this list, you will also file the stuff you’re waiting for (categorized under @WaitingFor), stuff you might look at someday/maybe (SomedayMaybe), and references to the projects (@Projects) that you have active, which is reviewed weekly to ensure that you’re still on-track to complete them. Those are suggestions, but different people tend to use contexts that work best for them. Personally, I use the Tasks portion of Microsoft Outlook to maintain my action items (the tasks themselves), organized by context (the task’s category can be used for this).

Your Calendar becomes what David calls a “hard landscape”. This means that you should only put stuff in your calendar that has a fixed due date, or appointment time.

As per David’s suggestions, physical supporting material, for the most part, should be organized neatly in filing cabinets. A simple alphabetical scheme is recommended here. On the computer, I keep an @Projects folder for reference material relating to active projects (in both Outlook and “My Documents”) and another folder, @Reference, for everything else.

Reviewing

The oil that keeps the GTD engine running is played, in part, by the Weekly Review. Make it a habit to look over your Action Lists at least once a week. Putting aside an hour or two towards the end of the week, on Thursday or Friday afternoon, is the recommended tact. During this time GTD pays off as you get to cross off things you completed during the week, which feels really good. Also take the time to review your active projects to ensure you have at least one action item listed to keep the proverbial ball rolling. Finally, plan out what gets to go on your calendar for the next week and then stick to it.

Doing

So now that you have everything neatly filed away and your future planned, how do you determine what you can do next? Getting Things Done recommends that you can determine your next available actions based on:

1. Your Calendar
2. Your Action Lists

…and then choose one based on:

• Your context. You can’t do something that requires a computer if you aren’t close to one, for example.
• Energy available. If it’s after lunch and you’re feeling tired, plan to do something that doesn’t require your brain.
• Time available. Similarly, if you only have 10 minutes before your next meeting, look for something small you can get out of the way. Keep in mind that making a “quick” phone call, or writing a short email can take longer than anticipated, so use your discretion.
• Priority. Priority depends on what your current responsibilities are, whether your boss is in a good mood, and many other factors. Because priorities commonly change on a daily, if not on a more frequent basis, you should not get caught up in assigning a priority to every action.

That about wraps it up. There’s a ton of details I have left out, so I would highly recommend that you acquire the book if you like what you’ve read here.

Getting Things Done is quite affordable and can be purchased from Amazon.com or Amazon.ca, or from wherever fine books are sold.

And that’s not all. The book’s popularity has spawned a number of web sites dedicated to further explaining the concepts David presents and, in particular, thoughts on implementing his ideas. Other resources I gladly recommend include Lifehacker and 43 Folders.

I would be glad to answer any questions you may have, and if you do end up joining the GTD cult, I would love to hear about your experiences.

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