Getting Things Done

Getting Things Done
The Art of Stress-free Productivity
By David Allen

Here is the book!
The Columbus
Metropolitan Library
has copies. Or you
can buy your own
copy off the Internet!

What IS “Getting Things Done”??
 GTD is a “meta-system”…a system to help
you create your own system to improve
personal productivity
 GTD tells you “what” you should be doing
(strategy)…you figure out “how” you want to
do it (tactics)
 In other words, GTD provides principles that
you use to develop a personalized system

Overview
 Pt 1: The Art of Getting Things Done
 Overview, explanation of why the system is unique
and timely, and the basic methodologies
 We will cover 2 of 3 chapters today
 Pt 2: Practicing Stress-Free Productivity
 How to implement
 I’ll discuss at a very high level but not cover
 Pt 3: The Power of the Key Principles
 Goes “deeper” about the power of “collection”, “next
action” decisions, and “outcome focusing”
 We will NOT cover today

The Art of Getting Things Done
 A New Practice for a New Reality
 Getting Control of Your Life:
The 5 Stages of Mastering Workflow
 Getting Projects Creatively Under Way:
The 5 Phases of Project Planning
(not being covered today)

Two Key Objectives
 Capturing all that needs to be done
(now, later, someday, big, little) into a
logical, trusted system OUTSIDE of
your head and OFF your mind
 Disciplining yourself to make the
front-end decisions about the inputs you
LET into your life

Who’s that guy?
It never seems to end…
HELP!!!
Remind
you of
anyone?

A New Practice for a New Reality
 The Problem
 New Demands, Insufficient Resources
 The Promise
 The “Ready State” of the Martial Artist
 The Principle
 Dealing Effectively with Internal Commitments
 The Process
 Managing Action

The Problem
 New Demands
 Insufficient Resources
“Almost everyone I encounter these days feels he or she has too
much to handle and not enough time to get it done.”
David Allen
Getting Things Done, pp 4

The Problem
 Work No Longer Has Clear Boundaries
 In the “old days” you SAW what needed
done and knew WHEN it was done

Plowing a field

Building a “widget”
 We are “knowledge workers” now

When is our work product “good” enough?

When do we stop? How MUCH effort?

The Problem
 Our Jobs Keep Changing
 Companies are constantly changing goals,
products, customers, markets, owners,
technologies…
 We are “free agents”…we change jobs,
industries, and careers far more often than
past generations…we don’t do the same
things for extended periods of time

The Problem
 With all this change, little stays “clear” for very
long about our work and how much effort is
needed to do it well
 We “allow in” HUGE amounts of info and
communication from the “outer” world…and
we generate an equally HUGE amount of
ideas and agreements in our “inner” world
 We are not well-equipped to deal with this
huge volume of “commitments”

The Problem
 Old Habits and Models Are Insufficient
 Traditional time management and
organizational tools are not viable solutions
 Speed, complexity, and changing priorities
defeat these “old” habits and models
 To succeed, relax, and be in control during
these fertile but turbulent times requires us
to think and work in a new way

The Problem
 “Nitty-Gritty” vs. “Big Picture”
 Nitty-Gritty models:
Daily Calendars & Prioritized Daily To-do Lists
 Big Picture models:
E.g., Covey’s “Seven Habits”. Those methods that
focus on 50,000-foot views and life goals.

The Problem
 Challenges to “Nitty-Gritty” Models:
 Calendars can really only manage a small portion
of things you need to organize
 Daily to-do lists and A-B-C coding have proven
inadequate to handle the volume and variable
nature of most workloads
 Few people can (or should) code every task as an
A, B, or C priority
 Difficult to stick to a prioritized list when “fires” and
other interruptions “undo” your priorities

The Problem
 Challenges to “Big Picture” Models:
 Conceptually, identifying goals and values
gives direction and order to your life
 Practically, there are too many distractions
to use “big picture” day-by-day or hourly
 “Primary outcomes” and values ARE
important…but they don’t help us in being
productive on a daily basis

The Promise
 There is a way to get a grip on it all,
stay relaxed, and get things done…
 The Ready State of the Martial Artist
 The “Mind Like Water” Simile
“Anything that causes you to over-react or under-react can control
you, and often does.”
David Allen

The Promise
 The Ready State of the Martial Artist
 Getting into “the zone”
 The condition of working, doing, and being
in which the mind is clear and constructive
things are happening.

The Promise
 The “Mind Like Water”
 Imagine throwing a pebble into a pond.
How does the water react?
 The answer is: Totally appropriately to the
force and mass of the input…then it
returns to calm. It doesn’t OVER- or
UNDER-react.

The Principle
 Dealing Effectively with Internal
Commitments
 Most Stress Comes from
Inappropriately Managed Commitments
“You’ve probably made many more agreements with yourself than
your realize, and every single one of them (big or little) is being
tracked by a less-than-conscious part of you. These are the
“incompletes” or “open loops”…

The Principle
 Managing Your Commitments
 If it is ON your mind, your mind ISN’T clear
 Anything unfinished should be captured in
a trusted system OUTSIDE of your mind.
 Clarify your commitment and what needs to
be done (one or more ACTIONS)
 Keep reminders of your actions in a system
that you review REGULARLY

The Principle
 Important Exercise to Test this Model
 Write down a short description of the situation
most on your mind…whatever is making you the
most uneasy or anxious right now
 Describe in one sentence the successful outcome
of this situation…in other words, how do you know
when you can “check it off” as “done”?
 Now…write the VERY NEXT physical action that
would move this project/situation forward.

The Principle
 Was there any value to you in these few
minutes of thinking?
 Most experience a tiny bit of enhanced
control, relaxation, and focus
 Many feel more motivated…imagine
that motivation magnified a thousand
times!

The Principle
 If you feel more positive about your
situation as a result of this exercise, ask
yourself “Why?”
 The situation itself is no further along
 So, what changed?
 What probably happened is you have a
clearer definition of your desired
outcome and the next action you’ll take

The Principle
 But, what created those new and more
clear definitions?
 The answer: THINKING
 Not a lot! Just enough to solidify your
commitment and the resources required
to fulfill it.

The Principle
 Welcome to the real work in
“knowledge work”
 You have to think about your “stuff”
more than you realize…
 …but not as much as you’re afraid you
might.
“The ancestor of every action is a thought.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Principle
 “What are the expected results from this
work?” is…the key question in making
knowledge workers productive. And it
is a question that demands risky
decisions. There is usually no right
answer; there are choices instead.
Peter Drucker

The Principle
 We’re never really taught that we have to
think about our work before we can do it;
much of our daily activity is already defined
for us by the undone and unmoved things
staring at us when we come to work...But, in
truth, outcome thinking is one of the most
effective means available for making wishes
reality.

The Principle
 Why Things Are “On Your Mind”
 Need to clarify the intended outcome;
 Need to decide the “next action”; and/or
 Need to put reminders of the outcome and
next actions in a system you trust

The Principle
 Your Mind Doesn’t Have a Mind of Its Own
 If it did, it would remind you to do things only
when you could actually do them
 Since you woke up this morning, have you been
thinking about things you need to do…but you still
haven’t done them yet? Why?
 It’s a waste of time and energy to think about
things that you make no progress on
 Your mind can’t deal effectively with all this “stuff”
until you transform it

The Principle
 The Transformation of “Stuff”
 “Stuff” is anything that doesn’t belong
where it is, but for which you haven’t yet
defined an outcome and/or the next action
 Most to-do lists are inventories of “stuff”,
not actionable work that can be done
 As knowledge workers, we take “stuff” and
transform it into actions

The Process
 Managing Action
 You need to get into the habit of keeping
nothing on your mind
 The key to managing all of your “stuff” is
managing actions…not time, not priorities,
not information
 Things rarely get stuck because of lack of
time…they get stuck because the “doing”
of them has not been defined

The Process
 The Value of a Bottom-Up Approach
 Top-down thinking should help us…but
people are so embroiled in day-to-day work
that long-horizon thinking is impaired
 A bottom-up approach (dealing with your
inboxes and daily actions, etc.) actually
helps broaden your horizon
 Unleash your creativity and inspiration

The Process
 Horizontal & Vertical Action Management
 Horizontal control maintains coherence across
all activities

Think of radar scanning across your environment

Many items demand attention
 Vertical control manages thinking up and
down individual topics and projects

Classic “project planning”
 The goal for both: Get things off your mind and
get them done

The Process
 The Major Change: Getting it Out of Your Head
 Capture, transform, and organize 100% of your
“stuff” with tools, not in your mind
 If you don’t, your mind will keep reminding you of
things when you can’t do anything about them
 During this seminar, has your mind wandered off
onto subjects that don’t have anything to do with
why you are here? Probably so.

The Process
 The Major Change: Getting it Out of Your Head
 Most likely, you thought about “open loops” or
“incompletes”–did you do anything about them?
 If not, your mind is simply going to keep
returning to them…you’ll worry about them
 But, if you wrote them down and put them into a
trusted system that you knew you’d review
regularly…then they would be OFF your mind

The Process
 Most do not get things “off their mind”
 Most have been in some version of
“mental stress” for so long…they don’t
even know they are in it
 It’s like gravity…ever-present…so much
so that people aren’t consciously aware
of the pressure…but it’s there!

The Process
 The only time they notice how much
tension they’ve been under…is when it
is gone and they feel the difference
 Can you get rid of that kind of stress?
 You bet! The rest of the book will
explain how to do so!

Getting Control of Your Life:
The 5 Stages of Mastering Workflow
 Collect “stuff” that comes to our attention
 Process what it means and what to do
about it
 Organize the results
 Review as options to choose what we…
 Do
This is “horizontal action control”

5 Stages of Mastering Workflow
 Problems faced by many:
 Do not collect all stuff…”leaks”
 Collect stuff but do not process
 Make good decisions “in the moment” but
do not organize
 Have good systems but do not review
 If above problems exist, what someone is
likely to choose to do at any point in time
may not be the best option

5 Stages of Mastering Workflow
 One of the major reasons that people haven’t
had a lot of success “getting organized” is
simply that they have tried to do all five
phases at one time. Most, when they sit
down to “make a list”, are trying to collect “the
most important things” in some order that
reflects priorities and sequences…

Collect
 Gathering 100% of the Incompletes
 The Collection Tools
 The Collection Success Factors

Collect
Gathering 100% of Incompletes
 You need to collect and gather together place-
holders for ALL things you consider incomplete
 Many things are already being collected:
physical inboxes, email, voicemail.
 But what about: Strategy ideas on a legal pad
stuck in your credenza? Broken gadgets in a
drawer that need fixed or tossed? Unread
magazines on your coffee table?

Collect
Gathering 100% of the Incompletes
 As soon as you attach should do, need
to, or ought to…it is an incomplete
 To manage incompletes (“open loops”)
you must capture them in containers to
hold them for processing
 You must regularly empty these
“containers” (e.g. inboxes)

Collect
Gathering 100% of the Incompletes
 Everything is collected, in a larger
sense
 If it’s not captured in a trusted external
system, it’s somewhere in your psyche
 The fact that it’s not in your in-basket
doesn’t mean you don’t have it, but…
 We want to get it off our mind and
into an outside system for processing

Collect
Collection Tools
 Physical in-boxes
 Paper-based note-taking devices
 Electronic note-taking devices
 Voice-recording devices
 E-mail

Collect
Collection Tools
 Physical In-boxes
 Plastic, wood, leather, wire…the inbox is
the most common tool for collecting paper-
based materials: mail, memos, notes, etc.
 Also need to consider in-boxes for things
like: flashlights with dead batteries or other
non-paper materials

Collect
Collection Tools
 Paper-based note-taking devices
 Loose-leaf notebooks, spiral binders, steno
or legal pads, index cards, etc.
 These work fine to collect ideas, notes,
things to do, etc.
 Whatever fits your taste and needs is fine

Collect
Collection Tools
 Electronic note-taking devices
 Computers, OCR devices, handhelds
(PDAs), and electronic pads
 Technology continues to improve…but that
usually results in an increase in the amount
of inputs we receive and must process!

Collect
Collection Tools
 Voice-recording devices
 Answering machines, voicemail, dictating
equipment, digital or micro-cassette recorders
 Can be very useful to preserve an interim
record of things you need to remember of
deal with later

Collect
Collection Tools
 E-mail
 Most have several accounts for designated
purposes (business, personal, etc)
 Useful to capture incoming information and
files…but also subject to high volume of
activity including spam
 Many people HAVE NOT controlled their
email accounts…lots of messages not
processed effectively

Collect
Collection Success Factors
 Merely having an inbox doesn’t make it
functional
 The 3 collection success factors
 Get it ALL out of your head…every “open
loop” must be in your collection system
 Have as few inboxes as possible
 Empty your inboxes regularly

Process
 OK…How do you empty your inboxes
without actually doing the work?
 What do you need to ask yourself (and
answer) about each email, idea, or item
you have collected?
 Remember: You manage actions
based on decisions you make about
outcomes and what needs done

Process
What Is It?
 This is not a dumb question
 Many items that “leak” out of our
organizing systems have no readily
apparent actions…we ignore them and
they end up in “stacks”
 You need to take a few seconds to
figure out what the “stuff” is all about

Process
Is It Actionable?
 This question MUST be asked of each
item collected in your inboxes
 Two possible answers: YES or NO
 If the answer is NO, then either…
 It’s trash…eliminate
 No action is needed now, but something might
need to be done later…incubate
 It is useful information…file for reference

Process
Is It Actionable?
 If the answer is YES, then two things
need to be determined…
 What project or outcome have you
committed yourself to?
 What is the next action?
 A “project” is simply an outcome that
requires MULTIPLE actions

Process
What is the Next Action?
 What is a “next action”?
 It is the next physical, visible activity
that needs to happen in order to
achieve your desired outcome
 You MUST identify next actions
 Identifying next actions allows you to
organize effectively

Process
Do, Defer, Delegate
 After deciding the Next Action, you must either:
 Do it: If it takes less than 2 minutes, do it!
 Delegate it: If you are not the right person to
do the next action, hand it off and keep a
reminder list of “Waiting For” items
 Defer it: If you can’t Do or Delegate, then
defer to a specific day (Calendar) or to a
reminder list of “Next Actions”

Organize
 8 Categories Result from Processing:
 Not Actionable

(1) Trash, (2) Incubate, or (3) Reference
 Actionable

(1) Project List; (2) Storage/Files for Project
Materials; (3) Calendar; (4) List of Next Actions;
or (5) List of “Waiting For” Items

Organize
 All of these categories need to be physically
contained in some form
 “Lists” mean some sort of reviewable set of
reminders
 Could be: notebook; computer program; file
folders; a DayRunner; a PDA
 Flexibility to suit your needs…but follow the
principles and track all categories

Organize
Project List
 Project: A desired outcome that
requires more than one action
 Examples
 Hire a new staff person
 Get a new living room chair
 Publish a book
 You don’t “do” projects…you “do” action
steps related to a project

Organize
Project List
 Reasoning behind this definition of
“project” is that if one action will not
complete…some kind of placeholder
needs to be established to remind you
 The point is…Keep a Project List of
some kind

Organize
Project Files
 Your “Project List” is an index
 For individual projects, you’ll want a
“container” to organize plans, details,
supporting information, research, etc.
 Establish separate Project Files of
some kind…file folders, computer files,
notebooks, binders, etc.

Organize
Project Files
 Project Files vs. Reference Materials
 You may find that your Project Files have a
similar filing system as your Reference
Materials
 Consider keeping in same file cabinet
 Definitely recommend you keep Project
Files “out of sight” unless actively using
them (“hot projects”)

Organize
Calendars
 Reminders of actions fall into 2 types:
 To be done on specific days/times
 To be done As Soon As Possible (ASAP)
 Calendars handle the first type
 3 Things go on your Calendar
 Time-specific actions
 Day-specific actions
 Day-specific information

Organize
Calendars
 Time-specific actions: A fancy name
for “appointments”…a specific day/time
 Day-specific actions: Actions you
need to do at some time on a specific
day, but not a specific time
 Day-specific information: Info that
may be useful on a certain date (e.g.
telephone info for a call you’ll make)

Organize
Calendars
 What about scheduling your Daily To-
Do Lists on your calendar?
 In a word…NO!!!
 Scheduling tasks that don’t get done is
demoralizing and a waste of time. You’ll
have to “reschedule”…ugh.
 Only put the “hard landscape” items on
your Calendar

Organize
Next Action Lists
 So, where do all the “next action”
reminders go?
 Answer: On Next Action Lists
 The Calendar and Next Action Lists are
the heart of daily action management
“Everything should be made as simple as possible…
but not simpler.
Albert Einstein

Organize
Next Action Lists
 If you only have 20-30 at a time, one Next
Action List makes sense
 Most of us have 100-200…one list is unwieldy
to manage
 Create multiple Next Action Lists such as
“@Home” “@Work” “@Telephone”
 Special next action lists called “Agendas” that
contain actions related to specific people

Organize
Non-Actionable Items
 Trash: Toss all stuff that has no potential
future action or reference value
 Incubate: Two typical solutions
 Someday/Maybe Lists
 Tickler Files
 Reference: Topic-specific and general
reference files

Review
 It’s one thing to write down that you need
milk…it’s another to be at the store and
review your list to remember!
 You must review your “work” at the
appropriate interval and level
 For most people, the “magic” of workflow
management is realized in the consistent
use of the Review phase

Review
What to Review When
 On a daily basis…
 Your Calendar
 Your Next Action lists
 Your Projects, Waiting For, and
Someday/Maybe lists only need to be
reviewed as often as it takes for you to
stop worrying about them

Review
Critical Success Factor
 Everything that might potentially require
action must be reviewed on a frequent
enough basis to keep your mind from
taking back the job of remembering.
 This requirement translates into a
behavior that is critical for your success…
The Weekly Review

Review
The Weekly Review
 The Weekly Review
 All Projects, Project Files, Next Actions
(including Agendas), Waiting For, and even
Someday/Maybe lists must be reviewed
once per week
 This also gives you a chance to ensure
your mind is clear and that all loose stuff is
collected, processed, and organized

Review
The Weekly Review
 Gather and process all your “stuff”
 Review your system
 Update your lists
 Get clean, clear, current, and
complete

Review
The Weekly Review
 Most people don’t have a complete
system…therefore they don’t trust it
 The more complete the system, the
more likely you are to trust it
 The more you trust it, the harder you’ll
work to maintain it
 The Weekly Review is the key to
building trust into your system

Review
The Weekly Review
 Most people feel best about their work
the week before vacation. Why?
 What do you do the last week before a
vacation? Clean up, close, clarify, and
renegotiate all your commitments
 GTD is suggesting you do this WEEKLY
instead of a couple times a year

Do
 The basic purpose of this workflow
management process is to facilitate
good choices about what you’re doing
at any given point in time
 Every decision to act is an intuitive one.
The challenge is to migrate from
hoping it’s the right choice to trusting
it’s the right choice

Do
The Models for Making Action Choices
 The 4 Criteria Model for Choosing
Actions “In the Moment”
 The Threefold Model for Evaluating
Daily Work
 The Six-Level Model for Reviewing
Your Own Work

Do
The 4 Criteria Model
 To Choose Actions “In the Moment”
 Context
 Time Available
 Energy Available
 Priority

Do
 Context
 A few actions can be done anywhere (like
jotting down ideas about a project with pen
and paper)
 Most require a specific location (e.g. home,
at work) or a specific productivity tool (e.g.
phone, computer)
 Keep Next Action Lists by Context

Do
 Time Available
 Have a rough estimate of the time it will
take to complete your Next Actions
 Choosing among Next Actions is often
dependent on time available
 For example, if you Calendar shows you
have a meeting in 15 minutes, you can’t
choose a Next Action that takes 1 hour

Do
 Energy Available
 Not as easily quantified as “time available”
but you may need to have an idea if Next
Actions require “high” energy or not
 Morning person vs. Night owl

Do
 Priority
 Given your Context, Time, and Energy, which
action will give the highest payoff?
 You’re at the office, have 1 hour, and have
“high” energy…should you call your client,
work on proposal, process emails, deal with
“fire” that came up, or decide Next Actions?
 This is where you access your intuition and
rely on your judgment call in the moment

Do
Threefold Model for Evaluating Daily
Work
 The Threefold Model
 Doing predefined work
 Doing work as it shows up
 Defining your work

Do
Work
 Doing Predefined Work
 When you’re working on your Next Actions,
you are doing predefined work
 Completing tasks that you have previously
determined need to be done, managing
your workflow

Do
Work
 Doing Work As It Shows Up
 Inevitably, unexpected things come up that
you have to (or choose to) respond to as
they happen
 For example, your boss walks in and wants
to discuss some things with you
 You need to allow some time and energy to
deal with this kind of work each day

Do
The Threefold Model for Evaluating Work
 Defining Your Work
 Processing your inbox, your email, your
voicemail, meeting notes, etc. into Next
Actions and organizing them
 As part of this process, you’ll be taking
care of “less-than-2-minute” actions,
tossing trash, and filing reference items

Do
Six-Level Model for Reviewing Work
 The Six-Level Model
 50,000 Feet: Life
 40,000 Feet: 3-5 year vision
 30,000 Feet: 1-2 year goals
 20,000 Feet: Areas of Responsibility
 10,000 Feet: Current Projects
 Runway: Current Actions

Do
Six-Level Model
 Runway
 This is your Next Actions List
 All the phone calls, errands, emails, tasks,
agenda items, project steps, etc.
 Most people probably have 300-500 hours
worth of these things if you could somehow
“stop the world” and not allow in any
additional inputs

Do
Six-Level Model
 10,000 Feet: Current Projects
 Creating many of the Next Actions you
currently have are probably 30-100
projects you have on your Project List
 These are relatively short-term outcomes
such as setting up a home computer,
organizing a sales conference, getting a
new dentist, etc.

Do
Six-Level Model
 20,000 Feet: Areas of Responsibility
 You create or accept projects mostly due
to your responsibilities (15-20 categories)
 These are key areas within which you want
to achieve results and maintain standards
 Job: Strategic planning, Staff development,
Market research, Asset Management
 Personal: Family, Finance, Health, Home

Do
Six-Level Model
 30,000 Feet: 1-2 Year Goals
 What you want to happen in various areas
of your life and work in the next 1-2 years
 At work, these goals typically require a shift
or change in emphasis in your areas of
responsibility, with new areas of
responsibility emerging

Do
Six-Level Model
 40,000 Feet: 3-5 Year Vision
 Projecting this far into the future generates
thinking about “bigger” categories
 For example: Organization strategies,
environmental trends, career and life-
transition circumstances
 Other factors: Long-term career, family,
and financial goals

Do
Six-Level Model
 50,000 Feet: Life
 The “big picture” view
 Why does my company exist? Why do I
exist? What do I choose as my purpose (or
purposes) in this world?
 All goals, visions, objectives, projects, etc.
should ultimately derive from your Life
Goals

Do
 These “altitude” analogies are
somewhat arbitrary
 In real life, the important conversations
you have about focus and priorities may
not exactly fit one horizon
 But, they do provide a useful framework
for thinking and planning

How Do I Implement GTD?
 Okay…that was all great stuff…but how
do I actually IMPLEMENT the GTD
system for myself?
 Good question
 As noted, GTD is a meta-system…it
gives you the strategies…you
determine the tactics

Part 2 of the Book
 Part 2 of the book is about implementing…
 Ch 4: Getting Started: Time, Space and Tools
 Ch 5: Collection: Corralling Your “Stuff”
 Ch 6: Processing: Getting Inbox to Empty
 Ch 7: Organizing: Setting Up the Right Buckets
 Ch 8: Reviewing: Keeping System Functional
 Ch 9: Doing: Making the Best Action Choices
 Ch 10: Getting Projects Under Control

What About My Current System?
 I’m already using…
 A Daytimer/Dayrunner type system
 A Blackberry or other PDA system
 Microsoft Outlook
 Gmail
 Some or all of the above
 No problem…just modify

What About My Current System?
 Example: Daytimer/Dayrunner mod’s:
 Don’t put Next Actions in your calendar unless
they are Time-specific or Day-specific
 Don’t do A-B-C prioritization
 Set up Next Lists by context, Waiting For list,
and Someday/Maybe list in your planner
 Collect ideas, meeting notes, etc. in your
planner for processing

Tricks
 Implementation – Is A Lot About Tricks
 If you’re not sure you’re committed to an
all-out implementation of GTD, be assured
that a lot of the value people get from this
material is “good tricks”
 Sometimes just one good trick (e.g. tickler
system) can be worth the time it takes to
read this material

Tricks
 Tricks are for the not-so-smart, not-so-
conscious part of us
 David Allen: “To a great degree, the
highest-performing people I know are
those who have installed the “best
tricks” in their lives” pp 85
 We trick ourselves into doing what we
ought to be doing

Tricks
 Example: “Costuming” If you put on
exercise clothes…you’re more likely to
actually exercise
 Example: You take work home that
HAS to go back to the office
tomorrow…put it in front of the door with
your keys
 These “tricks” ultimately transform into
new habits that improve productivity

How Do I Implement GTD
Bill Morgan’s Thoughts
 The biggest stumbling blocks to
success in GTD seem to be:
 Good collection habits
 Processing effectively
 Discipline in reviewing

 Collection Habits
 You’re already doing a lot of collecting

E-mail, voice-mail

Inbox

Mail at home
 But there are often “leaks” in how you
collect certain “stuff”

 Collection Habits – Problem Areas
 Meeting notes
 Telephone conversations
 Face-to-face discussions
 Personal ideas and brainstorming
 Things that don’t usually end up in physical
inboxes, email, or voicemail

 Collection Habits – Problem Areas
 If you use a planner…do you always have
it with you? Size might make unwieldy
 Do you use one tool or several? Whatever
is handy? Legal pad, steno, etc?
 Need to think about what works best for
you to capture all your “stuff”

 Effective Processing – Problem Areas
 Email: Most people are not effective in
processing emails…builds up fast!
 Notes: A lot of good ideas from meetings
are lost by ineffective processing of notes
 Ideas: Capturing ideas in a central location
will help you to process effectively

 Disciplined Reviewing: Problem Areas
 Setting up the 7 categories when
organizing (excluding “trash”) is fine…but
you MUST do the Weekly Review
 Failing to review at least weekly will not
keep your system complete…you’ll lose
trust in yourself and your system

Bill Morgan’s System
 How I do GTD
 Ubiquitous Capture Device
 Thinking Rock software
 Pocket Mods printouts
 Miquelrius notebook
 Email
 Other stuff

THE END?!
 We’re done for today…thank you!!!
 Did you find it helpful?
 Questions not yet asked?
 Do you want a further session?
 GO GET THINGS DONE!!!

Getting Things Done

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