The Art of Stress-free Productivity – Getting Things Done® (GTD®) is a popular productivity philosophy and system.
It’s a set of rules to make sure you never forget anything and always complete your most important tasks.
GTD in a Nutshell
Getting Things Done is a 5-step process for remembering everything that needs to be done by writing out every task and idea you have to clear your mind.
- Capture everything that has your attention or needs to be done by writing down your tasks, ideas, projects, and more in a list, whether that’s a in paper notebook, a notebook app like Google Docs, or a to-do list like Google Keep. The key is to get everything out of your brain into your “inbox,” as GTD calls your core list.
- Clarify your ideas. Decide if each task or idea in your inbox is actionable and important—and if so, what next step needs taken to complete them. If they’re not actionable, discard the ideas that aren’t important and file the rest for future reference.
- Organize your tasks into lists. Pull similar tasks together to complete at once or group project tasks into a workflow so you do each step in order.
- Reflect on your work. Review your projects to ensure the tasks are still relevant, and make sure you didn’t forget anything.
- Engage and actually do the tasks.
When done correctly, you won’t waste time trying to recall what important tasks you’ve forgotten, what work is due this week, or what your next action is to move forward on your project.
Prioritize your tasks so that you will always do the right task at the right time.
Schedule your heavy work for times when you’re fully energized and your less routine tasks for times when you’re less energized. Over time, you will learn to be appropriately engaged.
Outsource whenever possible.
Teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success.
Apps
Google Keep – Google Keep is a note-taking service developed by Google and is available on the web, and has mobile apps for the Android and iOS mobile operating systems. Keep offers a variety of tools for taking notes, including text, lists, images, and audio.
Google Keep Chrome Extension – With the Google Keep Chrome Extension, easily save webpages, images, all the things you care about to Keep and have them synced across all of the platforms that you use — including web, Android, iOS, and Wear. Take notes for additional detail and add labels to quickly categorize your note for later retrieval.
Google Docs – Google Docs is a very powerful real-time collaboration and document authoring tool. Multiple users can edit a document at the same time, while seeing each others’ changes instantaneously. Users can produce text documents, slide presentations, spreadsheets, drawings, and surveys.
More Info
Summary of Getting Things Done Book by David Allen
Getting Things Done® and GTD® are registered trademarks of the David Allen Company.