David: When I say I only think once a week, I’m making an exaggerated point that doing a thorough GTD Weekly Review sufficiently sets up my sense of priorities so that I don’t have to do a lot of re-thinking or over-structuring, as I go day to day.  Usually we don’t have the time in the busy pace we work to stop and do “forest management instead of tree-hugging”.  Because most people don’t build in that reflection time–regarding actions, projects, and commitments–they’re constantly thinking that they should be thinking about their priorities, but they never really do.

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If you’re ready to stop stressing and start accomplishing your goals, David Allen’s Getting Things Done can help you create a simple, effective personal productivity system.

About David Allen

David Allen is the author of the Personal MBA-recommended book Getting Things Done, as well as Ready For Anything, and Making It All Work. For more information about his work, check out David Allen’s website.

Here are 10 big ideas from David Allen’s Getting Things Done…

1. If your day-to-day life is out of control, it’s almost impossible to think strategically or plan effectively.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed about how much you have to do (and who isn’t, really?), it’s difficult to focus on ensuring your life and work is moving in the direction you want to go. That’s why it’s important to get control of your daily tasks before working on your big-picture life planning.

GTD is a “bottom-up” approach to productivity. The goal is to establish a sense of comfort and control over the work that’s on your plate right now, so you can free up some mental energy and space to think about the big stuff.

2. Define what being “done” looks like.

Most of the tasks people keep on their to-do lists are “amorphous blobs of undoability” – commitments without any clear vision of what being “done” looks like. That’s a huge problem – your brain is naturally designed to help you figure out how to do things, but only if you know what the end point looks like.

Everything you’re working on should have a very clear stopping point – a point where you know you’re done. If you don’t know what that point looks like, you’ll find it very difficult to make any progress at all. When you’re having trouble making progress, first clarify what being done looks like.

3. Mental work has five distinct phases: Collect, Process, Organize, Do, and Review

Not all work is the same. There are five separate phases of effective work:

• Collecting is the act of gathering inputs: resources, knowledge, and tasks. You’ll have a much easier time making use of your available inputs if they’re all in one place before you begin.
• Processing is the act of examining your inputs: what you can do with the resources at your disposal. This is where you start separating things according to what you’re planning to do next: tasks, projects, future plans, and reference information.
• Organizing means taking the results of your processing and putting it in a system you trust, so you don’t have to remember it all. Tasks go on your to-do list, projects go on a projects list, future plans go into a tracking system, and reference information goes into a file or database you can access easily.
• Doing means working through the tasks you can accomplish right now.
• Reviewing means examining the results of your work, revising your strategy, and improving your systems for better results.

Keep the phases deliberately separate, and you’ll get a lot more done.

4. Get everything out of your head.

Many people try to keep track of everything they need to do in their mind, which is a big mistake. Our brains are optimized for fast decision-making, not storage. Trying to juggle too many things in your head at the same time is a major reason we get stressed out when there’s a lot going on: we’re using the wrong tool for the job.

The best way to stop mentally thrashing and start being productive is to spend a few minutes putting everything on your mind onto paper. You can write or draw – whatever works for you, as long as you can see it when you’re done. Once the information is out of your head, it’s far easier to figure out what to do with it. Even 10 minutes of Externalization can help you feel less freaked out about your workload.

Of course, it’s better not to be freaked out in the first place, so make it easy to capture what you’re thinking on paper. I carry a wallet that has a space for 3×5 index cards and a pen – whenever I have an idea, it’s easy to capture it, even if I don’t have my notebook or computer with me at the time. If you reduce the Friction you experience when capturing ideas, you’ll naturally capture more of them.

5. Projects and tasks are two different things: track them separately.

A major mistake that most people make when keeping track of things to do is conflating tasks and projects. That’s a good way to feel overwhelmed fast – many things can’t be accomplished in one sitting.

For example, I just finished the book I’ve been writing for a little over a year. If I had “write the book” on my to-do list, I’d quickly be overwhelmed – the project was just too big. Instead of “failing” to accomplish that to-do for a year, it’s far better to treat it as a project – something that takes more than one task to accomplish. I can’t “write the book,” but I can complete a small section of the book in one sitting.

Since projects and tasks are two different things, it’s best to keep track of them separately. Personally, I carry a small notebook with me to record active tasks with 3×5 index card inside that lists my active projects. The index card is just the right size to list 4-8 active projects – if I have more than that, I know I’m spreading myself too thin.

6. Focus on the Next Action required to move forward.

Big projects have many steps, and can be overwhelming in their complexity. The key to handling these projects is not to focus on everything that has to be done – that’s a great way to freak yourself out.

Instead, just focus on the very next physical action you need to do to move the project forward. It may be looking up a piece of information, making a phone call, or accomplishing a small task. Whatever it is, it’ll move you closer to completing the project, so don’t worry about everything else – focus only on what you can do right now.

7. Use the “2 Minute Rule” for small tasks.

Don’t worry about tracking small tasks – if you can accomplish the task in less than two minutes, just do it! Writing down every little thing you have to do takes more time than it’s worth – if you need to send a 30-second reminder e-mail to someone, there’s no sense in taking 20 seconds to write it down when you could just get er done.

Personally, I expand this to 5 minutes – the principle is the same. Your goal is to get things done, not to flawlessly capture each and every little thing in your perfectly designed system.

8. Use Reference and Someday/Maybe files for things that have no immediate next actions.

There’s no sense in keeping FYI or long-term dreams in your active daily task tracking system. Reference files are great for storing information you don’t have to act on right now. These files can either be physical or electronic – for example, I keep important paperwork and legal documents in a fire-proof safe, and electronic files and websites in a file on my computer or in Evernote.

Someday/Maybe lists are great for deferring ideas that you’d like to work on someday, but you’re not committing to right now. I have ideas about fun new things do to every day – way more than I have time or energy for. Instead of losing these ideas, it’s far better to capture them in a reference file you can look through later, when you have more capacity. When you’re ready to commit to a new project, the someday/maybe gets promoted to an active project.

9. Build a trusted system that helps you keep track of your commitments.

Your mind keeps things in working memory if it thinks you’ll lose them if it doesn’t. That’s why building a productivity system is important – it helps your mind let go of tracking unnecessary details so you can focus on the task at hand. That’s why Externalization works – when you put something on paper in a place you know you’ll be able to find later, you’re freeing mental resources that can be put to better use elsewhere.

An effective productivity system consists of the following:

• A list of active tasks – next actions you’ve committed to accomplishing in the next few days.
• A list of active projects – 4-20 project you’ve committed to accomplishing in the next few weeks.
• A calendar – commitments to meet with other people in the near future.
• A someday/maybe list – ideas you’d like to explore, but not right now.
• Reference files – information or documents you’ll need to refer to in the future.
• A capture device – some way of capturing ideas or next actions as you think of them.

That’s it, really – you can use any number of tools for the above, as long as they cover those basic needs. Personally, I use a notebook for active tasks, a 3×5 index card in that notebook for projects, the calendar on my computer, someday/maybe and reference files in Backpack and Evernote or physical files, and my 3×5-sized wallet for my capture device.

10. Schedule non-negotiable time for a Weekly Review.

Life moves fast – we often have so much to do that’s it’s difficult to take a step back and examine whether or not we’re getting the results we want. That’s why it’s extremely important to schedule some time each week to do a “Weekly Review.”

Here are a few things you should include in your weekly review:

• Process and organize – anything you’ve collected but haven’t handled yet.
• Review your active tasks – are there any to add, delegate, defer, or delete?
• Review your active projects – are there any to add, delegate, defer, or delete?
• Review your calendar – are there any meetings to add, delegate, defer, or delete?
• Someday/Maybe – anything to add or promote to an active project?
• Reference Files – anything you need soon? Anything to add or update?
• Goals – are you moving in the right direction? Are you making progress? Are any changes necessary?

Don’t skip this review – it’s extremely important if you want to decrease your stress levels. Personally, I find it best to schedule my review for the end of the week: Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. It’s a great way to wrap up the week, feel good about what you’ve accomplished, plan for the next week, and set yourself up for a relaxing weekend.

BONUS TIP: developing an effective personal productivity system takes time and experimentation.

Many people get frustrated when adopting GTD because it takes so long to get everything under control. Cut yourself some slack: GTD is a collection of habits, and habits take time to develop. Instead of trying to install everything at once, work on improving in one of these areas until it’s effortless, then focus on installing the next habit. In time, you’ll master them all.

Also remember that the goal of GTD is to make it easier to do work that matters – not procrastinating by endlessly improving your system instead of doing productive work. Try to avoid succumbing to “productivity porn” – experiment constantly, but remember that the most effective systems have the same thing in common: they’re usually the simplest thing that could possibly work. When in doubt, err on the side of doing less.

Josh Kaufman is an independent business teacher, education activist, and author of the Personal MBA: A World-Class Business Education in a Single Volume, which will be published by Portfolio on December 30, 2010.

Please provide a less complex version of the basic GTD chart/system for me and the hundreds of thousands of organizationally challenged managers just like me who have tried and failed to maintain the GTD system. Simpler is better.

David responded:

I empathize with desire for the “GTD for Dummies” approach.  I suggest just not letting the visual chart get in your way… it’s as simple as:

Write it down
Decide what’s next about it
Park that somewhere you’ll trust you’ll look at as a reminder
Keep your head empty and your list(s) current

Hope that helps.

Enjoy your weekend GTDers!

David Allen: Deadlines (especially “hard” ones that you have external commitments about) should be tracked on the Projects list, and any pre-warnings inserted on appropriate dates in your calendar (that’s “day-specific information”, e.g. “Budget due in 10 days” would be on your calendar 10 days ahead. )  That, plus regular Weekly Reviews, prevents what you describe — missing deadlines.

David Allen: The Secret Sauce for what you’re inquiring is the GTD Weekly Review. I guarantee you, if you do a thorough review of all your projects, actions, calendar (prior and upcoming), and (here’s the catch) all the content is relatively complete and current in your system), you would not have this question.

Learn more…

Hi fellow GTD’ers,

April 9, 2009 was the morning that changed my life. For the 4th time that week, I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t close another eye because of all the things I had to do (recognise this?). But this time I got up and surfed the web for a solution. Pretty fast I ended up with GTD and David Allen. One year later I’m the biggest GTD-fan in Europe (well, in Belgium anyway). The approach David and his team developed, helped me control and overview all the different responsibilities I’m handling. Being a musician in a lot of totally different kinds of music projects, music teacher, project coordinator, husband and father of two wonderful girls (you know, this takes time). A house, a beautiful garden, 3 chickens and a rabbit to maintain. I want to keep in shape–don’t we all–but I love drinking our famous Belgian beers, so this demands some balancing…

Thanks to GTD, I finally got rid of the old kitchen we replaced 4 years ago, but was still in our garage catching dust and spiders, I got to launch very nice projects at school, recorded a CD–I am organised and nothing blows up in my face anymore. In short, this changed my life completely.

Now it seems as though the whole world around me is one big chaotic mess. And if you start paying attention to what people are saying, everybody is struggling with the same organisation problems. That’s why spreading GTD has become a new hobby (…didn’t I have already enough things on my mind? – No, this is fun!) So, as soon as someone complains about all the things he has to do, I tell him: ‘You know, there is a system to manage that.’ – ‘There is?’ (big eyes) Then I show my PDA ‘Well, this contains everything I have to do for the moment.’ And then a giant question mark show up on their faces. So I tell about the wonderful books David wrote. And they get all excited and ready to start.

When we meet again a few months later, I ask about their GTD system. Most of them answer, “Well, that was an interesting book – Did you apply it already?”– ‘Oh, well I have to many things to handle right now, you know,…’ Except one of my colleagues, who had terrible stress-related headaches. He’s getting it, and is flying the corridors of the school. If he gets stuff in: whoosh! Process, Organise, Do, … give me a new one!

I think a lot of people need someone to hold their hand to get started. So this is what I am doing now: when I see my wife with 124 items in her email: honey, let’s clean that up. My kids (6y and 8y) know by now, if they need something to be taken care of, they drop it in my inbox (I get a lot of broken toys in my in basket). Students struggling with workload, I try to give some tips and hints to get their things organised and planned.

Next thing on my plate is getting my wife into real GTD. She already started reading the book but somehow became stuck: ’I’m too busy to read a book’ – ‘Yeah, but this book is great for dealing with busy people.’ – ‘Oh, I don’t have the time.’ So now, I slipped the CD’s of GTD Live into her car, hoping she might listen to them sort of by accident. I’ll let you know how that goes!

Jan lives in Belgium.  He says that “GTD got me organised, now I can be chaotic without losing perspective and control.”

Some of you have asked if DA does his own Tweets. Absolutely!  Every one of them.  You’re getting the man himself.

If you’re not into Twitter, you can also read his feed on GTD Times in the right column.

What’s your advice to people who aspire to get organized and stick to it?
If you’ve ever wanted to have more time to do the things you really care about, whatever that is, then you owe it to yourself to get organised. The idea that creativity and being organised are somehow mutually exclusive is completely false in my opinion. If you stick with it, GTD becomes a set of habits that helps you to spend more time on the things you’re passionate about. If you get too hung up on the method and peripheral issues such as having the right pen, notebook or file labeler, etc., you’ve fundamentally missed the point.

Read the full interview…

If you like learning more from others implementing GTD, our In Conversation and Slice of GTD Life Series on GTD Connect give you a peak inside how other people are making GTD work for them.

David Allen: Big key is simply to keep track of them all. And have a place either digitally or manual, to hold all relevant collateral materials and thinking. At some point you’ll either get used to lots of commitments, or make fewer. Probably both.

For the longest time, I procrastinated filling out applications. The task just seemed so daunting and hard to manage. By breaking “find a new job” into mini-project, job applications, my whole outlook changed dramatically. All of the sudden, each application I complete is like a personal victory. I move it from @ Apply to @ Waiting For – Jobs, and there is this tremendous sense of accomplishment at seeing how many I’ve completed. At the same time, the master list of jobs has been really helpful, especially during the Weekly Review. Sometimes I review my jobs list and remember that I need to check the status of one of the applications online or need to call to follow-up to see what the status is. There’s this great feeling that nothing is slipping through the cracks.

It really amazed me how well, with a few modifications, the GTD system could handle the job search.

We’ve also heard from people using GTD on their resumes.  Have you?  What would you say about your GTD skills that would stand out to prospective employers?  Leaps long lists in a single bound… Inbox to zero on a regular basis… Will actually capture what you ask me to do…. ?

I have found that GTD is one of those things where you just need to jump in and try something. I find that my system is just altering a little bit here and there all the time anyway. It’s like gardening, you don’t “finish” as such because there’s always new tips and tricks to try out. But eventually you settle to a basic system that is the basis for your GTD stuff and you work from there.

I would say (and I’m no expert believe me, but this worked for me) just sit down and write out everything you need to do. Make a great big ‘to do’ list (the ‘capture’ part of the system) and then you can start sorting that into things that are actually projects, one-off items, etc. And you probably won’t get everything at that point anyway. But once you have your list and have started organising it and categorising it a bit, you will add things as you go along and you’re away.

Have fun!

Read the whole discussion thread on LinkedIn

You’ll also find great resources on GTD Connect (the 16-part GTD Getting Started series), the GTD System Starter Kit, and the GTD Implementation Guide.  And, as Rosemarie said so well, “jump in and try something!”

David’s reply: There are lots of articles and books written about some basic common sense stuff about email, including some of our own resources like our Setup Guides, Webinars on GTD Connect, and a free article I wrote on Getting Email Under Control.

Email is just like the phone or any other medium that takes a while for cultures and individuals to sift out their own best practices for their culture.  If email has value, that’s what it’s for.  If it doesn’t, don’t do it.  Don’t shoot the medium.  It’s just a channel for people communicating.  For me personally, I don’t like interruptions, when it could be in an email that I can deal iwth in my own timing.  If I want a warm fuzzy, email may not be the way to do that. All depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. People can use email to avoid work, just like they can walk down the hall to avoid work. The issue is avoiding work, not whether you’re doing it by email or by walking and talking.

Pictured from left: David Kwo of Logan Consulting, DavidCo Senior Coach & Presenter Danny Bader, Kevin Murnane, DavidCo Events Director Rachelle Bonsignori, and Heather Meibach from the Gleacher Center.

-David Allen

When: Tuesday, June 15th

Times: 7:30am – 9am

Topic: Creating Order Out of Chaos – Staying Afloat in a World of Too Much To Do

Learn more

This is a paid, in-person only event–not a Webinar. Please follow the link to learn more from the organization hosting this.

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For a Webinar with David Allen, the next one will be on June 23rd from 11am-12pm through our online learning center–GTD Connect.  David will be taking attendee examples to coach people through the GTD Fundamental Process (What’s the Outcome? and What’s the Next Action?)  Free to all GTD Connect members.  Register now on the home page of Connect.  Not a member? Try the 14-day trial.

We’ve all been there!

For the longest time I avoided the Weekly Review and just moved from day to day reacting to what came up – in other words, I had not implemented the most effective part of GTD. Then I set aside an hour on Sunday, turned off the phone and TV, and put on a pot of tea and some relaxing music. During that time I asked myself why was I avoiding the Weekly Review? I found the answer to be that once I knew how many things needed to be done in my personal and business life, I felt overwhelmed. But then I realized that once I had it all out in front of me, I could pick and choose what I could do when, delegate in some instances, and negotiate deadlines on some items, and put off some indefinitely. I started with just telling myself to do it for 15 minutes, and that stretched to an hour. Now that golden hour every week helps me face whatever comes my way. I can make adjustments and still get through the week with confidence and with most of my life and business tasks accomplished.

What has your experience been doing (or not doing) the Weekly Review?

David Allen: What to store simply as paper and what to bother putting into digital form is purely a matter of how you want your library structured. There’s an infinite set of possibilities about that. Once you’ve filtered appropriate actions and projects and someday’s from your material, all the rest is simply up to logistics for data storage and retrieval. Make sure that you are OK with short-term paper-based materials being filed.  Otherwise if you feel it’s too much trouble to scan or store, they’ll wind up in a stack instead.

For more GTD tips on Reference filing, grab David Allen’s free article in our store. There are also a few great videos on GTD Connect about filing, including  David Allen talking about the best practices of “clean edges”.  And you’ll find an audio podcast available only on Connect where David talks about how he manages his financial files. Not a member? Try the 14-day free trial.

A Community Contribution from Pam, who wrote to David with her story

Since the moment that I graduated from college about a year ago, I have been dealing with a copious amount of change, some good, some bad but mostly I was dealing with a deep lack of direction.  I finally determined that a lot of it had to do with my inability to get a grip of my ‘To-Dos’ and a lack of planning and organizing in nearly everything about my life. I can say that I am now more organized whereas my past self would stubbornly deny that I was ever any other way. You see, I would organize in parts so everything was sorted in its “designated” area (or anything that looked like it could be together) and resolved the part done. But none of these parts worked together and there’s a long list of unfinished projects to prove it. Most of my time was spent finding parts and ideas that were stuffed into random, sorted parts and by the end of it, I would just give up.

So then I stumbled across some articles claiming to be a simplified version of your methodology. The soundness of the advice was so refreshing that even with these simple changes in my life, I saw vast improvement. My anxiety, which has been a major problem since freshman year of college, finally seemed manageable.  These changes prompted me to find your book and I read it in less than a week, while implementing as much of your techniques as my lifestyle required. I can proudly say that I am in control of almost every aspect of my life, experiencing significantly reduced levels of anxiety and I can actually enjoy the company of others when I’m not “working.”

It couldn’t have come at a better time. I just started going back to school, am working a full time job and living on my own. I am even compiling material for a design portfolio that I have always been intending to do but never done by following your methods. Even though so many things are happening in my life right now, I feel great!! Thank you so much David!!!

David: Weight is lifted because the weekly review allows you to clarify and renegotiate all your agreements with yourself. That simple. Negative stress usually occurs because of inner conflict that can only be resolved with conscious dialogue with yourself and decisions made that resolve the discrepancies (you can’t do everything at once.)  I applaud your discipline to discover this!

Listen Now>>>

Register Now >>>

The June Webinars on GTD Connect will be:

Natural Planning Model® -Thursday, June 10 @ 11am Pacific Time

Senior Coaches Wayne Pepper and Kelly Forrister will lead participants through David’s project planning model (described on p. 54 of the Getting Things Done book).  This easy to follow model helps you define your projects, from purpose to next actions.

Fundamental Processing Lab with David Allen – Wednesday, June 23 @ 11am Pacific Time

David will lead a Mind Sweep and take participant examples to walk through deciding what their “stuff” is and what they are going to do about it.

Note:  Webinars are always free for GTD Connect members and are available to free trial members who have active trials at the time of the Webinar