David Allen: Just focus on doing the next action perfectly, which is a lot easier than trying to be perfect about how you approach something bigger. Be as retentive as you want. The only problem is when it stops action. Be a perfectionist about the process, which will require, of course, making decisions on the front end that might not be perfect. Think about what might go wrong if you avoid decisions and action! (If you need a negative motivator.)

Collect

Process

Organize

Review

Do

For each area, ask yourself:

What’s working well for me in this area now?

What would I like to improve upon in the coming year in each of these areas?

How I could support myself more in that?

Acknowledge yourself for how far you’ve come. Be realistic in your commitments about where you want to be.  GTD is a journey…

Happy New Year!

Capture everything that has your attention (Collect)

Make decisions about what it means and what you are going to do about it (Process)

Park those decisions in trusted places (Organize)

Step back to reflect on those choices from a clear, current, and creative place (Review)

So that you can make the best action choice  (Do)

So how will that help narrow down a To Do list the length of your driveway? You’ll want to pull in the  Criteria for Choosing model:

Context – What place, tool, or person will the action require? This is the first limitation for choosing–it has to be. If you’re not in the right place, don’t have the right tool, or access to the required person, you can’t take the action.

Time available – How much time do you have to take the action? If you have 20 minutes, consider actions that will take less than 20 minute choices.

Resources – What is your energy like to take the action? You’re probably doing this now more than you realize. Brain alert usually means you’ll make different choices than brain dead. Watch that. Honor that.

Priorities – What’s the most important one to choose based on your roles (20k), 1-2 year goals (30k), 3-5+ year strategy (40k) or purpose (50k+)?

How do I know what my priorities are? This is where the Horizons of Focus model comes in. Every level of that is valuable, but the Areas of Focus level in particular can be helpful for people in setting priorities.  Know what your job really is and “no” will come a little easier.

Finally, I would look at how you’re spending your time Doing.  This is where the Three-fold Nature of Work model comes in. No, this isn’t a fancy way to fold a shirt. It’s a way to look at how you spend your time:

Doing pre-defined work – Choosing from choices you’ve already made on your Calendar & Next Action lists

Doing work as it appears – New things that show up that you choose to work on (not always a bad thing by the way, even though it gets a bad rap as being the demise of productivity)

Defining work - Processing new inputs (swing back to Collect, Wash, Rinse, Repeat.)

Of those three, where do you spend more time than you think you should? And which one doesn’t get enough of your time? Would love to hear your thoughts on that in the comments.

I hope this has been a helpful series for you all!

Just joining this series? Read part one on Collect, part two on Process, or part three on Organize, or part four on Review.  There’s also a fantastic “Road to Black Belt” webinar series I did with Coach Meg Edwards on these best practices that’s available on GTD Connect.

Kelly Forrister is a senior coach & seminar presenter with the David Allen Company

This webinar is free for GTD Connect members.  You can sign up for a free trial membership, and when you log in, you’ll find the webinar information on the home page of GTD Connect.  You’ll also see an extensive list of previous webinars you can access in the archives. (Partial listing shown here.)

The free trial membership is easy to begin—just first name and email address—with no cost or commitment.

You can participate in special GTD® webinars featuring two of the most popular and requested topics:  Keys to Mastering Workflow and Implementing GTD with Microsoft Outlook.  These webinars are presented a la carte for $49 each.

GTD Webinar: Keys to Mastering Workflow

Offered live only on Tuesday, November 29^th or Tuesday, December 13^th from 11:00 am – 12:30 pm PT

This fast-paced and inspirational webinar is based on the best practices of GTD’s five phases of mastering workflow. From capturing everything that has your attention to making trusted choices – this webinar will elevate your productivity levels and prepare you to get the right things done.

GTD Webinar: Implementing GTD with Outlook®

Offered live only on Thursday, December, 1^st or Thursday, December 15^th from 11:00 am – 12:30 pm PT

Join this structured and practical webinar to learn to effectively track projects and next actions, set up your email folders, and create a system for reference storage on Outlook. Get your life in control by managing your bigger vision while tracking the small details. 

Note: These webinars will be held live only and will not be available for replay. Don’t miss your opportunity to learn from an expert coach through these live events.

Register now for these live 90-minute interactive webinars. To increase learning and interaction, implementation questions via chat will be encouraged and answered throughout the webinars.

WHAT TO REVIEW:

There are 11 steps in the GTD Weekly Review.  David Allen recommends leading yourself through this every 7-10 days to get clear, current, and creative.

Get clear – ensure all your “stuff” is processed

Collect Loose Papers and Materials
Get “IN” to Zero
Empty Your Head
Get current – review your system and update lists

Review Action Lists
Review Previous Calendar Data
Review Upcoming Calendar
Review Waiting For List
Review Project (and Larger Outcome) Lists
Review Any Relevant Checklists

Get creative – follow your intuitive thinking

Review Someday Maybe List
Be Creative & Courageous

REVIEW SUCCESS FACTORS:

Review your system regularly.  Sounds simple and obvious enough, but this is a challenge for many GTDers.  The downside of letting Reviews lag is that you risk your mind starting to take back what it downloaded into your system. You start thinking about things more than they deserve and can start to get leaks in your system.

Any Review is better than no Review. Don’t have the recommended 1-2 hours to do a thorough Weekly Review? Dedicate whatever time you do have and choose the step that most has your attention for that week.

Give it time to make it a habit.  Try at least 4 Reviews before you decide you just can’t do them.  It takes time to groove new habits and create a new reference point. Once you really taste what clear, current, and creative feels like, you’ll move mountains to make it happen, regardless of how busy you are.

Stay focused on reviewing not doing. It’s tempting to get in to handling some things you find in your Review. That’s fine for the quick less than two-minute ones, but be careful that your Review doesn’t turn into a catch up on backlog time.

Pick a day and time that works for you. This is one of the most common questions we get asked as coaches. Any day works, as long as it works for you. Universally, Friday morning seems to be the most common day. Choose a time when you tend to be brain sharp, not brain toast. I would also pick a time that leaves you buffer room to handle things that would not be good to find/fix if no one else is around (like end of day Friday).

Hope this helps!

Just joining this series? Read part one on Collect, part two on Process, or part three on Organize. You’ll also find a few podcasts related to the Weekly Review in our free public podcast stream.  And David Allen has a Guided Weekly Review webinar on GTD Connect.

Kelly Forrister is a senior coach & seminar presenter with the David Allen Company

WHAT TO ORGANIZE:

Organizing identifies the various placeholders or “buckets” where actions and support material are stored that you’ve processed. David Allen has also described organizing as simply “things are stored based on what they mean to you.”  The four primary action lists are:

• Projects
• Next Actions (with optional subcategories by context such as Calls, Computer, Office, Home, Errands, Agendas (people and meetings) and Anywhere)
• Waiting For
• Calendar (for time-specific actions, day-specific actions, and day-specific information only)

Organizing also includes setting up your workspace, a reference system for non-actionable information, and incubation systems (Someday Maybe and Tickler Systems) for possible later actions.

SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN CHOOSING YOUR TOOLS:

• Are there any tools already in place that you plan/need to still use? Like a corporate calendar?
• Where is your email?  Not required, but certainly helps to have your email and lists near each other.
• Who else needs to see your data?   Does it need to be on a shared server or would local be fine if you go digital?
• What do you tend to be drawn to–paper or digital?
• Is security a concern? Are you okay with your information being in the cloud?
• How would you back it up, if needed?
• What are you willing to carry around?
• What tools are you already familiar with?
• Would you trust putting almost anything into it?
• Is it scalable?
• Can you easily learn how to use it?
• What are you willing to pay for it?
• What does it need to sync to?

 ORGANIZING SUCCESS FACTORS:

• A good rule of thumb when choosing tools (especially your Calendar, Waiting For and Next Action lists which will get the heaviest traffic) is “can I maintain this easily if I am sick in bed with the flu?” That will tell you whether you’ve overbuilt it or not.  Don’t build your system at the height of your creativity and complex thinking.  It’s too risky that you won’t be there all the time and won’t be able to easily work your system when you need to.
• Settle on something as a list manager.  Yup. This isn’t marriage. It’s just a list manager. Let go of the idea that the perfect list manager is out there, if it’s holding you back from picking something that will be good enough at least to try. You can always change it later if you really need to.
• If you’re still on a learning curve with GTD, you may not want to add to that learning curve by picking tools you’re not familiar with. Instead, start with something you already know, like a paper planner.

Now, I know I haven’t mentioned specific tools.  There are a rare few that David Allen has personally vetted for GTD. That doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of tools that will be a fantastic support for you though. And there are loads of suggestions from your fellow GTDers on this blog and in our Forums. Bottom line? Pick tools you’ll be more attracted to than repelled by.  Trust your lists for holding your reminders more than holding them in your mind, or your mind will fire you and take the job back.

Just joining this series? Read part one on Collect and part two on Process or part four on Review.

Kelly Forrister is a senior coach & seminar presenter with the David Allen Company

• Why bright people procrastinate the most
• Dumbing down your brain
• Typical causes and cures
• The bottom line of why we procrastinate

This webinar is free for GTD Connect members.  You can sign up for a free trial membership, and when you log in, you’ll find the webinar information on the home page of GTD Connect.

And coming up in January, GTD Connect members will have another opportunity to participate in the hugely popular 14-day GTD Challenge.  Members who did the recent 14-day GTD Challenge had this to say:

“Great webinar by Meg and Kelly as usual. I liked your advice on picking ‘Wins’ for the 14 days, instead of trying to climb the entire mountain at once.”

“Coaching from the webinar has gotten me more relaxed and re-energized about GTD.”

“The Webinar really motivated me to get back on track. Though I’ve been really busy, I’ve made time to get clear and current again.”

The free trial membership is easy to begin—just first name and email address—with no cost or commitment.

WHAT TO PROCESS:

Processing is the core fundamental thinking that defines the meaning of each item collected. Outcomes and next actions are determined for actionable items, and the non-actionable items are identified as trash, something potentially actionable in the future, or reference material. This decision process transforms unclear stuff into defined work.

Download a free version of the GTD Workflow Map illustrating Collect, Process, and Organize or view the classic version on page 32 of the Getting Things Done book.

KEY PROCESSING QUESTIONS:

1. What is it?
2. Is it actionable?
3. What’s the desired outcome? If it is multi-step, write it on your Projects/Outcomes list.
4. What’s the next (physical/visible) action? Write it on the appropriate Next Actions list.

PROCESSING SUCCESS FACTORS:

Give yourself enough processing time*.  Most people need an hour to an hour and a half per day of total processing time to process new inputs.  You can estimate how much time you need by factoring 30 seconds to process each input. For example, if you get 60 emails a day, you’ll need 1/2 hour of total time to process your email inbox to zero. By total time, we don’t necessarily mean in one block of uninterrupted time. It can also mean total time throughout the day.

Processing is not doing, it’s deciding. The only “doing” time recommended during processing are those items that will take less than 2 minutes to complete.

*processing is considered “defining work” time in GTD’s Threefold Nature of Work model described on page 50 of the Getting Things Done book.

Just joining this series? Read part one on Collect or part three on Organize.

Kelly Forrister is a senior coach & seminar presenter with the David Allen Company

WHAT TO COLLECT:

Every commitment unfinished is an “open loop”; and when it is tracked in your psyche, instead of your system, it will require energy and attention to track and maintain. Once the open loops are captured, you can manage completion by using an external system that takes much less energy than keeping it in your head. Every commitment unfinished requires management in a trusted system until it is done or discontinued.

COLLECTION SUCCESS FACTORS:

Capture it all (Get it out of your head)
Every open loop must be in your collection system and out of your head. Keep collection tools nearby so that no matter where you are, you can capture anything that has your attention. The result of this practice is to have everything out of your head. The less you track in your mind, the clearer you will be, and the more important and functional the collection tools will become, which allows for your mind to be optimally clear. This will make your collection tools more important.

As few collection tools as possible (Minimal number of locations)
Have as many as you need, but as few as you can get by with. You need collection tools wherever you are, since things that you want to capture may show up anywhere. However, if you have too many collection areas you won’t be motivated to empty them regularly.

Process them to empty regularly
Emptying the collection tools to process and organize is part of the daily processing routine. Emptying the collection tools does not mean that you have to finish what is in voicemail, email, or an in-tray; it just means that you have to take it out of the container, decide what it is, and decide what has to be done with it. If it is still unfinished, organize it into your system. You don’t put it back into “in”!

By the way, the word “empty” doesn’t mean complete the work– just define it and organize it.

Just joining this series? Read part two on Process.

Kelly Forrister is a senior coach & seminar presenter with the David Allen Company

GTD has made a significant impact on my life, and I’m glad to share a specific technique that has worked for me.

I format my Action Items list in a spreadsheet. It’s really convenient to add items as they come in chronologically or during the processing of  ”in.” Then the items can be sorted according to context. This is easily done by just having three columns in the spreadsheet:

1) Context (errands, @computer,  etc.)
2) The item itself
3) Notes such as phone numbers, reference data, referral name, etc.

You can process “in” without wasting time inserting rows in order to put like items together. Just add more items at the bottom of the list. It is a simple procedure to sort the data by context, and BAM – action items are grouped according to context. 

It has worked best for me to keep this spreadsheet on my desktop. This way I don’t have to open my spreadsheet program, open a folder, find the document, then open the document. A quick double-click on the desktop opens the application and the document, and I’m ready to scribe.

Editor’s note:  You can also add a keyword for projects and actions, and then sort by the Item column to see the Projects with their next actions.

David Allen: The more anyone around you is out of control, the more you need the GTD method! You can only be responsible for what YOU need to track about what THEY are supposed to be doing, and following up with them accordingly. Of course, the more they get onto this method, the more they’ll be doing their part…but you’re going to have to manage yourself, no matter what.

The more out of control your environment (including people), the more critical that you implement your own GTD process. You need to know what’s yours and what’s not, and manage your own “10 acres” with rigor. And as you hold new standards, it impacts everyone to some degree. Though there’s no guarantee, the more you manage your own stuff pristinely, the more people tend to engage with you at that level.

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

TIME MANAGEMENT IS NOT THE ISSUE

Most everyone these days admits they could use better “time management.” But the reason it has not really been addressed to any universal satisfaction is because time management isn’t about managing time. If it were, just buying and using a calendar (and a good watch) would handle it.

Keep reading David’s article.

Subscribe to Productive Living. It’s free and sent about every 3 weeks. You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

Mike: Let me ask you this. How important is it to follow this system exactly as you’ve outlined? I read the book a few years ago. I’ve implemented the system. I’m probably not using it to its fullest. What’s your perspective on that?

 

 David: Well, you either want nothing on your mind or you want to keep stuff on your mind. If you want nothing on your mind, you absolutely must rigorously download everything that is potentially meaningful, decide the outcome and action steps embedded in those, and park those in some place you trust you’re going to look at, at the right time.

(The video is streaming from YouTube, so you may need to give it a moment to load.)

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

What’s needed and not needed for projects

Many professionals and their company cultures seem addicted to the organizing of projects and situations. Or at least addicted to feeling the need to organize them, and feeling guilty if they’re not. But organizing the structure and components is only one of the five levels of thinking that must be clear . . .

Keep reading David’s article.

Subscribe to Productive Living. It’s free and sent about every 3 weeks. You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Getting GTD onto cruise control

If you’re like most people who’ve begun the implementation of the GTD^® methods, you’ve had some starts and stops in your journey. While my approach is really nothing more than advanced common sense, doing these practices consistently requires some re-grooving of your behavioral patterns. And some of those, though not optimally productive, are likely deeply rooted. How does “doing GTD” become second nature—something you live by but rarely even think about?

Keep reading David’s article.

Subscribe to Productive Living. It’s free and sent about every 3 weeks.  You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

You can read more in his guest blog on The Atlantic.

I’m a fan of gadgets. I love shiny new objects that promise to deliver bigger, stronger and faster results. The problem with a lot of these shiny new objects is that there is a learning curve for most (if not all) of them and even when the knowledge is set firmly in place, they are only part of the equation. It’s the other part that often lets us down. That other part is us.

We often get bogged down in the details, mired in a slew of hidden tasks that pile up in our electronic folders and leave us with our heads spinning. And as a bit of a technophile myself, I’ve had it happen to me on several occasions. When this happens, I turn over my trusted system to a device that I can trust with its implementation: paper.

Paper is a powerful device in its own right.  It is simple in both design and execution. You write something down, and with the act of writing it out you have enhanced your chance of doing something productive with it.

There’s no framework as to how you lay out your productivity plan when you have a blank piece of paper in front of you. You can build your own, use an existing template or adapt an existing system to make it your own. As long as you’ve got a system in mind, you’re only limited by how it appears on paper by your own imagination. In a sense, paper is freeing.

There is simplicity in using paper over electronic devices. It doesn’t have an operating system that needs rebooting, and it is always wireless.  If you hand someone a piece of paper with action items on it, they can look at it and understand it without having to refer to a manual. The only operating system that would ever require rebooting when paper is used is the user.

The cost of paper is another bonus. Costs can range from a few dollars for a simple junior legal pad to hundreds of dollars for elegant paper products. Again, it is the user who will define how well the paper is used — so an expensive planner could be worthless if not used diligently while a dollar store legal pad that is used extremely well would be priceless.

Whether you choose paper to implement GTD or some form of software comes down to personal preference and choice. Some, like me, might use software to handle the bulk of their work while using paper to outline other work.  It all comes down to to what works best for you. Paper is a great gateway device for someone getting started with GTD.  For those who have more experience with the methodology it can be used to great benefit as well. Anyone with some GTD know-how can tailor paper to the fit the system.

The key is not tailoring the system to fit the device. Doing that will result in doing very little.

If you’d rather use Outlook just as it is out of the box, you’ll get value from our downloadable GTD and Outlook Setup Guides, written by David Allen and the Coaches. There are guides for Outlook 2003 and 2007. A guide for Outlook 2010 is on the way this year. GTD Times readers will be among the first to know when the release date is announced.

The purpose of having the granular next action on a list is to define what “doing” looks like and where it happens, so you can finish your thinking about what to do about the commitment (outcome, project, etc.)  That said, another reason for the granularity on the action lists is to subvert the procrastination that potentially shows up because of a pre-conscious insecurity about success.  As in, “I don’t want to step into something I don’t think I can control.”  If the enormity of the next action causes you to falter, then it’s advantageous to define a smaller, doable chunk.  For example, “draft plot ideas” instead of “draft great American novel.”

 For more on this topic, see this excellent article in The New Yorker that mentioned David’s book Getting Things Done, and the value of the GTD approach.

90+ % of the to do lists I’ve seen are incomplete inventories of still-unclear things.  The Next Action definition (if you’re really getting down to having no ambiguity about the next visible physical activity required to move something forward), actually finishes the thinking you’ve implicitly agreed with yourself that you’ll do.  “Mom” is an unclarified to do item.  But when “Mom” is translated into “Celebrate Mom’s birthday with a party” as a project outcome, then “Call Sis about what we should do for Mom’s birthday” is a clear next action.  Because “Mom” is vague, it still triggers stress when you look at it on a list.  “Call Sis . . . ” triggers action and positive engagement.

• GTD Times – This is the the official blog for the David Allen Company. Loads of helpful advice, tips, special offers, tricks & strategies for implementing GTD.
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• Video of David @ Google – A great overview from David on the keys to control + perspective.
• DavidCo Discussion Forums – These rich forums are a great way to ask questions, search for answers and connect with other GTD’ers around the world.

Join us on Thursday, January 27th from 10am-11am Pacific Time.

Free for all GTD Connect guest pass, monthly and annual members. To register for the webinar, log in to GTD Connect and follow the link on the home page.

DAVID’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT 

The everyday outcome focus challenge . . .

 

The two questions that bring clarity to most anything on this level are: What’s the successful outcome? And, what’s the next action to make it happen? These provide fundamental clarity for Getting Things Done, and they lie at the core of most everything I teach.

Keep reading David’s article. 

Subscribe to Productive Living.  It’s free and sent about every 3 weeks.  You’ll find essays from David Allen, thought-provoking quotes, and productivity tips you can use every day.

Join us on Friday, January 14th from 10am-11am Pacific Time.

Free for all GTD Connect guest pass, monthly and annual members. To register for the webinar, log in to GTD Connect and follow the link on the home page.

• Completing & remember 2010
• Creating the new year

They will lead participants through a series of insightful questions that David Allen created to inspire, challenge and acknowledge.

This will be the last webinar for 2010, finishing up a banner year of webinars for our GTD Connect members.  We did over 20 webinars this year, including 6 in our “Black Belt” series for more advanced GTDers, tactical webinars on tools such as Outlook and Lotus Notes, and hands-on “labs” with David helping people through the fundamentals of making decisions on their stuff.  As a member, you can access all of these in the media library and even take them on the go to watch offline (downloads not available for guest pass members, sorry!).We have many new exciting webinars coming in 2011, including one on OmniFocus.

We wish you all the best.

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As we start a New Year, give yourself the gift of GTD Connect.  We wish you all the best!

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11/19/2010 update: It’s now available! Visit the David Allen Company store.