GTD - Making It All Work

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2009-12-05T19:09:00.001Z

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GTD for free

2009-11-08T08:00:00.000Z

Courtesy of GTD Times, the official blog for the David Allen Company and GTD, here's a list of FREE GTD resources:

GTD Times - helpful advice, tricks, tips and strategies for implementing GTD
Podcasts - including the best practices with David Allen and his team
Coaches Corner - articles from the GTD Coaches
GTD Connect - a two week trial of the online learning centre packed with GTD goodies
Articles, Handouts and Learning Tools - essays from David Allen on GTD best practices
Tips and Tools - useful tips and tricks
GTD-IQ - how do you measure up against GTD?
GTD Facebook Fan Page - chat with other GTDers
GTD LinkedIn Network - network with business-focussed GTD people
Twitter - follow David and the coaches and GTD Twitter-based classes @GTDSpecialEvent
GTD You Tube Channel - fun and useful videos of David and the GTD practitioners
Productive Living Newsletter - David's newsletter
David at Google - overview of the keys to control and perspective
Discussion Forums - ask questions and search for answers about GTD

"Winning at the game of work and the business of life" doesn't need to cost the earth!

GTD Tips, Tricks and Tools - A-Z Filing System

2009-10-06T08:00:00.000+01:00

"The lack of a good filing system can be one of the greatest obstacles to implementing a personal management system" - David Allen in Getting Things Done.

You need a good filing system or your in tray will get clogged up with stuff you should have filed.

Your filing system needs to:

take less than a minute to file anything
easy to use
fun to use
current
complete

You will need one or more filing cabinets. If you can get them go for the ones with a moving plate to hold the file folders upright rather than hanging files. If it's one with hanging files - label the folders you put in instead of the hanging folders and only only put one file per hanger. But don't let them get more than three quarters full.

Keep a stack of new file folders handy and invest in a labeller. I use a Brother P-Touch 65 - it's battery and mains operated and can make fancy labels as well as plain ones but I think it may have been superceded by the P-Touch 80. David Allen has this handsome beast on his desk that connects to his laptop via a USB socket.

Typeset labels "change the nature of your files and your relationship with them" says David . They're just easier to pick out and look more professional if you take them into a meeting.

When it comes to labelling your files, Keep It Simple Stupid! Think about how best to label folders so that you can quickly find what you're looking for. If you have lots of files it may make sense to devote a whole filing drawer to finance. If you wanted to file all your credit card statements, for example, then if you have a separate finance drawer just labelling your folders - MBNA, John Lewis, etc. would be fine but if you're mixing all your reference files together then labelling these ones "Credit Card MBNA" and "Credit Card John Lewis" would be better. If more than one person needs to access your filing system consult them about how best to label the folders.

And don't forget to purge your files occasionally - at least once a year!

My GTD System

2009-09-23T08:00:00.001+01:00

The first thing to say about my implementation of David Allen’s systematic approach to Getting Things Done is that it is a constantly evolving system to meet my needs. As my needs change and as I gain more insight into GTD and how it may help me in any particular situation my system gets modified to a greater or lesser extent.

So my system may not suit you and perhaps to help you understand why my system is configured this way I need to describe how I work “at the business of life and the game of work”.

I have been a freelance quality management consultant for the last twenty years. I work for a variety of clients of varying sizes – the smallest was three people – all the way up to large government departments of hundreds of people. More often than not, because of the size of these clients, it’s just one client at a time. At the moment I have two clients, both fairly large and one, a utility company, requires my services more or less full time for at least three months. The other one is a government department, but this is just a small consultancy requirement of about one day a month.

In addition to looking after these clients, I have all the responsibilities of running a small business – keeping accounts, training, keeping up to date generally, maintaining a website and this blog. Plus all the usual responsibilities that go with being a husband and a father.

I’ve had a GTD system of sorts for over 20 years. I’ve always been “relatively” organised and I had a paper organiser long before anyone knew what one was. Mine was an A4 binder with dividers for calendar, action lists, projects and reference material. Don’t forget that David Allen didn’t invent GTD out of fresh air. He looked at what worked and pulled it together into a systematic approach. There’s much in GTD that we already do without realising it’s part of the GTD system.

In about 1984, I went on a training course based on the Time Manager system. This, like the Time Design system that David worked with before devising GTD purported to be a way of managing your time to get things done. It had Key Areas, a bit like GTD’s Horizons of Focus, Tasks and Activities (GTD Next Actions), Calendar, Notes, Contacts etc.

I worked this system for several years with some success but it never really coped well with the increasing amount of stuff that was starting to hit me and all of us as we got into the 90s.

I became aware of David Allen around 2000 through finding a few of his ideas on the Internet. Many of these basic principles are still on the DavidCo website as free downloads. These include how to configure a paper organiser, how to set up a tickler file, etc.

Then I bought David’s Getting Things Done and read it cover to cover in a few days and began implementing the system. In many ways this was just revamping my old A4 binder but now I was using A5. For a while I used my old Time Manager binder but eventually I replaced it with an A5 Filofax.

This Filofax is set-up with the following dividers and has been unchanged now for several years:

Plastic protector covering:-

Mindmap showing the layout of the Filofax
Plastic pocket to collect odd scraps of paper, bills etc.
Notes/In with blank ruled sheets containing notes taken (and some blank sheets)
Calendar Section with Weekly checklist for the current week, Monthly checklist for the current month, Annual checklist for the year (birthdays and anniversaries) and printed pages from Outlook, one week over two pages, for at least 13 weeks
Action Lists, currently including Agendas, Anywhere, Calls, Computer, Errands, Home, Listen, Office, Online, Read, Waiting For, Someday/Maybe
Projects (each section preceded by a list of the Projects in that section) Business Projects, Home Projects, Personal Projects, Someday/Maybe Projects
Reference containing useful lists and other material
Spare forms
Contacts

Although I use Outlook, my system is essentially based around the forms in my Filofax. These forms are updated by hand but they are also held electronically in a folder on my PC called Filofax.

The subfolders in Filofax match the paper Filofax and the Filofax folder also fits onto an 8MB USB memory stick that I can take from computer to computer.

This configuration has remained unchanged for over two years now and seems likely to stay with me for some time.

The next major update will be when I start to develop my Areas of Focus now that I’ve got Next Actions and Projects under control.

GTD Tips, Tricks and Tools - The MoSCoW Rules

2009-09-16T08:00:00.005+01:00

Though not really part of the GTD systematic approach, the MoSCoW Rules, often applied to priorising in project management, can be useful in helping you decide what order to do the tasks on your lists.

"MoSCoW" in this context stands for "Must o Should Could o Won't"

Firstly, what tasks MUST you do today? These should be at the top of your list and headed "MUST DO TODAY". Draw a line under this list.

Secondly, what tasks SHOULD you do today? These appear next on your list and are headed "SHOULD DO TODAY". You should only tackle these when all your MUST DO list has been completed. Draw a line under this list.

Thirdly, what tasks COULD you do today, but only if you have the time and you've done all the MUST do, and SHOULD do tasks? List these under the heading "COULD DO TODAY" and draw a line below the list.

Finally, what WON'T you do today? Writing tasks on this list helps you to confirm that they're not as important as anything in the three categories above. Also, it reminds you that if you catch yourself doing one of these tasks, you should stop and go back the top of your lists and work down again.

Working through these lists top down should motivate you to get the MUSTs and SHOULDs done so that you can feel good about doing some of the COULDs but not feel bad about not doing any of the WON'Ts!

GTD Tips, Tricks and Tools - The Tickler File or Bring Forward File

2009-08-26T08:00:00.025+01:00

What it consists of

The TICKLER FILE or BRING FORWARD FILE consists of 43 folders:

31 daily folders labelled "1" to "31"

12 monthly folders labelled with the months of the year

The daily folders are kept at the front, beginning with tomorrow's folder (for the example used in Getting Things Done where today is October 5th, this would be the folder labelled "6").

The remaining daily folders (in the example, "7" to "31") are filed behind this followed by the monthly folder for next month (in the example, this would be "November") and then the daily folders already used (in the example, "1" to "5"). Finally there would be the remaining monthly folders for the remaining 11 months (in the example, "December" to "October".

So you would end up with a set of folders (following the example) labelled thus:

[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20]
[21]
[22]
[23]
[24]
[25]
[26]
[27]
[28]
[29]
[30]
[31]
[November]
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[December]
[January]
[February]
[March]
[April]
[May]
[June]
[July]
[August]
[September]
[October]

How it works

Each day, empty the daily folder for that day into your in-basket.
File the empty folder at the back of the daily folders (in the example, "6" is emptied and placed behind "5" to now represent November 6th).
When the next monthly folder is reached (in the example, "November" after "31" has been emptied) the monthly folder is emptied into your in-basket and then filed at the back of the monthly folders to represent that month next year.

Tips and Tricks

Be sure to update your Tickler File every day and if you're going away for a few days process all the folders ahead for the days you'll be away.

Use the folders to file:

travel documents and tickets for events on the day you'll need them
bills on the days you need to pay them
print out reminders for each birthday and anniversary and file them in the appropriate month to be moved into the appropriate day in due course. It's a good idea to file reminders a few days ahead (especially if the due date is at the beginning of a month) to ensure you get a card and present ahead of time

There is a free factsheet on the Tickler File available on the David Allen website. There is also a set of 43 sturdy plastic letter size file folders, open on three sides. The GTD Tickler files are blue-grey with black trim and appropriately labelled (in five languages!) Please note that this is expensive to ship as the folders weigh over 5 pounds. Although the folders are letter size, they take A4 papers quite happily.

You can, of course, easily make and label your own set of folders but they are unlikely to last as long as these strong, purpose built folders.

GTD Tips, Tricks and Tools - The Two-Minute Rule

2009-08-19T08:00:00.009+01:00

Would you like to extend your life by 6 months? Then follow this simple rule: "If you can get an action done in less than two minutes then do it now!"

This works because it will take you longer than two minutes to write it down on one of your lists of NEXT ACTIONs, recall it when it's appropriate, figure what it's about and get in done - so just do it, or as someone I knew used to say JUST F****** DO IT or JFDI.

This can be as simple an action as "I need to refill my fountain pen". By the time you've written that on your list you could have done it so just do it!

Once you've got to the DO phase you've only three options:

DO it now if the action takes less than two minutes.
DELEGATE it to someone else if you're not the most appropriate person to do it.
DEFER it by putting it into your system on one of your CONTEXT lists as something to be done later.

Some people seem to get hung up on what they can do in exactly two-minutes. It's not the time that's important, it's the principle. It doesn't matter whether it's a minute or ten - it's just a rule of thumb. If you think you can get it done "in the moment" then get it done and out of the way.

It's a useful technique to use when you're doing your WEEKLY REVIEW. You may want to restrict the cutoff to one minute if you haven't got much time or extend it to ten if you've got plenty of time.

The two minutes isn't a hard and fast(!) 120 seconds. Use your common sense. Perhaps another way to phrase the rule is "if you can do the action in less time than it would take to put it on your list, retrieve it at a later date, and do it then. Do it now"

If you use the GTD Outlook Add-In then the latest version has a built-in Two Minute Timer and the David Allen Company has one in their store.

Do

2009-08-12T08:00:00.007+01:00

DO is the final phase of the Five Phases of Mastering Workflow.

Now that you've COLLECTed and PROCESSed everything that has your attention, ORGANISEd all the open loops to make sure that OUTCOMEs and NEXT ACTIONs have been decided on and REVIEWed everything to ensure that it's current, you now have to decide what to DO.

To make the right choices, you need to think about where you are (CONTEXT), how much time you have (CALENDAR), how much energy you have, and what your priorities are.

If you've listed your NEXT ACTIONs according to CONTEXT as we discussed in ORGANISE, it should be easy to identify what actions you could accomplish by looking at the appropriate list. Pick something off the appropriate list that you have the time and energy to DO.

We will return to priority at some future date when we look at the HORIZONS OF FOCUS but for now we'll just identify what these horizons are:-

RUNWAY - Your current NEXT ACTIONs (look at these daily)
10,000 FEET - Your PROJECTS (look at these weekly)
20,000 FEET - Your responsibilities (look at these monthly)
30,000 FEET - one to two-year goals (look at these quarterly)
40,000 FEET - three to five-year goals (look at these annually)
50,000 FEET - career, purpose, lifestyle (look at these annually)

This has been a very quick run through the Five Phases, so feel free to post any questions as comments. In the meantime take a look at the Five Phases of Mastering Workflow from David Allen's site for free and don't forget the basic manual on how GTD works in David Allen's Getting Things Done.

Review

2009-08-05T08:00:00.015+01:00

The REVIEW is the most important of the 5 phases of mastering workflow but it's the one most people struggle to do.

However, it's essential, once you've got all your open loops under control, that you keep them that way otherwise you'll lapse back into your old ways and get completely out of shape!

How often you do a REVIEW is up to you but the oprimal frequency is weekly - it's usually referred to as the WEEKLY REVIEW.

There are three parts to the REVIEW:

Get CLEAR
Get CURRENT
Get CREATIVE

Get CLEAR means:

get all the loose papers, receipts, etc. that have accumulated since your last REVIEW into you in-basket ready to PROCESS (this is a mini-COLLECT!)
get anything that's in your head out and written down an in your in-basket
PROCESS all outstanding items in your in-basket

Get CURRENT means:

review all your NEXT ACTION lists and cross off anything that's done and add any new NEXT ACTIONs that this triggers
look back over your calendar since your last Weekly REVIEW for any remaining NEXT ACTIONs and add to your NEXT ACTIONs lists
look forward over your calendar for the next few weeks and capture any NEXT ACTIONs triggered by this
review your WAITING FOR list checking off completed items and look for any needed follow-up on these and other items and capture any NEXT ACTIONs on your lists
evaluate the status of all your PROJECTs making sure that you've at least one NEXT ACTION on each

Get CREATIVE means:

review your SOMEDAY/MAYBE list and transfer any PROJECTs that have now become active to your PROJECTS list and delete any SOMEDAY/MAYBE items that are no longer of interest
think of any new things you want to be doing that you can add to your GTD system

One of the key tricks with the REVIEW is finding the time and space to do it justice. Book a meeting with yourself or take all your lists to your favourite coffee shop and shut out the rest of the world whilst you put your world into order.

Next week we'll look at DO, the final phase of mastering workflow. Then we'll go back to the beginning and look at some of the tips, tricks and tools for each phase and I'll show you how I've implemented GTD. Don't forget - you can get an overview of the Five Phases of Mastering Workflow from David Allen's site for free!

Organise

2009-07-29T00:00:00.002+01:00

Now that you've COLLECTed everything that was on your mind and PROCESSed everything so that you know what each item means to you (what's the expected outcome and what's the next physical action to move it forward) we can start to get ORGANISEd!

Most people, when they try to implement GTD, have a problem with separating PROCESSing from getting ORGANISEd. But this is a key step because in ORGANISE you build the trusted system that will allow you to release all the stuff that's clogging up your brain and allow you to reach the GTD "nirvana" of being totally buried by the amount of things you need to do but having nothing on your mind - what David Allen calls a "mind like water".

But you're not there yet!

First you need to group all the results of what you've PROCESSed into appropriate categories so that you can retrieve and REVIEW them when you need to - remember that REVIEW is the next phase of mastering workflow.

The four key categories are:

PROJECTS - projects you are committed to finish that will take more than one action
CALENDAR - actions that must occur on a specific day or specific time
NEXT ACTIONS - actions that need to be done as soon as possible
WAITING FOR - projects and actions that you're waiting for someone else to do

For each of these categories you need to make a list of each item you've PROCESSed that falls under that category. For CALENDAR items that's easy - they go on your CALENDAR.

A list of PROJECTS is just that.

A list of WAITING FORs is also relatively simple to compile.

The lists of NEXT ACTIONS should be broken down into separate lists depending on the context in which the action will take place. This is a key principle of GTD that differs from other activity management systems - listing actions according to where they happen.

Typical CONTEXTS are:

AGENDAS - lists of the people you need to communicate with, and meetings planned, with the topics you need to discuss
ANYWHERE - list of actions that have no restrictions on where they can be carried out
CALLS - list of calls you need to make, by type of phone (mobile, landline, etc.) if that's appropriate
COMPUTER - list of actions that require a computer
ERRANDS - list of things you need to do whilst you are out and about
HOME - list of actions that need to be done whilst you're in your home environment
OFFICE - list of actions that require you to be in your office
READ - list of articles, books, etc that you've decided to read
SOMEDAY/MAYBE - list of items and actions that you might wat to do at some point but not now

So now, armed with your lists of NEXT ACTIONS for each of the CONTEXTs above plus your list of WAITING FORs and PROJECTs you're ready to go into action. But before we do that, next week we'll look at the REVIEW phase that's key to GTD - how you keep your lists up to date.

Then we'll look at the final phase - DO - where you actually Get Things Done!

Again you can get an overview of the Five Phases of Mastering Workflow from David Allen's site for free!

Process

2009-07-22T08:00:00.005+01:00

Before you can get ORGANISEd, you need to PROCESS the information that you have COLLECTed.

You need to decide what each item means to you by asking firstly - "Is it actionable?" - that is, is it something that you need to take action on, or do something about?

1. NOT ACTIONABLE

Is it reference material? If so file it as reference material in an A-Z Filing System. We will come back to the best ways to do this at a later date. For now if you don't have a filing system put it in another in-tray labelled "Reference".
Is it something you don't need to do anything about just now but you'd like to be reminded of it at a later date? For example, menus for Christmas or New Year meal that you may want to book. These sort of items go into a Bring Forward (or Tickler File). Again we will talk more about these at a later date. For now put them in another in-tray labelled "Bring Forward" or "Tickler".
Finally, in the Non-Actionable, is it something you no longer need? In this case bin it now!

2. ACTIONABLE

Is this something you can defer until a later date - a reminder to pay a bill for example. This can then go into your Bring Forward file to be actioned on that date.
Is this something you can delegate to someone else to do? If it is put it in a pile labelled "Delegate to".
Is this something you need to do? If it is you have two choices. 1. If it will take less than two minutes to do then do it now because it will take more time to write it down and pcik it up again! 2. If it will take longer than two minutes then what's the next physical action you need to take on this to move it forward? Write this down on a list as an action, for example, "Call Fred about Jane's school report".

In dealing with the ACTIONABLE items, think about what outcome you seek for the item that you originally COLLECTed. What does DONE look like? The next physical action is about DOING something that will get something DONE.

If that one next physical action will get the item done then you can discard the item you COLLECTed. But if it will take more than one action to get something done then you have a PROJECT and as well as listing the next physical action on a list you need to put the PROJECT on a list of PROJECTs so that you're reminded that it's not finished yet. Then you can discard the COLLECTed item.

Next time we'll look at ORGANISE where you put the items you COLLECT and PROCESSed into a trusted system that will help you with Getting Things Done.

As last time, you can get an overview of the Five Phases of Mastering Workflow from David Allen's site for free!

Collect

2009-07-15T00:00:00.012+01:00

COLLECT is the phase where you need to capture everything that has your attention in leakproof in-baskets.

Your in-baskets can be:

physical in-trays
email inboxes
voicemails
notes
your head!

Get one physical in-basket and put them all in there. For your emails, print each single email off and put it in your physical in-basket.

The rule is - one item per piece of paper. No lists! Break them down into single items and one per sheet of paper. I know this sounds wasteful but you'll find it easier to process them that way - trust me!

What you may find is that you need to do what is called a full mindsweep. There may be things on your mind that you don't know are on your mind. What's in that cupboard? What's in that box? What about all that stuff in the garage? If you need help with this try going through this trigger list to remind you of things you need to deal with.

Take a walk round your house. Start in one corner at the bottom, left-most corner near the front of your property and cover the whole house until you're at the top, right hand corner. Write everything down that you see needs your attention.

You will end up with a very long list but that's the only way to get everything that's cluttering up your mind out of your head and down on paper.

You'll start to feel what it's like to have nothing on your mind.

Next week we can start to PROCESS what you've collected!

In the meantime, get an overview of the Five Phases of Mastering Workflow from David Allen's site for free!

What is GTD?

2009-07-08T00:00:00.006+01:00

GTD is shorthand for Getting Things Done, a systematic approach to achieving higher productivity and reducing the stress in you life.

The approach was first explained in David Allen's book "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" and there's no better first step than getting his book and then working systematically through it.

However, here's a simple guide to his five step process:

COLLECT everything that has your attention
PROCESS what has your attention to define what each means to you, what outcome you want to achieve and the next physical action you need to take to move it forward.
ORGANISE reminders in an appropriate way so that you're reminded what needs to get done, when and where you need to be reminded.
REVIEW your whole system on a regular basis (at least weekly) to keep it current.
DO the next physical actions you've processed and organised, according to the context, time and energy available, and priority.

To get started you'll need to:

Set aside the time (particularly for the initial COLLECT phase) - a couple of hours should get you well on your way.
Set up the space - a nice clear area, desk, kitchen table, the bench at the bottom of the garden or even a corner down your local coffee shop!
Get the tools you need - you don't need any sophisticated software or other expensive tools - just pen and paper.
Get everything else out of the way - make sure you've got no interruptions!

Intrigued? Then stay tuned for next episode of how to get your life back!

Welcome!

2009-07-01T07:21:00.000+01:00

Welcome to my world of Getting Things Done, based on the best-selling first book by David Allen.

Would you like to have more energy, be more relaxed, and get a lot more done with much less effort?

Who wouldn't?

If the answer's "yes" then David Allen's Getting Things Done systematic approach to the "game of work" and the "business of life" is for you.

When I first came across David's work in 1987, he was still, I believe, refining the practices that he later synthesised into Getting Things Done which he published in 2001 and remains an international best-seller. In 2001 I bought the book and started implementing, or rather transforming, the time management system I was then using into what is now known as the GTD systematic approach.

It was 2006 before I was able to attend one of David Allen's seminars, which by then had become the GTD The RoadMap. At this I met David and was pleased to find him friendly, approachable and inquisitive about how I came across GTD and how I'd implemented the system.

Since then David has published Ready For Anything (in 2003) and his latest book, Making It All Work, was published in 2008.

I'm going to explain how I implemented GTD and how my systematic approach had developed over time and how it continues to evolve. I'll also throw in some other productivity tips I've discovered along the way.

Keep reading to see one person's insight into the system that works even for the laziest people on the planet!