Getting Things Done

Productivity-based management

Enter David Allen's "Getting Things Done", often shortened to "GTD". His approach is centered around emptying one's mind into "100% leak-proof, trusted external buckets and inboxes" to achieve "stress-free productivity". Allen's approach can be called w:bottom-up since it focuses on the the "stuff" in various inboxes and how to create processes and filing systems to manage one's commitments and handle ever-changing workloads. Allen's advice is highly practical and goes right down to recommending how to set up a filing system and scheduling system. He has inspired many productivity blogs, websites and even online GTD services like w:Nozbe.

At the core of Allen's system lies a workflow which has five phases:

Collect

• Capture anything that has your attention (paper notes, emails, voice mail) in leak-proof, external buckets
• Have as few of these buckets as possible and as many as necessary
• Empty buckets regularly (process and organise)

Process

• Make decisions about what you have collected
• not actionable vs. actionable

Organise

• Group the results of processing into appropriate action categories and contexts

Review

• Review calendar and action lists daily
• Conduct a weekly review to maintain, tidy up and develop the system
• Review longer term goals, visions and values as often as necessary to keep project list complete and current

Do

Allen recommends choosing what to do based on what you can do (context), how much time you have, how much energy you have and what your priorities are - in that order of priority. There are three main types of work that need to be done: predefined work, work "as it shows up", and defining one's work. Allen's system is designed to help deal with interruptions and surprises, because one knows what is being put off. He recommends following one's intuition in deciding what work to do but recommends doing regular reviews of high level goals, making sure the various levels are aligned and build on each other:

• Runway: Current actions (daily)
• 10,000 feet: Current projects (weekly)
• 20,000 feet: Areas of focus (monthly)
• 30,000 feet: One-to two-year goals (quarterly)
• 40,000 feet: Three- to five-year visions (yearly)
• 50,000 + feet: Life (yearly +)

Allen recommends working from the bottom up, to ensure current action lists are complete, because working from the top down while there is pressure to get stuff done can cause frustration.

See also

Getting Things Done/See also