from amazon.com, referring to the 2015 edition
Since it was first published almost fifteen years ago, David Allen’s Getting Things Done has become one of the most influential business books of its era, and the ultimate book on personal organization. “GTD” is now shorthand for an entire way of approaching professional and personal tasks, and has spawned an entire culture of websites, organizational tools, seminars, and offshoots.
Allen has rewritten the book from start to finish, tweaking his classic text with important perspectives on the new workplace, and adding material that will make the book fresh and relevant for years to come. This new edition of Getting Things Done will be welcomed not only by its hundreds of thousands of existing fans but also by a whole new generation eager to adopt its proven principles.
What do I have to Add?
My goal in this piece is to introduce my system. GTD is the heart and soul of what I use.
For those of you interested in learning more about GTD, there is no shortage of websites, blogs, and YouTube videos to learn from. You can also read the book and it’s probably available from your local library. There are way too many resources for me to link. You’ll easily find them if you want.
I recently reread this book and wanted to share my impressions. I’ll provide some background information on my task management journey and experimentations along the way.
I use mostly analog tools, but the system is easily adaptable to digital tools.
Earliest Experiences
My first experience with a task management system was just a year or two after graduating from college. A friend of mine introduced me to his system, a senior pocket size, 2 page per day Day-Timer. One page was for appointments and tasks. The facing page was a log of learnings, note and thoughts captured during that day.
Exactly what I needed.
At that time my friend was a professional athlete and he was convinced that the Day Timer helped him manage both his busy professional life as well as his variety of personal interests. I ordered the Day-Timer and was an avid user for many years.
In parallel, I attended a Professional Development course called “Problem Solving, Decision Making, and Planning.” I was a green professional employee in a technology development organization. The course was eye opening to me since all of our work was by design vague, uncertain how to proceed, and completion of our projects was usually interrupted by unforeseen problems that required solving. Problem Solving, Decision Making, and Planning were needed to complete these projects. The Day Timer was an important tool to help.
Several years later I attended another company sponsored training courses by TMI Systems, which helped to understand how task management needs to be consistent with professional and personal key areas of emphasis or interest.
Later training covered the Franklin-Covey system, which was based on similar principles.
Both TMI and Franklin Covey had their own notebooks, paper templates, and other tools to help manage tasks consistent with their methodologies.
Exposure to GTD
Getting Things Done was first published in 2001, which was around the time I discovered it. Unlike TMI and Franklin-Covey, GTD did not have a proprietary system of supplies. Instead, it was a task management system that could be used with any tools available, including those provided by TMI, Franklin-Covey, and Day-Timer, or digital tools.
Career wise, I had just moved to a new position in a new organization and I was bombarded by an endless stream of things to do, emails to answer, phone calls to make, meetings to attend, and projects to manage.
I remember telling my supervisor that I felt that a normal 8 hour day (usually they were more like 10 or 11 hours!) was filled with thirty-two 15 minute interruptions. Looking for some help to self manage this volume of work, I found GTD in a local bookstore and began to study.
The Best Parts of the System, for Me
GTD is a Continual 5 step process:
- Capture-Make a List of Everything that You Need or Want to Do
- Clarify-Process these items to better define exactly what they are
- Organize-assign each item to the correct category
- Reflect-friequently review your projects, next actions, and calendar entries
- Engage-Complete your tasks
I believe that the best parts of the system are Capture, Clarify, and Reflect. Here’s why.
Capturing gives a master list of everything that needs to be done, large or small, clear or vague, immediate or aspirational. It’s all there. The important point is that all of these items are out of your head, in one place, and can be referenced at any time. As David Allen points out, our brains are great at processing information. Not so great for remembering information.
Clarify means to process these items. The way that I do it is at the same time as Organizing. Is the item a project, with multiple steps? Is it something I might want to do in the future or is it something with a firm deadline? Is it an appointment which is day or time specific?
Reflect means that we review our entire GTD system on a regular basis. Add and process new items as they arrive in your inbox. Review your projects to ensure that they are being appropriately moved along. Delete tasks that are no longer relevant. Celebrate successes.
If you Like Flowcharts, or Pictures
What Have I Learned from Rereading?
I last read this book in 2015, when the revised edition came out. Upon rereading recently, the overall principles are still valid. Do I do everything with the exact same steps as David Allen?
No.
I’ve tailored the system to my own interests and abilities, and also integrated it with other tools and techniques that I’ve learned along the way. The main difference is that I use the Alastair method to track and manage weekly tasks, instead of the GTD “Next actions” method.
Here is an example weekly task management template. Triangles are appointments. Dots are tasks to do. Arrows signify that a task has been moved to a following day. x means that the task is complete. I’ve used a highlighter for alternate columns to improve readability.
Some Favorite Quotes from the Book
“It’s better to be wrong than to be vague (Freeman Tyson)”
“The best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas (Linus Pauling)”
“Imagination is more important than knowledge (Albert Einstein)”
“Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim (George Santayana)”
“If you’re waiting to have a good idea before you have any ideas, you won’t have many (David Allen)”
“Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler (Albert Einstein)”
Does Everyone Like GTD?
Of course not! In writing this post I found the following thread on reddit, which explains some contrary views. The reddit thread is a reaction to this article by Cal Newport, in The New York Times.