![]() Three weeks after implementing a simplified version of the workflow management system in David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, I’m finding it works extremely well: I’m better organized, waste less time, have less stress, and don’t miss any deadlines. I’ve streamlined my one-and-only GTD List even further by doing the following:
So my GTD List, which now sits permanently on my computer ‘desktop’, looks like this:
Each evening I re-sort the table by column 3, so all the tasks that I’ve scheduled for the next day rise to the top of the table, with appointments scheduled for a specific time standing out in column 3. As additional ‘stuff’ comes into various ‘inboxes’ during the day I use the GTD chart above to process it, dispensing immediately with the unactionable items (putting them in reference folders or tossing them as appropriate) and the items that can be done in 5 minutes or less (I use 5 minutes instead of 2 as the cutoff point for ‘Just Do It’ activities). The remaining items are identified as multi-step Projects (P), ‘Waiting For’ items (W), Next Actions (N), or Appointments for the Calendar (A), and are added in at the bottom of the table, and scheduled and described as shown in the examples on the sample table above. I use the Context, Hours required, Energy required, and Priority to decide when to schedule each item, as Allen suggests. I’m getting much better at budgeting time for each item, after initially under-budgeting by 30% and getting frustrated because I wasn’t getting through the tasks I’d set for the day. I still schedule 8 hours of work each day, and even with an extra 2-3 hours’ unscheduled work coming in each day I’m finding that I’m getting just about everything done on schedule. I still keep my three paper lists (ideas to blog, books to buy, other shopping), which are updated daily, but otherwise I have no paper at all in my office except bills to pay and books to read. I appreciate that this is a rare luxury — most people have a lot more paper to handle, whether they like it or not. In my case, considerable credit for the success of this process also goes to the ‘7 steps for handling anything effectively‘ that Cyndy and I co-developed: Sense, Self-control, Understand, Question, Imagine, Offer, Collaborate. I now use it as I begin each Action in the day’s schedule, and during the ‘What Is It’ assessment in the GTD process. Your frame of mind in approaching your work is every bit as important as the discipline of your workflow management process, in getting things done effectively as well as quickly. The only obstacle I have encountered so far has been my tendency to procrastinate. Using GTD has made me so much more productive that I am sometimes tempted to reward myself by deferring tasks I really don’t want to do, or which are high-energy (intellectual concentration or creativity) tasks. This is a dangerous habit, since they tend to pile up and come back to haunt you. Instead, I’m learning to use some classical wisdom on how to deal with jobs you hate, or which make you tired just thinking about them: Break the job down into many sequential steps (Next Actions), each short and manageable in a sprint (in my case, an hour or less), and then pace yourself, doing just one or two of them a day, and rewarding yourself as each step is completed. Example: One of the jobs I had scheduled for yesterday I had already put off three times. When I broke it down into steps, I realized that the cause of my reticence to tackle it was that it required me to write a letter that would take considerable energy to compose, and would need to be customized to each of a dozen recipients, and that I would need to dig through my huge Address Book to find the appropriate recipients. My Address Book is a shambles. So I broke the project down as follows:
So one job that, when looked at as a single task, appeared intellectually imposing, tedious and repetitious, became much easier to handle when it was broken into three tasks, with a break and reward after each. So now my Address Book is all cleaned up, and I know exactly who my letters tomorrow will go to. I’m off to reward myself with some fresh-baked shortbread cookies. |
Navigation
Other Writers About Collapse
Albert Bates (US)
Andrew Nikiforuk (CA)
Brutus (US)
Carolyn Baker (US)*
Catherine Ingram (US)
Chris Hedges (US)
Dahr Jamail (US)
David Petraitis (US)
David Wallace-Wells (US)
Dean Spillane-Walker (US)*
Derrick Jensen (US)
Doing It Ourselves (AU)
Dougald & Paul (UK)*
Gail Tverberg (US)
Guy McPherson (US)
Jan Wyllie (UK)
Janaia & Robin (US)*
Jem Bendell (US)
Jonathan Franzen (US)
Kari McGregor (AU)
Keith Farnish (UK)
Mari Werner
Michael Dowd
NTHE Love (UK)
Paul Chefurka (CA)
Paul Heft (US)*
Post Carbon Inst. (US)
Resilience (US)
Richard Heinberg (US)
Robert Jensen (US)
Roy Scranton (US)
Sam Mitchell (US)
Sam Rose (US)*
TD0S (US)
Tim Bennett (US)
Tim Garrett (US)
Umair Haque (US)
William Rees (CA)
XrayMike (AU)
Radical Non-Duality
Eating Well
Archive by Category
My Bio, Contact Info, Signature Posts
About the Author (2016)
My Circles
E-mail me
--- My Best 100 Posts --
Preparing for Civilization's End:
What Would Net-Zero Emissions Look Like?
Why Economic Collapse Will Precede Climate Collapse
Being Adaptable: A Reminder List
A Culture of Fear
What Will It Take?
A Future Without Us
Dean Walker Interview (video)
The Mushroom at the End of the World
What Would It Take To Live Sustainably?
The New Political Map (Poster)
Beyond Belief
Complexity and Collapse
Save the World Reading List
Civilization Disease
What a Desolated Earth Looks Like
Giving Up on Environmentalism
Going Vegan
The Dark & Gathering Sameness of the World
The End of Philosophy
The Boiling Frog
Our Culture:
What to Believe Now?
Rogue Primate
Conversation & Silence
The Language of Our Eyes
True Story
Cultural Acedia: When We Can No Longer Care
Useless Advice
Several Short Sentences About Learning
Why I Don't Want to Hear Your Story
A Harvest of Myths
The Qualities of a Great Story
The Trouble With Stories
A Model of Identity & Community
Not Ready to Do What's Needed
A Culture of Dependence
So What's Next
Ten Things to Do When You're Feeling Hopeless
No Use to the World Broken
Living in Another World
Does Language Restrict What We Can Think?
The Value of Conversation Manifesto Nobody Knows Anything
If I Only Had 37 Days
The Only Life We Know
A Long Way Down
No Noble Savages
Figments of Reality
Too Far Ahead
The Rogue Animal
How the World Really Works:
If You Wanted to Sabotage the Elections
Collective Intelligence & Complexity
Ten Things I Wish I'd Learned Earlier
The Problem With Systems
Against Hope (Video)
The Admission of Necessary Ignorance
Several Short Sentences About Jellyfish
A Synopsis of 'Finding the Sweet Spot'
Learning from Indigenous Cultures
The Gift Economy
The Job of the Media
The Wal-Mart Dilemma
The Illusion of the Separate Self:
Happy Now?
This Creature
Did Early Humans Have Selves?
Nothing On Offer Here
Even Simpler and More Hopeless Than That
Glimpses
Fragments
What Happens in Vagus
We Have No Choice
Never Comfortable in the Skin of Self
Letting Go of the Story of Me
All There Is, Is This
A Theory of No Mind
Creative Works:
The Ever-Stranger (Poem)
The Fortune Teller (Short Story)
Non-Duality Dude (Play)
Your Self: An Owner's Manual (Satire)
All the Things I Thought I Knew (Short Story)
On the Shoulders of Giants (Short Story)
Calling the Cage Freedom (Short Story)
Rune (Poem)
Only This (Poem)
The Other Extinction (Short Story)
Invisible (Poem)
Disruption (Short Story)
A Thought-Less Experiment (Poem)
Speaking Grosbeak (Short Story)
The Only Way There (Short Story)
The Wild Man (Short Story)
Flywheel (Short Story)
The Opposite of Presence (Satire)
How to Make Love Last (Poem)
The Horses' Bodies (Poem)
Distracted (Short Story)
Worse, Still (Poem)
Conjurer (Satire)
A Conversation (Short Story)
Farewell to Albion (Poem)
My Other Sites
Thanks for writing about GTD. Others have not been able to put such detailed examples in front of me.I’m intrigued by your noticing the accuracy of time estimation and will have to notice that myself (besides just knowing that I’m going to run 4 minutes over on a good day and 12 on a rushed day).Your example of a job that needed to be broken into steps was very close to the sort of job that I frequently face, so that was a precise fit for me.Thanks.
I read somewhere a long time ago that the average manager picks up an item from his/her desk an average 5 times before doing somethign with it…..if anythiung gets done even then. No wonder taxes are high and cars cost as much as houses.
Dave, You’re familiar with Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders site, yes? He’s been blogging specifically about GTD and, in particular, Mac-related software and tools to support implementation of it. Has a great 43 Folders Google Group going as well, to whom I just pointed your post.Thanks for showing how you’ve implemented GTD. Am sure others on the 43F list will enjoy it as well.Keep up the great writing — your weblog is one of my favorites.
Hello. I’m a student, and this entry matches exactly my needs — getting more efficient in the area of time management, reducing stress, tackling work that looks imposing and scary and hude. Thanks for the advice !
Dave,I just looked at this post today for the first time. After 2 years, how has this become a habit for you? Are you still doing it?
3ZLIAB Blogs rating, add your blog to be rated for free:http://blogsrate.net