The GTD methodology is extremely popular around the world. Many sources present GTD as the only answer to many questions. In reality, GTD planning, at least in the original book that introduced the methodology to the masses, is just a system of personal time management.
This is why it is often referred to as time management. Although, the original methodology teaches more about following things through to their logical conclusion.
In this article, we’ll break down the ins and outs of GTD planning, how to properly formulate tasks, and how to see them through to completion.
Definitions
GTD (Getting the Things Done) is a personal time management system developed by D. Allen in 2001, which boils down to the fact that in order to increase efficiency, a person needs to clear their mind of all unnecessary things and start focusing on the most important steps and tasks.
Since everyone’s personal affairs and plans are inherently connected to work, the GTD methodology has proven to be extremely successful for effective business: for planning and completing work tasks.
GTD was first defined in 2001 in David Allen’s book of the same name. Before his 35th birthday, the author had tried more than 30 different jobs. He also worked as a personal growth coach.
The book had a huge circulation and was translated into more than 20 languages. Allen published two more books on the same subject in 2003 and 2007. And in 2015 he republished a revised version of GTD Basics.
Allen is now involved in coaching and has transferred the rights to his GTD methodology to the American company Crucial Learning.
What is the essence of the GTD methodology?
The main idea of the whole GTD methodology is to learn to focus on the most important, urgent and at the same time incomplete task.
According to the GTD author’s theory, the brain is best at generating ideas, not storing them in memory. Therefore, all ideas and tasks should be written down or otherwise transferred from the mind to physical or digital media.
For all incoming tasks and ideas, the GTD method suggests organising a special basket, a kind of analogue of a dustbin, from which tasks can be redistributed to more structured storage.
The ability to clear the brain of all this distracting routine means that a person can concentrate on more interesting tasks — thinking about a single, high-priority idea. At the same time, there is no need to expend energy remembering and storing other thoughts. All other ideas can be returned to later, simply by taking them out of the recycle bin and prioritising them again.
How to prioritise your work (+ Eisenhower Matrix)
It turns out that the mind stays clean and clear most of the time, with no other distractions.
The GTD methodology uses three models of control and vision to increase effectiveness:
- Workflow Management. The main model, consisting of the phases of collecting, processing and organising incoming information and cases, as well as their review and direct action. This model is needed to organise and begin to control all your workflows.
- Work review model. By the author’s intention, the model has strictly defined levels, six in all: current affairs, projects, responsibilities (cyclical and regular tasks), plans for the near future (1-2 years maximum), five-year perspective (long-term or strategic planning, more about strategic planning tools) and life (these can be general plans without clear dates and deadlines). The review should take place at least once a week. The main aim is to look at the big picture, to get an understanding of the resources and tasks available.
- Natural planning model. Only used when the first two models have failed to achieve their objectives. In fact, it is an infusion of general management theory to take control of complex tasks and projects. It involves defining principles, formulating objectives (desired results), brainstorming or some other method of finding optimal solutions, organising the process and, at the end of the last, thinking about defining the next specific action.
Why you need GTD
The GTD methodology is needed to organise personal and work matters, set priorities and understand the overall situation and workload.
GTD systematises and shows how to move from plans to concrete actions.
The main problem, not only for managers, but also for many ordinary people, is that they become disoriented by the accumulation of tasks from all sides, fail to organise their importance and simply lose control.
GTD allows you to soberly assess your strengths, systematise the pool of incoming tasks, select the most important ones and start acting.
How to lead GTD
Yes, the brain can work on several tasks at the same time. But the more distractions there are, the greater the risk of errors in each task. To free the active part of the mind from unnecessary tasks and thoughts, they need to be offloaded into an external system, materialised. To-do lists are best suited to the status of external data systems. This is probably the reason why almost all PC and mobile applications that can create and store to-do lists try to add the term GTD to their name.
However, creating lists is not the only thing needed to maintain a GTD system.
What GTD work looks like in the core model (in workflow management):
- At the collection stage, all the information that bothers you is transferred to a physical or electronic medium — the recycle bin — for later sorting. The recycle bin can be, for example, a physical tray for incoming documents, a box or folder for e-mails, a notebook, special software for planning, and so on. The main principle of working with the recycle bin is that its contents must be handled, not just forgotten or thrown away. The minimum frequency is at least once a week. But there are no special requirements for the frequency of recycling. You can even do it every day.
- The basket is processed according to a strict algorithm. Only one item at a time is processed. If an item requires certain actions, the following situations are possible:
- The task is solved in a single action, it can only be done by you, and it only takes a few minutes to complete — just take it and do it. That’s it, you can cross these tasks off your list and forget about them.
- If the task does not need to be done by you alone, delegate it.
- If a task requires a specific date — put it on the calendar (put it in the activity/task plan).
- If it requires complex actions — move it to projects.
3. Organisation (control and action, all the key points we gave above). If no specific action is required, the item is entered into the help system database, or simply discarded (removed from the list), or moved to future plans (with no specific dates or deadlines, it’s like a ‘someday’ or ‘for later’ folder). Bottom line, you should have:
- Inbox list,
- Someday list,
- To-do list (next steps)
- Calendar (events with dates)
- Feedback (pending) waiting list
- and a project folder (with tasks that need to be broken down into component steps).
Note that you should only put tasks on your calendar that need to be done on a specific date. Everything else should be organised in lists.
4. Review. The purpose of this step is to go back to the list of incoming and current tasks to highlight the highest priority item and get on with it immediately. GTD theory says that if you have a habit of putting off difficult tasks and doing only the easy ones, you should treat your to-do list as an incoming list to resolve this contradiction — that is, treat all items sequentially, without skipping any. At the same stage, the review stage, you can update the incoming lists to ensure that all tasks are entered into the system.
5. When you have finished working on the lists, you should move straight on to the implementation process — the concrete actions to complete the current tasks. If the tasks are properly organised into lists and the steps are highlighted so that you can take each one to completion, then completing the task will be mentally satisfying and relieving.
How the GTD basic recommendation is formulated
There are no hard and fast work rules and GTD norms. They are just guidelines that, if followed correctly, can increase your productivity.
The principles and approaches are as simple as possible:
- Capture all incoming tasks and information. Getting data out of your head and into physical or digital form frees your brain from constant background processing. As a result, you’ll find it easier to focus on one thing at a time.
- Break down ideas and tasks into concrete and understandable steps that can be done at once.
- Get your priorities right. The most important things are those that cannot be missed. To avoid wasting resources on remembering tasks, it makes sense to use special software that can send notifications and reminders in a format that suits you, e.g. chat messages, emails, push notifications on your mobile phone, alarms, etc.
- Check the lists regularly. But the GTD planning itself should take a minimum of time. You can’t get caught up in planning for planning’s sake. The key is action. And to avoid doing unnecessary things, only the actual tasks and to-do’s should remain on your lists.
- Just do it. Yes, sometimes it’s very hard to get started. If a task seems daunting, break it down into steps. The steps should be such that you can easily complete each one.
