Book: Getting Things Done

I first learned about David Allen’s Getting Things Done a couple years ago when I participated in a leadership development program for healthcare managers at UnityPoint Health.  Since then, I have incorporated many of the strategies, and they have helped me become much more productive and have very low levels of stress and anxiety.

In this post, I provide a broad overview of the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, and I describe how I have implemented these strategies in my life.  If you want to learn more, feel free to contact me for more information as well.

Put Everything into an “IN Box” First

One of the first steps of the GTD methodology is to put everything you need to do into an “in box.”  Allen recommends using a traditional wire basket for things like bills and catalogs, and he also recommends writing all ideas on paper and adding that paper to the “in box” as well.  Much of my work is digital – I don’t have many paper documents – so I haven’t found much use for a physical basket.  Instead, I add ideas to a simple note app on my phone, or I make a list of action items on a notepad and then I add them to my digital “to do” list.

People who don’t write down action items carry these obligations in their head – Allen calls them “open loops” – and they cause a lot of stress because the mind is constantly reminding people to do these projects.  By writing down your obligations, you take the stress of remembering it off your brain.

For the system to work, Allen recommends that you write down absolutely everything you need to do.  Everything means absolutely every single thing you are keeping in your head – from the most mundane errand to the most complicated project at work, even the most hair-brained personal idea for a vacation or weekend activity you have thought of.  Absolutely everything.  For many people, this list of actions is over 1,000 items!

I can’t personally say that I have actually done this all at once, but I have always had a habit of writing down obligations into a calendar or student planner or some kind of to do list, and I have always used notebooks to organize ideas and plans for my work projects and my creative and professional writing, so I have never really let too many things pile up in my mind.

Email is a Type of “IN Box”

Many people no longer receive paper bills or bank statements; instead, they receive emails with links to pay bills or download statements.  Similarly, at work, instead of receiving a stack of papers to review or sign, they receive emails with attachments, and they are expected to respond to those emails.  They also receive email announcements, meeting requests, agendas, reports, newsletters, product information from a sales consultant, and much more.  In the GTD system, the email inbox acts like a traditional wire “in box” that collects action items and will need to be processed.

Next, Get Each Item “Processed”

After receiving countless emails and writing down all of your obligations, plans, ideas (every single thing you have thought of doing) and putting it into your “in box,” you now have to “process it” out of the “in box” by deciding what to do with it.  Allen says there are only a few possibilities for each item (including emails, voicemails, paper documents, and ideas on paper):

• Trash it.  A lot of mail, emails, newsletters, receipts, and other random documents and objects you collect have no value, so just trash it and clear your physical space, your email inbox, and your mind.  Personally, I subscribe to many newsletters, and I like receiving alerts for credit card payments and other things in my email and text messages, and I quickly delete them once I review the information.
• File it into long-term storage.  Many documents and objects you collect on a regular basis, such as tax documents, student report cards, awards, vacation souvenirs, birthday gifts, and so on are items you would like to keep, but they require no action besides putting it where it belongs, either in a file cabinet (for documents), or on a desktop or kitchen counter or hanging on a wall or in a box for storage (in the basement, garage, or elsewhere).  For example, when I receive paper awards, I put them in a binder in my closet, and my action is done because that is the final resting place.  Otherwise, like most people, I keep materials such as notebooks from school and old financial documents in file cabinets, closets, and boxes.
  For emails, it is a little more complicated, but the idea is the same.  Create a storage place for digital files (which could include company reports, signed agreements, sales and expense reports, student enrollment numbers, department assessment reports, etc.).  How you save these can be up to you.  I would personally recommend that you do not save them in an email folder.  Instead, save the document in a storage folder on the network drive, on the cloud, on the computer, or on a flash drive.  Many people save this kind of information in an email folder, but I would recommend using email folders only for active projects and saving final documents in some kind of final storage area outside of the email.  Like most people, I create a different folder for each project, and I store different digital documents in different places, including flash drives, CDs, external hard drives, and cloud storage accounts such as One Drive, Google Drive, and others.  I also make more than one copy of very important documents (such as pictures of my family), and I save them in more than one place (flash drives, online picture storage, external hard drive).
• Do it Immediately.  If the action item will take only a couple of minutes, do it immediately.  Allen calls this the “two minute rule,” but it’s okay if it takes up to 10 minutes.  These actions include making a phone call, paying a bill, writing an email, putting financial information in a filing cabinet, etc.  If you get an email, you can answer it quickly, and you have the available time, respond it to immediately – don’t let it sit in your email inbox.  If you do, the simple question that could have been resolved by a five-minute email may later need a 30-minute in-person meeting to resolve.
• Delegate it to someone else.  If you are not the best person do that action, assign it to someone else, either to an employee who reports to you, another employee who has the expertise for that work, or someone in your family who has the responsibility to do that (such as your techno-savvy kids, the person who does the yard work, or the person who pays the bills).  You can either put the item in their “in box,” send an email immediately, or add the task to your “to do list” for the next time you see that person.  For example, for simple and urgent technology questions that come by email, I forward them to the appropriate technology support staff member on my team.  But, for larger projects, I keep a list for each staff person that reports to me, and I add a note about the project to his or her list.
• Schedule it for later.  The vast majority of items in your “in box” (whether emails or written project ideas) are yours to do, and they will take you more than two minutes to complete.  Many of these items are also complex multi-step projects that have a sequence of activities and require thinking, planning, collaborating with others, researching, writing, etc.  These projects will consume most of your time, and I write about them in the next section.

On-Going Projects Scheduled for Later

After you have thrown out or deleted trash items, completed tasks you could complete immediately, or delegated a task to someone else, you are left with a ton of items that are yours to do.  Before you can do any of it, you’ll have to organize it a little more.  This involves using project folders, to do lists, and a calendar.  Here is what Allen recommends:

Create a folder for each incomplete project.  Create a folder for every project you can’t complete immediately – you’ll have tons of these folders – and put all information related to that project into the folder.  Then, put all of the folders in a file cabinet for on-going projects.  For emails, create a storage folder within the inbox, and drag each email into the appropriate folder.  Here is how I organize my folders.

• At work, I create a paper folder for each committee or project team I serve on, I add all agendas and paper documents and notes I took in that folder, and I keep all folders in a file cabinet.  I also make digital folders on my computer for the same committees and team projects, and I store digital documents, reports, and other information I don’t print into those folders.  If I get information via email, but I don’t need to respond, I often digitally print the email as a PDF document, and I store it in the folder.  If the committee is working on several projects, I create a separate folder for each project.  When I go to a meeting, I take my paper folder for the committee, any paper project folders for that committee, a notepad, and a laptop or tablet so I can access my digital documents.
• For non-committee work projects, I mostly work digitally, and I create digital storage folders both on the cloud and in my email inbox.  For the digital folder on the cloud, I use whatever allows me to work from both work and home; these include One Drive, Google Drive, Drop Box, SharePoint, or whatever my company provides access to.  I typically use these cloud services for active projects, and I move folders for any completed projects to a network drive or computer hard drive.  In the email, I create a project folder under the inbox, and I drag all emails related to that project into the folder.  If the email needs a response, I answer it immediately or I delegate it; if the response is a request for information that will take me a while to do, I move the email to the folder, and I add “respond to X’s email” on my to do list.  If the email is not related to any project, I move the email to a “This Week” or “Working On It” folder, and I add a note to my to do list.  If the email only provides information, and I don’t have to do anything, I usually digitally print it to PDF and save it on the project folder on my computers – as I describe above.
• For personal work, such as scholarship or creative writing, I create digital folders on a flash drive and on a cloud platform, such as One Drive, Drop Box, or Google Drive.  I keep some projects online on the cloud, but, for others, I don’t want my materials to be online, so I keep them in a flash drive.  For home projects, honestly, there isn’t much to do, so I often keep it in my head (shame on me), make a verbal list with my wife or my kids, or write a simple to do list.

Identify the next concrete action step for each project.  You can’t complete the whole project at once; instead, you can only complete one action at a time.  To make progress, identify the smallest action step you need to take next for each active project, and add that action to a “to do list” – see next section.  For example, if the project is “remodel kitchen,” you’ll have to identify a specific action you can take.  “Replace kitchen counter” could be one of the steps, but if you don’t have the new counter or the equipment, you’ll need to “measure the kitchen counter,” “search for places to buy counter top,” “go look at counter tops and select one within my budget,” “determine how much I can spend on the kitchen counter,” and so on.

Allen recommends that you review every incomplete project at least once a week to identify an action step.  I usually use a priority schedule rather than reviewing everything.  At work, I usually work very actively on a few projects for a while, then I transition to other projects when I need to wait for information, talk to someone, or present my work.  Depending on the deadline or the next meeting, several projects can stay in “in-progress” mode for two or three weeks.  For personal projects, the priority is lower, so I work on those whenever I can, such as on weekends or during school breaks.  Since my personal projects are mostly for enjoyment, I do whichever project I’m in the mood to work on.

Add action steps to your “to do lists.”  Once you have identified a specific “next action” for every project, add all of those actions to your “to do list.”  If you have a lot of actions, Allen recommends keeping separate lists for the separate kind of work you need to do.  For example, you may want to keep a list of phone calls you need to make, a list for emails you need to send or respond to, a list of errands, a list of items you need to research, etc.  Much of my day-to-day work is emailing, meeting with someone, writing a document, reading and analyzing data reports, doing creative writing, or doing something else while online (such as developing content for online courses).

I put urgent items go directly on my “to do” app on my phone.  Otherwise, I put action steps on project management software such as Trello, and I review projects one at a time.  Typically, I prefer to work on one project at a time and complete several actions on that project at once, rather than bouncing from one project to the next, especially if each task requires a lot of reading, analysis, or other planning.  I do, however, try to keep lists for each person I work with (my staff and also my supervisor) and for each project, as well as lists for errands, shopping, weekend activities, or for special occasions such as traveling.  I’ll try to start adding more action items by activity type (calls, emails, writing) rather than categorizing actions by project.

Schedule future actions in your calendar.  If you can’t complete one of your actions steps until a later date in the future, put it on your calendar, and complete it when the time comes.  This may be because you need to talk with someone (who is not available now), drive somewhere to get information (such as library or bank), or wait for information from someone (you’ll schedule that person’s due date).  However, Allen recommends scheduling only activities that must be done on that day – don’t schedule anything you “would like to do” on that day.  For those kind of actions, keep them on your general “to do list.”  Otherwise, your scheduled obligations become only suggestions and your calendar stops being effective.

Add projects and action steps to a “Someday or Maybe” list.  You may not be ready to commit to everything that lands in your “in box” (whether it’s a suggestion via email or a creative idea you had), but you are also not ready to delete this idea.  Instead, you want to let this idea sit for a while so you can get to it when your work frees up, you make a lifestyle change, or you get more information, etc.  These may be ideas like “Take dance lessons” or “Learn Italian” or “Remodel the kitchen.”  Instead of letting these ideas pile up in your mind, Allen recommends putting them on a “Someday or Maybe” list and reviewing them once a month or once a year.  I personally have several of these projects that I am not actively working on, and I keep them on separate flash drives or separate cloud storage accounts.  I also keep a list of possible action items for them on a separate section in Trello.  Many of these projects are more on the creative, personal development, and exploratory side … things like writing novels, taking online courses, reading books that are directly related to active projects, taking vacations, etc. – things I enjoy thinking about doing but I am not ready to commit time and energy to do at this time.

 

Overall, the Getting Things Done methodology has helped me become more organized and productive and less stressed out and anxious.  I had picked up many of these habits on my own, such designating separate folders for each class and each work project, but GTD helped me integrate computer folders, emails, flash drives, file storage cabinets, project management tools, and to do lists into a combined system that works together.  I’m not perfect with everything.  Sometimes my email gets out of control, too many folders get stacked on top of my desk after meetings, and I forget to create “next steps” for projects with low priorities.  But I try to be very conscious of where I put things, what I am working on, and what else I need to be doing.  It’s a process that requires constant monitoring and action.

But it does help.  As I said, I am very productive, I am able to focus on what I’m doing without feeling like I am missing something or that I should be doing something else, and I am able to relax when I choose to spend time with family and friends.  It will all be there when I get back to it again, so I don’t have to keep thinking about it.

Feedback:  Do you use any of these strategies?  How do they work for you?  Do you wish you had help organizing your projects and to do lists?  Add a comment below or send me a personal message.  I’m available to help you get organized and become more productive…

Lirim Neziroski, Ph.D., MBA is an academic administrator and faculty member with expertise in curriculum development, assessment, academic technology, and strategic planning.  Contact Lirim for resources and for speaking, consulting, and writing opportunities.