The posts tagged with notes are stuffs that I learned over time from blogs, articles, trying out on my own. The posts will be updated whenever I learn something new on the topic. This post can be easily read anytime and anywhere. Also, they can be easily shared. Do comment/point out if something is wrong out there.

Inspired by Julia Evans http://jvns.ca/ to write these posts.

What is GTD?

GTD abbr for “Getting Things Done” – is a framework for organizing and tracking your tasks and projects. Its aim is to make you have 100% trust in a system for collecting tasks, ideas, and projects.

The lists you have to maintain:

  • In
  • Next actions
  • Waiting for
  • Projects
  • Some day/maybe

The in list

The in list is where you capture all your ideas whenever they occur to you. This can be anything and process is just emptying your brain and putting it into the in list.

Processing the in list

The items in the list should processed one by one in the order they appear on your list.

Ask is it actionable –> if No, then throw it away if you don’t need it anymore or move to “some day/maybe list” or incubate it –> add it to tickler file.

if Yes, Plan the next action that needs to be performed. Spend a little extra time planning how the things need to be executed (If the action takes less than two minutes to perform then just do it). If more than 2 minutes delegate to the Next Actions list or move to Waiting for list if it depends on something. Next Actions is probably the place where most of the things will land up. If the open loop will take more than one action to close, the overall goal should also be noted on a Projects list.

The Next Actions list

The next actions list contains the list of things that you plan to perform. This can also be said as as-soon-as-possible actions. Things which you will work on whenever free.

The Waiting-for list

The Waiting-for list contains the list of things that would be list of task you are waiting on somebodies action.

Projects

The Projects list contains the list of next actions. If anything that takes more that one next actions to complete can be combined into a project. Completing the tasks one by one takes one one step closer to completing the project.

It’s good to write down the goal of the project maybe as a description so that it helps in focusing on the goal.

Contexts

The contexts are basically tags to actions. It is a common practice to add @ when context is a location.

Agenda Contexts - Agenda context is setting an agenda for a certain type of work. For example for everday meeting you can add the agenda context to all the actions that needs to be discussed. Read

The someday/maybe list

Projects and Ideas which does not need immediate attention but surely needs attention when you have time goes into someday/maybe list. This list should be reviewed weekly along with the rest of the system during the weekly review.

Calendar

The calendar is for doing things on a certain time and date.Only keep time sensitive activities in list so that it does not get diluted.

Weekly Review

This is one of the critical factors for the success of the GTD Framework. The weekly review needs to be done once per week.

  • Review each of the next action. Each project should have atleast one next action. Only keep the items which you can do in the coming week else move it to someday/maybe list. If you don’t think you will ever do it—remove it completely.
  • Look through your someday/maybe list and see if some projects/actions should be moved to the list of current projects/the next actions list. If creating a new project on your projects list, make sure to figure out its next physical, visible action and put it on the next actions list as well.

Trigger List

Trigger List is a list of keywords which is useful to trigger thoughts/ideas floating around your head during brain dumps. Read

Tools - Read and Review

A read/review folder is a list of documents that you maintain to read. Whenever you have some minutes to kill you can refer to this list.

Tools - Tickler file

If you need sometime on a specific date and time. Maintain this the action item will only pop up on that specific date and time.

References