Getting Things Done

The art of stress-free productivity

Total time spent: 22 hours and 19 minutes.

Verdict

Getting Things Done by David Allen is no doubt the “Bible” of productivity — GTD has almost become a synonym of it. The key ideas in GTD are definitely relevant today, however, some of the practices in this book are not. This book:

• Focuses too much on organizing physical documents, file cabinets, post-its, etc. In 2023 storing these materials electronically and syncing them through cloud makes much more sense
• Aims for the business people. For example, for college students, in most of cases, there is no one to delegate your stuff to. There aren’t many meetings and emails, either.

Besides the content, David Allen also made this book enjoyable through his profound writing skills.

In conclusion:

• If you are briefly surveying tricks and techniques to boost your productivity, there’s definitely NO need to read this book thoroughly.
• However, if you are a big fan of productivity, (or, you’re an addict to productivity pornography,) this book is ABSOLUTELY WORTH READING! When everybody’s talking about GTD, being the one who has really read GTD feels kinda nice, isn’t it?

General Ideas

The real problem

The real problem is a lack of clarity and definition about what a project really is, and what associated next-action steps are required.

When we think of a project, we are not actually thinking about it, this leads to mental burden.

Two basic components of GTD

Getting things done requires two basic components: defining (1) what “done” means (outcome) and (2) what “doing” looks like (action).

The major change is to getting things all out of your head, to properly manage our internal commitments! “Your negative feelings are simply the result of breaking those agreements — they’re the symptoms of disintegrated self-trust”.

Power of Forgiveness

It is the act of forgiveness that opens up the only possible way to think creatively about the future at all. — Father Desmond Wilson

To prevent broken agreements with yourself:

• Don’t make the agreement.
• Complete the agreement.
• Renegotiate the agreement.

Five steps of mastering workflow

1. Capture what has our attention;
2. Clarify what each item means and what to do about it;
3. Organize the results, which presents the options we
4. Reflect on, which we then choose to
5. Engage with.

GTD Workflow Processing and Organizing Diagram

What is our mind for? Our mind is for having ideas, not holding

them!

This idea is backed by scientific research, see Building a Second Brain for more elaborations.

Capture

We need to gather 100 percent of the “incompleteness” by capturing.

Energy-Consuming Incomplete Tasks

A task left undone remains undone in two places — at the actual location of the task, and inside your head. Incomplete tasks in your head consume the energy of your attention as they gnaw at your conscience. — Brahma Kumaris

Three requirements to make the capturing phase work:

• Every open loop must be in your capture system and out of your head.
• You must have as few capturing buckets as you can get by with.
• You must empty them regularly.

Emptying the contents does not mean that you have to finish what’s there, it just means that you have to decide more specifically what it is and what should be done with it, and if it’s still unfinished, organize it into your system.

Key idea: we need an ==in-tray== for everything. The initialization of such in-tray is called a mind sweep — in which you “write out each though, each idea, each project or thing that has your attention, on a separate sheet of paper”.

Know everything you're not doing

You can only feel good about what you’re not doing when you know everything you’re not doing.

Clarify

• No action required
  • Trash.
  • No action needed for now, something might need to be done in the future — Incubate.
  • Potentially useful information — reference.
• Actionable
  • Do it — if it’s less than 2 minutes. (Two-minute rule)
  • Delegate it.
  • Defer it.

The Power of Next Action

Always ask yourself (and others if you work together): What’s the next action?

Organize

Definition of Organize

Being organized means simply that where something is matches what it means to you.

• Projects list.
• Next-action list(s) and categories.
• Someday/Maybe list.
• Calendar
  • Time-Specific Actions
  • Day-Specific Actions
  • No other items allowed! “You need to trust your calendar as sacred territory, reflecting the exact hard edges of your day’s commitments.”
• Other non-actionable material goes into reference. See Building A Second Brain for more info.
• Organize by context, e.g. at home, at computer, etc.

Power of NOT to do

What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do. — Aristotle

Reflect

Empty your mind

You have to use your mind to get things out of your mind.

You must be assured that you’re doing what you need to be doing, and that it’s OK to be not doin what you’re not doing.

The Weekly Review: a critical success factor to the GTD system. We need to keep the lists relevant and keep the contents off of our mind.

Engage

Be comfortable with what you're NOT doing.

Every decision to act is an intuitive one. The challenge is to migrate from hoping it’s the right choice to trusting it’s the right choice.

The key is feel as good about what you’re not doing as about what you are doing at that moment.

Work means "anything that you want or need to be different than it currently is", not just the opposite of life.

• The Four-Criteria Model for choosing actions in the moment
  • Context
  • Time available
  • Energy available
  • Priority

Always keep an inventory of things that need to be done that require very little mental or creative horsepower. Have some easy loops to close, right at hand.

• The Threefold Model for identifying daily work

  • Doing predefined work
  • Doing work as it shows up
  • Defining your work

• The Six-Level Model for reviewing your own work

  • Horizon 5: Purpose and principles
  • Horizon 4: Vision
  • Horizon 3: Goals
  • Horizon 2: Areas of focus and accountabilities
  • Horizon 1: Current projects
  • Ground: Current actions

Horizontal and Vertical Action Management

• Horizontal control maintains coherence across all the activities in which you are involved.
• Vertical control manages thinking, development, and coordination of individual topics and projects.

Trust Yourself

Trust your heart. Or your spirit. Or your gut, the seat of your pants, your liver, your intuition.

Trusting yourself and the source of your intelligence is the most elegant version of experiencing freedom and manifesting personal productivity.

Project Planning

The Natural Planning Model

1. Defining purpose and principles
2. Outcome visioning
3. Brainstorming
4. Organizing
5. Identifying next actions

• The value of thinking about why
  • It defines success.
  • It creates decision-making criteria.
  • It aligns resources.
  • It motivates.
  • It clarifies focus.
  • It expands options.

Worrying?

Let our advance worrying become our advance thinking and planning. — Winston Churchill

Quotes

Quote

It’s not what we have in our life, but who we have in our life, that counts. — J. M. Laurence

Quote

Nothing is really new in this high-tech, globally wired world, except how frequently it is.

Everything that causes you to overreact or under react can control

you, and often does.

Quote

Thing like a man of action, act like a man of thought. — Henri Bergson