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Getting Things Done

Last updated Dec 30, 2022 Edit Source

Getting Things Done, or GTD for short, is a system created by David Allen. The main objective is to manage your task to make sure you work on the right things.

# Inbox (Capturing):

Put everything new in one place, that will be your inbox.

Don’t try to remember everything, but write everything down. The additional benefit of writing everything down, is that things or tasks won’t occupy my mind, but I’m confident that I can remember things by looking in my notes. Before heavily taking notes, I always get the feeling “I feel like I’m forgetting something…”

Anothey key point in the Inbox method is that not every new task will need your immediate attention. Just focus on putting it in the inbox. These includes:

# Prioritization (Processing):

Go through your inbox, and put every task on their place.

If you do the first step correctly, you can be confident that you won’t miss a thing. Now you need to sort it all out, because every task is not equal. Some is simple, some is complex, some actionable, some dont, etc. iirc, GTD ask you to sort every task using to criteria, importance and urgency. Every combination will have different treatment (sorted by priority):

# Next action (Doing):

Pick the most important task as your next item. Don’t do other task before the next item is done.

Ideally, at any point in time, you only have exactly one item in your to do list, as this is the definition of Priority.

pri·or·i·ty /prīˈôrədē/: the fact or condition of being regarded or treated as more important.

We don’t live in an ideal world, so we usually have 3-5 things on our to do list. Usually because not everything we can finish alone, e.g. need approval from other, need information from others, etc. But rest assured, if you do the previous steps correctly, you should always working on the most important thing to get things done.